Outrank.com

Guest blogger: Tara Cuccia

Google! Still trying to carve out a niche in social media … and find new ways to generate advertising dollars. +1. It’s Google’s equivalent of Facebook’s “Like” button. Just like all of Google’s services, you must have a Google account/profile in order to participate. This might prompt surfers to join the Google army if they haven’t already.

The +1 button will appear in Google Search and influence ranking results. What this means for users is that they’ll get a more personal search experience as places, services, and products for which they’re looking will be prominently pointed out through recommendations. What this means for businesses and our customers is that these personal recommendations from friends, clients and peers will go a long way towards fueling the business marketing plan. This project will shift Google’s algorithmic approach to a more human one, allowing user feedback to help drive search, thus relinquishing some control and trying to dive back into social.

Findings from Bazaarvoice and The CMO Club show that in 2011, 93% of CMOs plan on using some form of user-generated content to inform product and service decisions. Why? Because consumers trust one another more than they trust what a company has to say about itself. +1 should bring Google social validation. And the more profiles Google can corral, the more user data they can gather in order to develop targeted ads.

In addition, +1s will show up on all Google search ads by default. Clever.

We’re looking forward to see it in action!