Social networking platform, Google + launched for organisations on Monday evening and several UK charities have already created pages and are amassing followers.

Save the Children was the charity partner for the launch and is being promoted on the sign-up page. As a result it has already got more than 8,000 followers.

Branislava Milosevic, head of digital at the charity, told civilsociety.co.uk that Google had approached the charity and that Save the Children was happy to be involved.

She said: “Google+ has some interesting new functions and some more stuff is going to be added soon that is going to have a really big impact on searching.”

Milosevic added that she was looking forward to “having a play with it to see how it all works”.

Google launched the social network last summer for individuals on an invite-only basis and within a month had reached 18 million users.

Like other social networks users can share thoughts, photos, links and video with their followers. Users can also create ‘circles’ such as family or work colleagues to categorise people they follow and those who follow them. When sharing something they can then decide which of their circles it goes out to.

Other features include games, video chat and a +1 button to recommend things on the web to followers.

Charities with Google+ pages include: Marie Curie Cancer Care, Dogs Trust, ActionAid UK, WWF, RNLI, Oxfam, Bullying UK, Family Lives and British Red Cross.