Local social media experts seem to like the chances of Google Inc.’s Google Plus social media website.

The site isn’t Google’s first effort in the social media sphere, and it will be a challenge to overcome the grip that Facebook Inc. has, but Google Plus seems to have some staying power.

A large part of that has to do with the credibility that Google’s brand name gives to the site, and how ingrained Google is in the Internet as a whole.

Google Plus recently launched business pages, and as Google changes the rules on search engine optimization, having a presence on the social media site can help a businesses’ strategy for showing up at the top of a search. It can also compete for time spent marketing on other social media platforms, however, in a medium that has drastically fewer users than Facebook for the time being.

The Business Record caught up with three social media experts to ask them “Should businesses be utilizing Google Plus as part of their marketing strategy?”

Joe Soto
founder and CEO
One Social Media LLC

“I think it’s going to change how they get traffic. When it rolled out its version of the “tweet” or “share” button, known as the “+1” button, that +1 button appears on Google’s search results. And people can also put it on their websites and blogs.

That, unlike the tweet or share button, is tied to a destination page address. You pick up a vote of confidence just like the share or tweet button, but I think it has more leverage and power when it’s coming from Google.

It will influence the search results much more heavily. If I got 1,000 shares on my blog post, from Facebook, or 1,000 re-tweets, that won’t have the same weight as 1,000 +1’s that show up on a Google search.

You’d be shocked to learn how many people don’t click a link that they’re sharing on Facebook. They see something they think is interesting to post, but they don’t actually click through and read the article or go through and watch the video.

You assign a certain amount of credibility to Google because of who they are, how big they are and how much they rule your life. It’s a different level of credibility. That’s what Google has going for it, so I think it will increase clickthroughs for businesses.”

Cyndi Fisher
digital marketing services director
Strategic America Inc.

“Quite frankly, it’s just a no-brainer.

There’s absolutely no question. Google Plus obviously has integrated with Google search. That’s where everybody goes to look at everything, and you cannot afford not to be in that space.

Having said that, we know when we think back years ago when Facebook just started, everybody wanted to know “Should we be there? Why do I want to be there?” Now you have 800 million people on Facebook and growing every day. It’s the size of major countries.

What we couldn’t fathom back then, right now we can’t fathom for Google Plus. Quite frankly, it could overtake Facebook. It could wipe out Facebook. We just don’t know what the future holds.

I think there’s going to be a lot of growth, and people are very adroit with Google. There’s a great likelihood of a propensity to go to it. We’re comfortable with it. It’s there. We trust it.

I think the propensity for growth is going to be quite enormous as we go ahead. And it’s just a no-brainer.”

Josh Fleming
interactive marketing director
Lessing-Flynn Advertising Co.

“As far as brands using it, I think brands ought to be paying attention and planning their company page, if you will, but I wouldn’t advise being all that active on it right now, unless you’re trying to reach early tech adopters, because that’s pretty much all who’s there at the moment.

I think having your own page there makes sense, updating it occasionally so it doesn’t look like a black hole makes sense, but I wouldn’t make it a top priority if I was a company.

I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it changed, as more people kind of moved over there and the Facebook lure kind of dissipates. There are people who are seeing some good results with that sort of thing, but again it’s really an early tech adopter model, so you’re not going to reach some of those hardcore consumers that you would want to in the B2C model.

Most things we do over here are B2B, and they’re certainly not on there yet, in droves anyway. I think it’s worth paying attention to, but nothing you should make a priority other than securing a page on there.

I think if you have to really outline where you’re going to put your efforts, I would be more focused on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and not put Google Plus above any of those.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it changed over the next few years, as a Facebook fallout is probably likely to happen at some point.”