Use Google+ For Your Online Business Gamification Marketing

Google+, launched a little over a week ago, has made an impact on social media as it has already surpassed 10 million users. With this excitement and buzz, many are predicting that Google+ could dethrone Facebook.
While it may be early for those kinds of predictions, businesses have noticed the advantages of Google+, starting with its features.
The Circles feature allows you to organize friends into groups, whether they are friends, acquaintances, co-workers, or whatever. Within these circles, you can choose what content and information to share with each particular group.
For a marketing businesses, this can be utilized for identifying target markets and demographics. Advertisements and promotions will be targeted to Circles of users that would find them most relevant. With Circles, gamification marketing strategies can be more streamlined and efficient.
Another feature is Hangouts. These are video chat groups that allow up to 10 users at the same time. (Goodbye, Skype!)
This can help with video conference calls within your business or connecting directly with your customers.
One-on-one video chats can be used for a personalized approach with customers—ideal for resolving customer conflicts—while group video chats could be utilized for exclusive promotions to VIP customers or conducting exclusive workshops.
Another feature that is very beneficial to marketing is +Sparks. This feature allows users to suggest news stories, videos, photos, and more to specific users or Circles instead of posting it to everyone.
This, again, makes marketing opportunities more streamlined because of the ability to focus on a target group.
Other advantages include features previously utilized on Google. Search, of course, will be huge. It is speculated that Google will not renew its contract with Twitter and integrate its own Google+ live feed into Search. This would give businesses more incentive to join Google+ and live stream for a chance to appear in real-time on a user’s search query. Facebook has no penetration into the search market.
Increased security and privacy controls are huge advantages of using Google+. For one, the network automatically signs users into an https server (a more secure connection). This helps businesses handling sensitive information, such as those handling credit card payments and donations.
As described before, users have more control over who sees what postings. Videos and photos are automatically marked private until you select who can see them. Businesses can utilize this by having greater control over their brand and messaging.
Google has Apps for Business (tools including word processing, calendars, and Gmail with its 200 million users). Google is also utilizing Google News, the Google Checkout payment system, Sites, Ads, and Google Maps. While Facebook has to redirect users and businesses to different sites, you may not have to leave to world of Google products.