Will Google+ impact social marketing?

Update: Since we published this post on July 5, Google+ has exploded. Current reports, including this one from Mashable.com, suggest that the new social network is close to reaching 18 million users. Of course, expect that stat to be out-of-date soon, too.

Unless you've been under a rock for the last week, you've heard about Google+. It's Google's latest, biggest, and most serious effort at a social network. And it's getting lots of "likes" among the social media pundits.

Being the consummate marketer that you are, you're probably wondering how Google+ will change the social media marketing space.

In short, it remains to be seen. No one knows if an appreciable audience will even develop on Google+. And Google has yet to say anything about any marketing services. However, there are at least two aspects of Google+ that could influence social media marketing: Sparks (how social interactions are sparked) and Circles (circles of friends).

Will Sparks fly on Google+?

The Sparks feature will allow Google+ users to enter interests, such as "Texas BBQ." Once entered, Google+ will then search the Web for interesting information related to that term—articles, recipes, photos, videos, and so on, and feed it to the user's Sparks stream. Like any Google-sponsored search term, Sparks could offer sponsored-search opportunities. (Note, however, Google refers to Sparks as a "sharing engine," not a search engine.)

From a strategy standpoint, Google believes that interesting information is usually the catalyst for social interaction. So by automating the process of finding and delivering interesting information, Sparks could fuel social interactions among Google+ users. It's like automating the process of finding an interesting Web page in one browser, and using another browser to post it in a Facebook status update.

No one knows whether Google will use the Sparks feature to monetize its search capabilities. But considering how large a revenue stream search advertising is for Google, you have to wonder.

Circles of friends

Another feature that adds a new twist to social marketing is called Circles. Although Facebook has a similar feature called "Lists," which lets you share information with lists of friends, hardly anyone uses it.

Circles, on the other hand, is reportedly intuitive and easy to use—it really forms the foundation of Google+. As Google sees it, in real life not every "friend" is equal and you don't share the same information with everyone. So why would you behave that way on a social network?

With Circles, Google+ organizes your friends into common circles, such as "family," "work," "hockey team," "college," etc. When you share information on Google+, you share it to Circles, rather than individual friends or the entire universe, a la Facebook and Twitter.

For marketers, this might create a barrier. Nate Elliot, principal analyst at Forrester Research, summarized the problem nicely in a column last week in Forbes: "After all, if users spend more time posting content to and reading content from just their circles of friends, doesn't that make it harder for marketers to get a message through? The more selective a user is in who they listen to, the more likely they are to screen marketing out of their world."

Both Sparks and Circles are still untested, so it's a long way off before we know their implications on social media marketing. However, among the main Google+ features announced, Sparks and Circles end up being the most relevant to your world.

To see for yourself what Google+ is all about, take the tour.