That almost forgotten of social platforms, Google+, is still iterating and looking to improve its offerings to teams and fans it appears.

At a time when the whole discussion about whether it is a viable channel for brands has appeared to quieten off, with many appearing agreeing that no it isn’t (I’m not a big fan and rarely use it).

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for it and many teams are still posting daily on their pages and utilising Google Hangouts – certainly one of its best features – such as Liverpool, who are running one on the 20th October with former LFC legend Robbie Fowler.

Manchester United, currently sitting 4th in the table despite a unconvincing start to the season, are another who have a lot of time for Google+.  And with almost 3.7m followers on their page you can see why.

This week they’ve started to utilise a new feature, Polls. Initially they’re using it to ask fans to vote for their favourite save by current United no.1 David De Gea.

It’s interesting that Google have chosen to introduce Polls as a feature on their platform. Coming after both Facebook and LinkedIn have dropped the option from their own platforms, so have Google seen something in it that they haven’t?

It’s certainly a useful feature for sports teams to engage with fans, and businesses looking to conduct a quick piece of market research. The issue with Google+ though is its interaction rates.

Out of 3.7m followers, this post has generated less than 2,000 interactions – thats including the number of votes cast (1267). On Facebook, where they’re about to hit 60m fans and also Twitter the numbers would be far higher.

What do you think?