For a number of years, marketers have made no bones about pushing local businesses to engage their clients and potential clients in social media powerhouses like Facebook & Twitter.  With Pinterest’s arrival on the scene (a scrapbook for images that allows it’s users to ‘pin’ pictures and videos they’d like to share from around the internet) it’s no wonder why it’s a pivotal part of the conversation for at least a handful of reasons:

1. Huge user base – Pinterest had nearly 19 million users in March, as reported by comScore.

The Original Post is Located Here: Can Local Businesses leverage Pinterest?

Approximately 80+ million Google Places pages have been migrated automatically into Google+ Local pages.  It’s a very significant change, and will more than likely create some confusion by users of the service.  However, Google feels this is all for the good and will serve it’s clients, the search engine user, very well in the future.

Here is a quick summary of the new changes:

1. All Google Places page have been replaced by Google+ Local Places pages
2. A ‘Local’ tab  has been created inside Google+
3. Zagat reviews have been added free of charge
4. Google+ Local pages have been instituted across all Google services (Docs, Gmail, Calendar)
5. The ‘Circles’ functionality to collect reviews & endorsements from family, buddies, and coworkers

The long static Places pages have evolved into dynamic powerhouses in Google+ Local pages.  Google’s star ratings have been replaced by Zagat’s 30 point rating method.

The Original Post is Located Here: Google Places pages becomes Google+ Local pages

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