By Pete Winter

Google+ Finally Launches Business Pages

The day we’ve all been waiting for in anticipation is finally here (kind of). Earlier today, Google announced the launch of Google+ Pages, or business pages for Google+. While Pages have only been released to a select few businesses, Google+ indicates that organizations will be able to create their own pages at http://plus.google.com/pages/create. (Visit Tomorrow People’s Google+ Page and add it to your Circles here!)

Google+ Pages have a similar look and feel to Facebook Pages, allowing businesses to leverage the social network to connect with their audience, spread their messages, promote their content, and generate leads. Here’s a quick video overview from Google.

Google+ Page Features

While Google hasn’t revealed a ton of detail around the capabilities of its new Google+ Pages, they have mentioned the following features:

Fans can recommend your business page with a +1.
Fans can add your page to a circle, which enables them to subscribe to your page’s updates (similar to Liking a page on Facebook) in the long-term.
Fans can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face via Google+ Hangouts, or video chat/livestreaming capabilities.

2 Ways to Add Pages to Your Google + Circles

Furthermore, Google+ is rolling out two ways that users can add pages to their Circles from Google search. The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is via Google+’s new feature, Direct Connect.

Including Google+ Pages in Search Results: Google+ will now display ‘People and pages’ at the top of search results pages in Google+. These results will also include an easy option to add the Page to one of your Circles.
Direct Connect: Users can easily locate and add a Google+ Page to their circles with a Google.com search by simply searching for [+] followed by the page they’re interested in (e.g. +Angry Birds). (Note: Direct Connect only works for a limited number of pages today, but Google indicates that more are coming.)