18 times Serie A champions AC Milan were the first club in Italian football to host a Google+ Hangout this week. The ‘Rossoneri’ <\/em>have been keen to utilise\u00a0Google+ and boost their numbers on the AC Milan Google+ Page<\/a> in an effort to maximise on social signals on Google and improve their Football Social Media. The Italian giants hosted a 30 minute Hangout with AC Milan legend Daniele Massaro<\/a> – who answered questions from AC fans from all around the world.<\/p>\n

This move echo’s Chelsea FC’s Hangout with goalkeeper Petr Cech<\/a> earlier this month, as the current European Champions attempted to experiment with Google+. Whilst Google have struggled to get their social network Google+ off the ground, particularly as the channel isn’t widely used by the mainstream online population, the importance of the channel cannot be ignored. Search giant Google has been key to tie in Google+ into it’s search results, making the relationship between search and social\u00a0increasingly\u00a0important for marketeers.<\/p>\n

AC Milan’s Google+ Hangout attracted a large and varied audience, with fans tuning in to watch from Indonesia, Venezuela, Italy and the United Kingdom. Crucially, this demonstrates the benefits of social media for expanding international reach and tapping into new international markets. Furthermore, football clubs need to remember that just because Facebook and Twitter are popular here in the Western world, there are other networks that carry significant influence elsewhere – for example Google+ is incredibly active in Brazil while Sina Weibo is the primary choice for social media micro-blogging in China.<\/p>\n