Google just introduced businesses to their Google+ social network with a new tool called Pages. Now, brands and companies can represent themselves online using the new social network, in a manner similar to Facebook Pages.
There is an additional value for branding creating Google+ Pages, besides the core value of having another official social media presence. The Google+ Pages can allow an administrator to align the page with a URL, which will aggregate all +1 data through that new Google+ identity. Ultimately, this will boost the numbers for the brand by placing all that fan data in the same virtual "box."
In the past, +1 activity was specific to an individual URL. That data and corresponding activity only accumulated when people +1ed the URL in organic results or an AdWords ad that referenced the URL as a landing page.
Great note for social marketers and advertisers: Typically ads with +1 badges perform better than ads without the badge. To turn on these social extensions, advertisers and marketers need to flip on Social Extensions in the Ad Extensions section of Adwords and enter their Google+ Page URL.