One question we get a lot, do I need to join "fill in the blank" social network? For most social networks, our answer is wait and see and the market will decide whether or now you should throw up a business profile. However, two we recommend joining now are Pinterest due to traffic referrals and Google +.
Why Google +? Especially since there isn't really a whole lot going on in there. Out of all the social networks we market on, we receive the least amount of referrals from Google +, so why is it important?
Simply because of search. Google's algorithm for how they rank websites from 1 to infinity is still a big secret and will remain just as secret as Coke's secret formula. However, it's not too much of a stretch to hypothesize that Google is weighting its own social network "likes" or as they call them "+1s" a little bit more than favorites and RTs on Twitter and Likes on Facebook. While, we don't have any hard numbers, we have seen customers who make use of a Google + profile with posts, increase their keyword rankings. So when 75% of people don't get past the front page of Google's search results, getting an additional nudge to the front by creating a Google + profile can really help. We suggest, simply make it part of your social media postings you make every day by covering the following: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and finally Google +. You may not need to monitor the network, but you may also see more organic search results as well.