It’s critical for businesses to get involved in both Google Places and Google+ Local because it gains increased visibility and helps control one’s brand on Google — the world’s most popular search tool.
Did you know that each month 100 billion searches are conducted on Google?
This post by Amanda DiSilvestro on Search Engine Watch does a great job of clarifying the confusion between the two, and whether your brand should maintain these pages separately or merge them for social media management purposes and I recommend the read.
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