Google product manager Christian Oestlien wrote a Google+ blog post on Thursday night indicating that the new social media platform has slightly accelerated the timeframe for business profiles and promises “to have an initial version of business profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months.”
Presently, a “tiny handful” of business profiles exist on Google+ “solely for the purpose of testing how businesses interact with consumers.” The Ford Motor Company is one such account that Google+ selected from tens of thousands of businesses applying to take part in the test.
Accelerating the process of getting business profiles up and running, writes Oestlien, is a direct result of the overwhelming response from businesses, as is Google’s request that companies refrain from trying to open new accounts before the platform is ready.
From the blog post:
“In the meantime, we ask you not to create a business profile using regular profiles on Google+. The platform at the moment is not built for the business use case, and we want to help you build long-term relationships with your customers. Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him- or herself.”
While many Web businesses are clearly eager to test the marketing value of the new social network, many are also unhappy with how Google has handled the testing process thus far – specifically in whom they’ve chosen to participate and whom they have passed over. Hence Oestlien’s need to emphasize EVERYONE in his post Thursday night.
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[tags]Google+, Business[/tags]