This past week, which most people were simply enjoying a long holiday weekend in the US, early adopters of social media have been enjoying Google's new social media play, meant to challenge Facebook – and to a lesser extent, Twitter, for dominance in social interaction.
And unlike Google Wave and Google Buzz before it, which largely failed out of the gate, Google+ seems to have more staying power. All of the people you expect are kicking its tires. Chris Brogan gives you 50 things to think about in Google+ and Robert Scoble explains why he thinks that the platform isn’t yet ready for yo’ mamma or yo’ Daddy (his words, not mine).
And already there are two leaderboards for Google+, Socialstatistics, and the more obviously named Circle Count. Currently, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, tops both of these lists. Oh, the irony.
But besides all of the chatter from social media insiders, and the scramble to get invited to what Google is calling a test, what does Google+ mean for public relations and marketing professionals?
In pursuit of that question, we pulled together a panel of five communications professionals to do a special For Immediate Release Plus edition on one of Google+’s most interesting features, the Huddle. The Huddle allows you to video conference with up to 10 people at once. The panelists on this video are Bryan Person (of LiveWorld), Lionel Menchaca (chief blogger for Dell, Direct2Dell), and Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz (FIR hosts), and myself, Kami Watson Huyse. It runs about 19 minutes and was edited a bit to tighten it up.
The video is a little jerky, so it also works well as a in-the-background podcast. We talk about Google+ for brands, and share the form that Google provided last night for brands that want to experiment.
