Google+ is the new social media site. Millions of people already have an account on Google+, and some people are wondering if it will be the site that will kill Facebook – mostly because of its similar features. however, some marketers are wondering if Google+ is really going to live up to the hype that is surrounding it. Here are some quick reasons why Google+ would get lost in the sea of social networking sites.
- It is very similar to Facebook. With the exception of a few key features, much of Google+ is similar to Facebook, including the site’s design. You can chat with friends with the IM window (also known as the huddles feature) and you can create groups of friends and name those groups (the circles feature). However in the circles feature, whatever you post to a certain group of friends, can only be seen by that group of friends. This is a great way to keep things private, such as content that people don’t want their employers to see or read.There is, however, one feature that is new: The sparks feature. In the sparks feature, Google+ recommends content to you based on your interest, your friend’s interests and the number of plus one clicks for certain sites and other media types. This is something that can be very beneficial to online marketers. By accumulating plus one clicks on their site, online marketers can increase their exposure to more people. This can possibly change how SEO works and what Google considers high quality, especially since the plus one button is Google’s own feature.
- There are other well established social networking sites. Facebook has been around for a while now. The site has over 600 million active users, placing it in second place on Alexa’s top 500 websites – with the Google search engine being first. Therefore, Facebook is the largest social networking site, Youtube is the second largest social networking site and Twitter is the third largest social networking site.With all of these highly ranked sites, it will be hard for Google to capture a large audience with its own social networking site, especially since it greatly resembles Facebook. Surveys show that many people do not like having more than one social networking account, and they primarily focus much of their social presence on Facebook.
- Google has a string of failed social networks. Google+ is not Google’s first attempt at social media. Orkut, Buzz, Google wave, and Voice are all failed social media sites from Google. However, this alone does not mean that Google+ will fail, but it does mean that Google had bad experiences in the past.Many people are skeptical of the new social media site, saying that it will possibly fail like the previous social media sites, though only time can tell for sure.
Regardless of the reasons why it may fail, there is no hurt in creating an account on Google+, especially if you are an online marketer. The new social media site may be very beneficial to online marketers, especially since it is affiliated with Google. Business owners should focus on accumulating plus one clicks for their site, which also helps the site to show up on the sparks feature. Moreover, business owners can optimize their site’s snippet, which is the link description, image and title of their site when it is shared on Google+.
Whether Google+ will live up to its hype is something that only time can tell. In the near future, more statistics will be revealed, helping both online marketers and casual users know if the site is worth their investment.
At Grafton Media, we can help you develop and implement the perfect Social Media plan to suits your business. Contact us today for further information.
