The Only Reason to Use Google+

The Times gets the money quotes:

Starbucks ... has three million followers on Plus, meager compared with its 36 million “likes” on Facebook. Yet it updates its Google Plus page for the sake of good search placement, and takes advice from Google representatives on how to optimize Plus content for the search engine.

“When we think about posting on Google Plus, we think about how does it relate to our search efforts,” said Alex Wheeler, vice president of global digital marketing at Starbucks.

The Economist has more fans on Google Plus than on Facebook—six million versus three million—and its journalists use Plus features like Hangouts. Yet Chandra Magee, the Economist’s senior director of audience development, emphasized the value of Plus as a search engine optimization tool.

“There is potential there to help us get in front of new audiences,” she said. “But it also helps with our S.E.O. strategy because our posts on Google Plus actually show up in our search engine results.”