Subtlety is evidently not a point lost on Google. Despite being one of the largest corporations in the world, the search giant still appears to have people's feelings in mind, as evidenced by the recent introduction of the Ignore option on Google+.

Subtlety is evidently not a point lost on Google. Despite being one of the largest corporations in the world, the search giant still appears to have people's feelings in mind, as evidenced by the recent introduction of the Ignore option on Google+ – a feature that should catch the attention of social media marketers.

“When a person adds you to a circle, you might not be interested in what they have say, but blocking them may seem too harsh,” Google stated on the Google+ Project website. “Instead, you can ignore them, which will limit what they can share with you.”

In a blog post, Google+ programmer Olga Wichrowska said that the company is striving to make sure that Google+ represents real-life interactions. If this is true, then the Ignore option must be the equivalent of quietly looking the other way.

Users aren't informed when they are ignored, and the feature doesn't prohibit them from seeing the content shared by the person ignoring them. Rather, when someone is ignored, his or her content won't appear on the ignoring party's incoming stream or circles page.

For businesses, this could be a tricky situation. Companies that plan to use Google+ as a social media marketing tool once business pages are released will need to be careful that their content and activities do not warrant ignore actions.

Brafton has reported that repetitive and outdated content are two of the leading reasons that consumers choose to stop following brands on Twitter and Facebook. The same rules may apply on Google+, which means brands will need to develop highly targeted, frequently updated content marketing approaches to remain visible on the search giant's social platform.