Is Google+ A Unique And Valuable Resource In Disguise?

We’ve all heard that Google+ is a ghost town, and I don’t know many friends who actively use it. However, Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting has run an analysis that shows just how bad it really is over at Google+.

Keep in mind though, even though the numbers look bad, it’s still important for website owners to be active on Google+. It’s an important social network, if only because Google owns it.

Enge eliminated activity not native to the G+ stream, such as YouTube upload notifications, profile picture changes, and YouTube comments, and the adjusted number of active users was just short of 112 million active users… When considering all activity, there are more than 200 million users. But only 50 million of those users have posted more than five times, and less than eight million users have made more than 50 public posts to the network…less than one percent of people have made public posts in the last 30 days.

Source: How Many Google+ Members Are Actually Active? | SocialTimes

How I Feel About Google+

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not a Google+ hater. I was an early adopter of Google+, and got on the platform when it was still invite-only.

I loved the ability to filter who was able to see certain posts. It allowed me to share different posts with my family than with my coworkers.

The overall design was nice. It was simple, uncluttered, and got out of your way.

Low Google+ Adoption

However, Google+ adoption has never been great. While it has never called itself a direct competitor with Facebook, the disparity in user base is still worth noting.

Even giving Google+ the benefit of the doubt with the most favorable statistics available, there are still only 112 million active users according to Enge.

Compare that to Facebook’s 1.44 billion monthly active users, and the difference is very pronounced.

Google+ Still Has Potential

Google+ has many vibrant communities. However, a social network is only as strong as its users. Google+ simply doesn’t have the market share to be a default social network for the average American to use on a daily basis.

I think Google+ shows promise, and I especially like their new implementation of collections, which are similar to Pinterest boards.

In addition to collections, there are a few other functionality tweaks I would like to see. I think easier “Circles” organization, more flexibility with posting, and a more intuitive mobile app would all bring Google+ up to speed in today’s social network market.

What’s A Website Owner To Do?

Even without these features though, Google+ is still an important platform for website owners. Since Google owns Google+, it’s imperative to post any new blog posts to your Google+ page or profile. I’ve written a handy guide on how to use Google+ for blogging that will walk you through how to best take advantage of the network.

Google quickly indexes those posts, and will credit them to you instead of other websites who may syndicate or steal your work. For that reason alone, it’s worth at least quickly linking to your new posts on Google+.

Summary

I think Google+ has unrealized potential, and with a fantastic marketing campaign it could regain its stature and become a default social network for many people who are looking for something different.

Even if it’s not popular though, website owners should still take the time to share their posts on Google+. It definitely can’t hurt your rankings with Google (as long as you’re sharing quality posts).

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Originally published at smartwebsitemarketing.com on May 11, 2015.