Google Me: How can it benefit Small Businesses?

google me
Google Me: Bigger than Facebook?

I have just read an article from WebProNews about the rumour regarding the launch of “Google Me.” Is it really going to be bigger than Facebook? How can it take your small business to a whole new level?

One thing for sure, Google Me will not take form of a new social networking site that directly competes with Facebook. It is actually, as WebProNews called it, a “social layer” covering the existing Google products. The layer will inter-connecting the wealth of Google products.

Let’s imagine how would Google products inter-connect with each other in a social platform you use for your small business social media marketing campaign:

Using a Google Chrome browser, you create a Google account that can only be registered with a Gmail email address, you can access a dashboard in which you can do microblogging with Google Buzz, while posting your YouTube video on Buzz occasionally.

You could also start blogging at Blogger.com to reach business prospects and have the most recent blog entries to be posted on Google Buzz – you burn your feed with Feedburner to better reach prospects. While you’re at it, you may want to find potential B2B deal in Google Directory (powered with DMOZ) and initiate a Google Talk chat with the targeted business owner regarding a possible partnership – you present it using Google Docs and arrange a meeting with her and place a note on Google Calendar. Before you do meet with her, you might want to call her Assistant to confirm the meeting using your Sony Ericsson Xperia, a Google Android-powered smartphone.

To explore new opportunities, you also want to explore what’s hot today with Google Trends, Google News and Google Blog Search and talk with your team how the recent trends can benefit your business. You set up a Google Alert and add interesting RSS into your Google Reader so you can tap on the most recent development in the topic of your interest.

The imaginative story of business activities can go on an on, but you get my point… The rumoured Google Me could be bigger than Facebook when it is actually launched!

iGoogle, Google Toolbar, Google Base, Google Knol, Orkut, Google Translate, Google AdSense, Google AdWord… plenty of tools, indeed.

Having all of that seamlessly inter-connecting with each other under one roof is small business owner dream: Total control, communication and collaboration, not mentioning the improved productivity having everything done in a one-stop platform: Google Me.

Google seems have a lot of catching up in social media arena, and with the existing tools and having Google Me on the brink of realisation, it’s probably safe to say that Google Me could very well be bigger than Facebook.

What’s your opinion? Please share your thoughts by commenting on this article.

Ivan Widjaya
Google Me