During a social media training course, a customer told me that they received a complaint via Google+. It is not unusual to receive customer service messages via social media platforms, but this customer didn’t even know they had a Google+ page!
Google+ is one of the fastest growing social media platforms. However, engagement on this platform is still limited. Christopher Ratcliffe writes on eConsultancy that “Google+ has achieved 1.15bn users, but only 35% of those use are active monthly.”
Trouble is, Google+ pages get created automatically when companies list themselves on Google Local or setup a YouTube channel. This creates a risk to organisations. It exposes their brand and creates a channel of communication that they won’t be monitoring.
When I recently tried to link a social media tool to my Google+ page I was presented with this list of pages “belonging” to me. I was shocked. Most of these aren’t mine, but belong to customers or ex-customers for whom I’ve administered Google Analytics or Google Adwords campaigns. Other pages belong to entities that haven’t existed for over 3 years and three entries were duplicates of one another. Most worryingly of all, this was the first I’d heard about these pages.
After a bit of searching I was able to find out how to delete the pages belonging to the duplicates and ceased entities. I can transfer ownership of the other pages to my customers and ex-customers, but I’m going to have to contact each one to initiate this. What a pain! I would have preferred Google not to have set these up in the first place.
I strongly recommend you check out your Google+ account to see if you have any pages you need to administer or delete. Click here for instructions on how to delete your Google+ pages.