Google+ for business networking?

Can Google+ be used for business networking?

Have you considered how "findable" your Google profile is or how "tied" it is to the company you work for, or your line of business?

If I search for Ford on Google.com I am currently one of the three Google+ results that show on the right-hand side of the page.
That is a pretty high up result, especially with the inclusion of my profile picture, which makes the result really stand out on the page.

This isn't for a socially skewed "search your world" logged-in query, but for a standard logged out search on Google.com.

Being "findable" is a first step 

But being "findable" on its own is pretty useless for networking if you aren't "reachable" too.

If you want to be found and reached you would need to change "Who can send you notifications" from the default "Your Circles" to "Anyone".

This works fine for me, though if you are mega famous I guess the default would help cut down any barrage of spam like notifications and relying on people from outside your circles being introduced by someone who is inside your circles, as long as you had enough people in your circles.

Google+ obviously wasn't envisioned as a business networking tool, but the flexibility of your public profile, the high visibility of profiles in search results on Google and people search in Google+ itself mean that it is a way to be easily found against a wide number of work-related queries.

If that's not what you want, you can prevent information in your profile from appearing in the search index by setting it to something other than "Public".

Do you consider your Google profile to be a networking asset?
Have you completed it, or optimised it?