Google has no plans to run ads within its Google+ social network, said Christian Oestlien, head of social advertising products at Google, during a keynote address at the ad:tech New York conference on Nov. 9.
“Google is very disciplined about focusing on building a great core consumer experience. And if that works out, the opportunities are endless,” Oestlien said.
Oestlien focused on the Nov. 7 rollout of Google+ Pages as an expansion of brands’ marketing relationship with Google as opposed to a standalone social network. “Social marketing is not about doing something completely new. It’s about improving everything you already do, particularly with Google today, to make that experience more social, more engaging, richer and more rewarding for your users and your audiences,” he said.
“We think we can take everything you’re doing with social and connect it to all the other ways in which you’re marketing online and offline,” said Oestlien. “Imagine if you can take the power of search and have that influence social and vice versa.”
Taken in conjunction with Google’s +1 sharing button, Google+ Pages serve as an anchor for a brand’s identity on Google, Oestlien said. The +1 button can be added to search results, display ads, websites and within mobile, and the number of +1s a piece of content receives can impact its search quality score. Oestlien said that +1 button appears on more than 1 million sites and generates more than 5 million impressions per day.
Asked during a post-keynote Q&A session whether brands will be able to skirt the 10-participant limitation for the Google+ multiperson video chat feature Hangouts, Oestlien said that Google has begun allowing some brands to use Hangouts on Air, which broadcasts an up-to-10-participant Hangout to thousands of consumers. The company has plans to make the feature “accessible to everybody,” said Oestlien, who did not offer a specific timeline for the rollout.
