Introducing google my business: here is what every bank marketer needs to know about this new platform for managing your information on google and google places. This enhanced system will enable you to connect better with your prospects and customers.

• Author: Hershberger, Tara

OVER THE SUMMER, GOOGLE MERGED GOOGLE+, its social networking service, with Google Maps and Places. A new all-in-one platform, Google My Business, was created to allow business owners to manage these two services. Google My Business enhances the ability of banks and other businesses to connect with their customers.

Through this platform, banks and other businesses can share what's new, respond to reviews, and update their business information, all from a single dashboard. They can dive deeper and understand their audience and their actions through custom metrics such as Insights, which provides statstical information, and tracking analytics.

Google has a 68 percent share of online search. So, if your bank can't be found on Google's search engine, you're missing a huge chunk of potential business opportunities.

Google acts as a directory of all the businesses on the Internet, and if your financial institution hasn't already claimed your free listing (or listings), grabbing them now should be your top priority.

Google is aiming to create the best business directory on the Web. Mobile search volume is predicted to overtake desktop search in 2015, and accurate business data is the backbone to better searches on-the-go. Google wants to know everything about your business, and, by creating one central place, it has made it easier to manage all that information.

There are a few new and improved sections Within this new Google My Business portal. Sections are organized by what it calls Cards. Depending on your role (owner, manager or communications manager) and which device (desktop, tablet or mobile), different cards will be available.

Google+

with 343 million active users, Google+ is second only to Facebook as a social networking service. In addition, there are numerous search benefits to having a Google+ Page and at the top of the list is that Google+ posts are eligible to appear within search results.

When people are logged into Google+, they are even more likely to see your content in search results, and their engaged followers (those who have interacted with them) are also more likely to see that content. In a similar way, Google+ enhances many of Google's other services-such as Gmail and YouTube within this social layer.

In the past, companies that wanted to create a business page (called a brand page) on Google+ could do so. Now, it's important to note that Google has revamped that process. Google My Business now automatically creates a new...