Google made giant steps to become a major social media player in 2011 with the  launch of Google+ and its business pages. However, one flaw was soon pounced upon by those that know the importance, relevance and influence of social media for business - only one person could own and manage the Google+ business page.

If you were a sole trader this was fine but for those that had more members of staff a problem was clear. If the person who set up the account was on holiday, sick or left the company the Google+ account was not accessible.

The creators of the Google+ business page could delete the account or just not use it correctly. Businesses with PR or marketing personnel were faced with a dilemma as to who would own the account and businesses that outsourced their marketing and PR, especially their social media faced the dilemma that if they should want to leave their agency they would lose access to their own business page of Google+.

People questioning this were told that this would be remedied in the first quarter of 2012, but just before the end of 2011 the ability to add “Named Managers” and transfer ownership was resolved by Google, giving many social media managers a great Christmas present, as they could set up clients’ accounts safe in the knowledge that ownership could be transferred to other key personnel of the business should the need arise.

So how do you add extra admins (Named Managers) or transfer
ownership?

It’s actually very simple.

Before you can transfer ownership to anyone you need to have them set up as managers.

To add a manager the existing owner simply visits settings, whilst using Google+ as the business page concerned. Settings are located at the top right hand corner. You will then be able to invite up to 50 managers to manage your page, by emailing them an invitation, using their email address. Once they have accepted their emailed invitation to become managers they can begin updating the business pages.

Once a manager has been set up ownership of the business page can be transferred to them. However, you must first set them up as a manager before this can take place.

So what are the main differences between managers and owners of Google+ Business Pages?

The major difference is that owners are able to delete accounts or transfer ownership but managers are unable to do this.

Managers and owners are both able to update pages and add or remove managers and just like LinkedIn all managers enjoy the same rights, as there is no ranking.

Neither owners nor managers are visible to the public.

This is a very welcome and practical addition to Google+ and may see this social media platform becoming much more populated with active users in 2012. It also relieves the onus of managing traffic from one person and helping businesses to spread the responsibilities for posting amongst different departments or team members if required.

Splice Marketing is very excited about this development as we can see lots of potential for this development to benefit our clients in 2012 and beyond.