What Small Businesses Need to Know About the Google+ Closure

Small businesses that use Google+ will want to start making changes to their social media and marketing game plans.

Google has announced that at the end of August 2019 it will permanently shut down the consumer version of Google+.

The decision came after it was revealed a security bug exposed the personal information of 500,000 Google+ users. According to the Wall Street Journal, despite learning about the data breach in March 2018, the company reportedly opted to not disclose the problem out of concerns that doing so would “draw regulatory scrutiny and cause reputational damage.”

What Happened to Google+?

In a company blog post from Ben Smith, vice president of engineering with Google, it’s explained the security vulnerability was found during an internal review called Project Strobe.

The bug gave apps access to user account details marked as private, including name, email address, occupation, gender, and age.

Before the bug was found and fixed in March 2018, up to 438 applications may have had access to Google+ user information between 2015 and 2018. And while the company can’t confirm which Google+ accounts were affected, it found no evidence any developer was aware of the bug or that any user data was misused.

The review also confirmed that Google+, which launched in 2011 as a potential challenge to Facebook, has not lived up to expectations. The company said that of consumers who visit the Google+ site, 90% leave after just five seconds or less.

“This review crystallized what we’ve known for a while: that while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps,” Smith wrote in the blog post.

“The review did highlight the significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumers’ expectations. Given these challenges and the very low usage of the consumer version of Google+, we decided to sunset the consumer version of Google+.”

Interestingly, in 2017, Google+ actually topped the American Consumer Satisfaction Index’s list of how users feel about social media companies.

What the Google+ Closure Means for Small Businesses

There is some good news for businesses that are fans of Google+.

While the consumer version of Google+ has not found success, Google said that it will maintain an enterprise version of the social network. In the enterprise version, Google+ serves as a network for secure internal discussions between co-workers. Google said it will be launching new features “purpose-built for businesses” and will release more information soon.

As for small businesses with original content stored on Google+, Google will provide instructions in the coming months on how to download and migrate files.

Small Business Checklist for Google+ Closure

There’s no sense in waiting until next August to move away from Google+. In fact, considering the low usage numbers that were revealed, small businesses that actively use Google+ would be wise to start focusing social media and marketing efforts elsewhere sooner than later.

We’ve put together a checklist to help get the ball rolling:

• To start, use this as a reminder to check security settings on any Google products. Check the security of a specific account using Google’s Security Checkup and take steps to secure your account if there is any unusual activity detected.
• Businesses that have a Community on Google+ should start looking at other platforms to create a group (an obvious choice is Facebook). Once you have a new group up and running, inform your Google+ Community members and let them know the date when you will move away from Google+. Give them a couple of reminders to make sure they don’t miss out.
• Create a strategy for phasing out activity on Google+. Don’t just stop using the platform all at once. Instead, make a plan of how to ease out of using Google+ so that your followers aren’t confused or annoyed.
• Remember to remove Google+ buttons from websites.
• For small businesses that have been using Google+ almost exclusively, check out our article on The 5 Most Important Social Media Trends in 2018 to get some new ideas for using other social networks.

Keep in mind that many followers and consumers may think that Google+ is shutting down immediately (especially if they’ve just read the headlines). Small businesses that use Google+ should be as open as possible about future social media plans and how followers can keep up communication.

August 2019 might seem like a long ways away now, but it without some advance planning and organizing that deadline could sneak up a lot faster than expected.