The last decade, and more especially the last five years, have changed the way that businesses approach the internet. While a website was once enough, an established business is now expected to have a profile on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other major sites. It’s no surprise, then, that the big businesses – and many smaller ones – are already gearing up for Google+, the Google social network that’s currently in its beta stage.

Despite being a “limited invite” test phase, businesses have a broad audience to market to. While Google hasn’t given exact figures for the number of current users, they did indicate that the number was in the “millions,” and some user estimates based on advanced Google search results put the figure at something close to 10 million. Ford Motors attempted to capture the attention of this audience early on Google+, using the Hangout group video chat feature to follow up with a press conference and the +1 feature as a voting mechanism for an on-Google+ contest.

Smaller businesses have also seen success, with several individuals or small groups indicating that Google+ increased interest or even led to a purchase.

Google has stated, however, that the version of Google+ being tested now isn’t intended for business users. (In fact, they’ve discouraged business users from using Google+’s current version.) ”Right now, we’re very much focused on optimizing for the consumer experience, but we have a great team of engineers building a similarly optimized business experience for Google+,” said Christian Oestlien, a product manager at Google.

This business version integrates seamlessly with business-facing Google products, such as Google AdWords and Analytics, and will be out later this year. A pilot test is also slated for the near future, and businesses can apply for that pilot program online.