Somewhere around mid-2008 Facebook reached 62 million users, four years or so after it was launched. Google+ reached the 62 million user mark in 6 months which should have had every marketer in the world jumping.
It didn’t because we don’t really know what Google+ is; it has a few massive functionality fails; Google+ is relatively unknown amongst most consumers and many brands have only just got their heads around Facebook.
Most people are likely to tell you that Google+ is ‘a bit like Facebook’, which in some ways it is. However, if that is the best description Google can make stick, then Google+ is in trouble. For brands Google+ is not close to replacing Facebook, and Google has not properly explained to marketers why Google+ should be used as an extra channel.
Yes, your brand should connect with people on today’s platform of choice, and arguably tomorrow's, but Google is not explaining how or why Google+ fits that bill.
Technically, Google has also dropped the ball, by making Google+ hard to engage with for organisational users. Many of their ‘teething troubles’ existed in other platforms at launch and so it is difficult to fathom why Google would make some of the same mistakes.
They were certainly under pressure to launch Pages, but at the most basic level, the person who sets up a Google+ Page for a brand is the only person who can own or post to that account and that person can never transfer that responsibility to another user. For most organisations this is too big an operational risk or leads organisations to create special purpose profiles.
However, for brands, Google+ does have a lot going for it. The Circles concept is good; Hangouts could be great, particularly with greater take-up of mobile internet access; and the ace in the hole is search integration and the impact this could have on wider digital strategy.
Google+ is the only one of the major social networks which is fully integrated into its own search results and as such should be a significant weapon in search engine marketing.
One thing we can be certain of is that social media as a channel will be change personified for some time to come and if Google+ isn’t the next big thing, something else will be.
Should we as marketers adopt every platform that comes to market or maybe monitor the most promising ones looking for a tipping point that suggests the right time to engage? I would suggest the latter and Google+ hasn’t quite reached that point yet.
Richard Spencer
Director
Two Social
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