Googles +1 Button | Social Media Marketing Agency Sydney

Google’s +1 Button

Posted on Apr 4, 2011

Is Google about to take on Facebook in a battle for Social Media supremacy?

There have been whispers about Google creating its own social network for some time now, and while the company insists that its focus is more on social search options, the similarity between its latest tool – the ‘+1’ button – and Facebook’s ‘like’ option are fuelling more speculation.

The +1 function lets people recommend a site for others in their network as well as strangers, who’ll be able to see the numbers of people who have ‘+1’d it’.

Google’s blog explains the reasoning behind the technology:

‘When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area. Or if you’re looking for a new pasta recipe, we’ll show you +1’s from your culinary genius college roommate. And even if none of your friends are baristas or caffeine addicts, we may still show you how many people across the web have +1’d your local coffee shop.’

Is Google about to take on Facebook in a battle for Social Media supremacy?

Google’s search method has always been social

While there are the inevitable murmurs about Google ripping off Facebook’s idea, let us not forget that in many ways, Google search has always been inherently social. What originally set the search engine apart from competitors was its utilisation of backlinks to determine relevance.

Link-building is now an established, effective SEO tool because Google acknowledged, way back in the development of its algorithm, that what people deemed more relevant should be given a high priority when it came to ranking sites.

The +1 tool is the next evolution of social relevance when it comes to page ranking. Not only will we now be provided with sites that others deem useful, but we’ll be able to see who some of those people are.

This is yet another reason why social media marketing is not only here to stay, but is also necessary for brands to build the kind of exposure they desire. The +1 button will soon be available for brands to embed in their web pages – and there’s not a company in the world that won’t want to give its customers the tool to improve its Google rankings!

Google summed up our attitude to social media marketing perfectly in its blog, stating simply: ‘Relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages.’

Hear, hear Google!