When Google launched it’s social media platform, Google+, in 2011, it had everybody wondering if it was going to be the next platform to take off. The biggest question, was whether it would be able to dethrone Facebook as the number 1 social media platform. Well, it’s two years later, and the answer is overwhelmingly NO.

That said, it appears that G+ is making gains in active usage throughout 2013, as reported by Global Web Index in their latest Steam Social report. In particular, G+ is making significant gains with the older crowd, seeing an over 225% increase in the number of active users aged 35-44. (And when I say “older”, I mean it as no slight to anyone. When talking about social media, usually you’re talking about 20 year olds, so the fact that people older than them are more active on social media is telling.)

Focusing on this demographic is important for B2B companies, because for the most part, the Decision Makers you’re targeting are in that range. These are the people that will be consuming your content, and then passing it along to their managers, VPs, and so on.

Q: So how can this help you increase your visibility with those Decision Makers?

A: By putting more of your content in front of them through Google+.

Here’s why you should be using Google Plus for your business.

Increase your social worth

Simply put, you’ll be using G+ to increase your social worth with your readers. Remember, social proof is one of the factors that we humans use to gauge authority, trustworthiness, and importance (e.g. know, like & trust from Copyblogger). Increasing your social proof points through G+ will help you with that.

Rise to the top of search engine rankings

In addition to that, social proof is now being factored into search engine rankings. Google admits they’re giving more weight to G+ shares, so it only makes sense to take advantage of this. It makes sense that Google gives more weight to its own products, so increasing your G+ social worth can generate a lot of that.

Just how does Google+ record all the shares?

Ben Fisher explains this in depth on his blog, but simply put:

• Once a user shares a link, it generates a +1
• Clicking the +1 button on the page generates a +1 in the count
• A different user sharing the page generates a +1
• A comment on your original share in G+ generates another +1
• If one user shares a post AND clicks the +1 button, only a single +1 is added
• Image posts that contain 1 link generate a +1 to the page.
  • Multiple links in a post with an image will interrupt the signal.

Sure, that looks impressive

But what does that really mean for your site? Think of it this way: A single user sharing a page through Google+ can generate four +1’s for a single page. That’s FOUR individual social proof points FROM ONE PERSON. Multiply that by each person following you on Google+, and you can see where this can lead. And that doesn’t even include any of the additional +1’s you get from their followers, or their followers, and so on.

Are you ready to capitalize on this?

If you already are, then congratulations! You’ve a bit ahead of the rest of us that haven’t been using Google+ for our content marketing campaigns. But I think you’ll agree that we should all jump on the bandwagon and get ready for the ride.