Google+ Marketing For Dummies

Introduction

As a prolific user of Google’s early attempts at socializing their services — such as Google Buzz or even Wave — I’ve been through the wringer when it comes to Google and social media. I’ve been burned, time and time again, so I entered Google+ with skepticism. Google was going to have to prove to me that this was the social network.

I was pleasantly surprised at first use of the service — Google had finally created a social application that had a future! The more I used it, the more I realized that this venture into social networking wasn’t going away. It had, and has, a real audience and real users, and I was seeing its growth — practically in real time — on my individual Google+ profile. It was an online social experience like no other.

The success of this new Google product spelled opportunity for me. Here I was, on a social network owned by a huge company like Google, one of the first users trying out the service. I’d used social networking before, but here was a fresh range of new opportunities:

I could grow my audience and meet new people in the process.

I could introduce the brands I work with to new people.

I could participate in an active online community ...