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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

BREAKING NEWS: Google+ Uncircles All Naysayers!

Not true. I just wanted to get your attention, especially all of you Google+ naysayers. So, welcome everyone.

GOOGLE SHMOOGLE


Ever since the launch of Google+ people have pitted it against Facebook. "Which one will win in the popularity contest? Which one is best to accomplish specific goals, like to be used for business? Which one will win the collective's heart and thus dominate the world?"  Good questions, and I don't exclude myself from this everyone number. 


Back in January 2012 I did a case study comparing engagement on the two networks, and at the time it was very telling. In that case study, Google+ vs Facebook Engagement, we took a look at just two of the same posts, at the same time, and monitored them both.  I engaged equally on both as soon as a comment was added. 

Results: Engagement on Facebook was only 4% in relation to the engagement on Google+.  Even taking into consideration that I have over twice as many "followers" on Google+ than on Facebook, that would still mean that the numbers showed a 92% to 8% advantage to Google+.  It's also noted that the comments in Google+, back in January 2012, were more substantial and conversational than the Facebook contributions of "cool" or "I like both". [See the complete January 2012 case study here ]
Snapshot of the actual posts and the comment threads count

My findings were conclusive to me that Google+ encouraged a higher level of activity, more people wanted to voice their opinions and people seemed more passionate about their responses. Since my study, countless others have conducted similar case studies or experiments trying to determine which social network is more successful. These findings varied and I've enjoyed reading each one (well, the accurate ones I did). However, a recent article caught my eye and I just HAD to give my two cents. This is a good reminder to READ CRITICALLY. 


GHOSTOWN OR GHOSTNATION?


Here is the latest 'ghostown' article questioning the success of Google+, but with a twist. The title of the article Is Google+ A Failure? [including a May 2012 infographic to make a point, which was already outdated information back in May] This was published 38 hours ago, from the timestamp of this post. Like most of these "Google+ is Dead" articles, they are based on old data and are either written or aggregated to just to stir up controversy and/or pageviews.


I'm not using this post to pick on Richard Darell of Bit Rebels, the author of the above article. He's been a good friend for a number of years now. Its just that these articles keep marching out into the web one right after another using this same inaccurate data and language to 'show' Google+ as fast approaching an epic collaps of some sort.  All of them hanging their hat on these old statistics that users spend only 3.3 minutes per month on Google+. 


The curious part all of these bloggers seem to overlook is that the actual figures, released two weeks ago, came directly from Google at I/O and were published openly for everyone to reference, here they are on TechCrunch:  http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/27/google-i-o/

Screenshots from Google I/O
From the TechCrunch article: Google+ active users spend ove60 minutes a day across Google products, and 12 minutes per day in the Google+ stream. Even if these are just highly engaged early-adopters, many of which might be Google fanboys, that’s a pretty stunning total of 360 minutes per month
*Mental reminder just popped into my mind - From my days at The New York Times Company, to maintain our integrity and trust I did learn the importance of basic things like fact checking, only using up-to-date information, and avoiding sensationalism just for a headline. These were not-affectionately called career killers. 
GOOGLE+ FORECAST 


For comparison and fairness, here are very recent posts on Facebook. 


"The average amount of time visitors spent on Facebook rose less than 1 percent to 381 minutes in May from a month ago," ComScore said. "That came after a decline of 3.1 percent in the previous month."  In Darell's article he states that Facebook users spend 450 minutes on the site, an overstatement? Who know's for sure, right? The point is 360 minutes a month is not the same as 3.3 minutes per month


I know what some of you are thinking, "Yeah, but Facebook is still way ahead in user numbers." True, it may appear that way.  Facebook does boast larger numbers, but let's look at the bigger picture.

Facebook, a much more mature platform, has recently seen a slow decline in both the amount of time users spend on the site and the number of users on the site. A fact that Darell failed to bring to his readers' attention. 



On the contrary, Google has seen an amazing spike in both numbers of members and in engagement. 


In January 2012, Google+ had 62 Million users with an average time of around 3.3 minutes per month on the site. Google+ is now at the one year mark and sits at around 250 million users with around 100-150 million qualifying as "active." When you take the new statistics from Google I/O you see that Google has not only more than doubled their number of users in six months, but the average time on site has a percent of increase over 10,000%. That's pretty impressive growth in just six months, and it doesn't seem to be pointing in any direction that sounds like failure, floundering or extinction. If anything, Google+ use in on a dramatic upswing.
Chart use courtesy of Thomas Morffew and the results of his Google+ Survey
Taking a quick a look at Facebook as social network, it currently leads Google+ with around 900 million users, 530 qualify as active. However, as we mentioned earlier, despite its large size and popularity - the last six months have shown a slight decline in not only Facebook's users but time on site as well. Comparing this to the 10909% increase for time on site for Google+ we can see which network is on any 'real or imagined' down slide.


Additionally, we also see continued growth on Google+ in gender saturation. Women on Google+ are very active and are some of the top engagers. Google+ is anything but a 'man-cave' filled with just male Google employee's and Brittany Spears. Here is the most accurate global breakdown of the Male/Female ratio that I can find via CircleCount. (This is based on 19,070,848 Google+ profiles indexed)
Chart compliments of CircleCount.com 


BOTTOM LINE


If you are failing to see results on Google+, don't blame Google+. Perhaps you need to simply look in the mirror. It could be that you are just using it wrong. Charles Dowd nailed it in his article: This Is Why You Fail At Google+ - If you do these things, you will be well on your way to winning at Google+.

I certainly don't have all the definitive answers on every aspect  of G+, especially since it is just starting to really mature, is still growing and changing before our very eyes.  I am simply posting my findings and leaving the interpretation and analysis to you. I offer this for your review and I look forward to the contribution of your thoughts, and if you like this, please share it via the channels below.

Thank you for your time my friends!


With every good wish,

Tim Moore
Circle Tim on Google+: Tim Moore

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the article......I think that Facebook will always be in the forefront simply because of their rise and timing.....I hope the G+ will break away from being subject to the Facebook is better rants.....they are different entities..g+ is for engaging people with similar interests

    and nigb

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  2. Im new to fb & g+ I definitely like g+ better. On fb you simply don't have conversation unless you add a thousand friends unlike g+ where your able to stream and add comments randomly I think fb will probably & eventually die off as MySpace did. I believe twitter will too and g+ will lead the social networks. Until something greater is developed ill spend most of my time on g+

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  3. Thanks for the stats Tim. It does get old seeing people look at Google+ from the wrong angle. It's a different ballgame altogether at Google+, and I think Google knew it from the start and made that goal very clear from the start. Just a shame some people weren't listening, and still aren't.

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  4. You hit it on the head: Don't blame google, look in the mirror. I was a heavy G+ user when it was in beta. Then when it opened up I lost interest and just flat out stopped using it. It wasn't until about a month ago when I finally "got it" and learned how to really use G+. Now I'm on it almost all day and it took up about 95% of my social networking (which was only twitter since I never used fb).

    If people would open their eyes to it, G+ can be thee social network. But I don't think the fb loyalist will ever leave fb because "everyone else is on it". Which is sad..

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  5. I must say that a month ago, I didn't even know what G+ was! Then a client invited me to Join, so I did. I was curious to see what it was all about. What a surprise! I am a professional woman, a trial attorney. I don't have a lot of time to "play" on the internet or FB. I do have a lot of followers on FB, however, I think FB has gotten too personal, too nosey, too "in my business" and does not allow me to state my opinion on ANY matters, because it has really gotten "cliquish"!!! FB posts and activity are regularly used as evidence in court now; everyone knows "who is who" on FB and even knows "how to work the FB system" to get evidence from someone else's account! I read FB only to keep in touch with friends. On the other hand, I truly enjoy Google+. I can state my opinion simply, because everyone else does; this is an open forum! I can read news and other specialized articles, if I am in the mood, or I can look at beautiful photography, if I need a break for a while. Any subject I'm interested in, I can find on G+, However, FB seems to be so much more limited. I might know more people on FB, but I can go global on Google+ and reach out to meet new people. Circles are ingenious; not only for convenience, but also for privacy! Hangouts-what an application; you have just scratched the surface with this one! I loved the article today about using hangouts with the deaf and Google+ providing the typist! WOW!!!! I also LOVE the beautiful page layout, especially in the mobile iPhone app. It's so pleasing to the eye that sometimes I can hardly put my phone down while looking at the beautiful photography!!! FB is not even in the same league. I could go on and on, but I have always been loyal to a good product when I use one; and I know it when I see it. G+ is the real deal. Thanks for providing this to us FREE of charge! I'm a believer!

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  6. good update information on social media as this article help me lot for doing SMO for my Home Business thanks for sharing ..

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