Google+, the latest Google social media network followed in the steps of Twitter and Facebook when it launched its Business Pages feature recently. Similar to a special Twitter profile or a Facebook Fan/Group/Personal page, Google+ Business Pages now allow you to promote businesses and brands—even organizations at Google+. Previously, what you could create on Google+ were only personal pages.

Why is Google+ Good for Your Business?

Two things:

(1) In a social media network, the first ones to settle in get the opportunity to reap greater rewards. The old wisdom of “getting there first” also holds true for Google+. The earlier you create your own Google+ brand page, the more chance of ranking up in terms of followers and search results. So, if you don’t want others to grab your brand business page before you do, create your official Google business page now.

(2) Google+ can also be good for your business by increasing the traffic to your site. The keyword here is “promote.” Indeed, there are studies showing traffic from Google+ to websites that have the +1 button is 3.5x greater than traffic from Google+ to sites that don’t have the +1 button.

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Some would balk at that and ask for something Google+ wasn’t designed for: Increasing the sales generated by increased Google+ traffic. They’d say if only traffic is increased but not the conversion, it’s just like a street just got busier but nobody’s buying from your store. However, it is not Google+’s job to increase your sales. It is your job—you and your website design, marketing, customer service, and product development people. Increased traffic, however, may—or may not—increase the number of customers for a website, depending on how well your site is designed, how good your content is, how excellent the customer service is and especially how good your product is.

Here’s a Google+ feature you can use:

+1st come, +1st served

Google+ has the +1 button, which is similar to Facebook’s ‘like’ and Twitter’s ‘tweet’ buttons. If you click a +1 button on a website, you’ll be endorsing the site. It is a call-to-action button that could bring in the friends of those who click on them because they’ll see what you +1ed over at Google+. I mentioned studies showing websites having +1 button generate 3.5x more traffic from Google+. That’s a 350% increase with just a +1 button.

The +1 also works like Facebook/Twitter’s customized Like/Tweet buttons where you can show how many times the article page has been liked or retweeted—which can be useful for marketing decisions, assuming people will really click on links that have higher tweet/like counts. There are exceptions of course—not everyone has the herd mentality or care about what people would say. There are people who don’t mind if a link is over- or under-posted as long as they like the content.

What makes “+1” better than Facebook’s ‘like’ or Twitter’s “tweet ” button for a business? Because, while Facebook is about people—friends and family, Google+ is good for talking about brands, products and ideas. Not that Facebook isn’t trying—it has Group and Fan pages—still about people rather than made at the onset for products; it even recently came out with a feature similar to Google+’s ‘Circles’ concept—sharing the right message with the right people.

In our next post, we’ll continue with other Google+ features useful for your business.