Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

Since launching in June (publicly in September), the question of whether or not Google+ will take market share from Facebook has been a common one for both marketers and agencies. While we collectively tend to like new platforms: new opportunities for brands to connect with their market, and new opportunities for agencies to innovate on their clients’ behalf, shifting any amount of attention away from Facebook requires Google+ to provide a very different offering, or at least a larger, more engaged audience.

Now, five months in, the big question is; has Google+ proved to be serious consideration? Will it have a chance to rival Facebook’s incredibly large user base? How will it compete in terms of time on site and user loyalty?

Perhaps the numbers are telling. According to web traffic measurement firm Experian Hitwise, Google+ registered its 3rd largest week of traffic ending November 12th, with more than 6.8 million US visits – a 5% increase over the week prior and a 25% increase compared to a month ago. Hitwise attributes this growth to recent product announcements, including the addition of business pages (ours is here) and opening the platform up to millions of users of its Google Apps suite for businesses and educational institutions.

To date, the top weeks for Google+ came just after its public release the week ending September 24th, meaning traffic spiked early on, but has seen insignificant growth since. As reported by the LA Times, US traffic to Google+ has dropped in 11 of the 21 weeks since its launch in late June, regularly falling between 10% and 20% from one week to the next.

In terms of return traffic – a true measure of any platform’s ability to attract a significant user base – the average rate of return of Google+ users for the first two weeks in November versus the same period in October increased by about 18%. That’s not bad, however will an increase of this magnitude persist or at least stay consistent over the coming months?

Stats aside, if Google+ plans to steal market share, there are other factors to consider. Google+ is in its infancy in terms of features when compared to Facebook. And its core feature set takes a unique approach, meaning there’s a slight learning curve for new users already familiar with how a social network should work. The platform also takes more user administration that Facebook, requiring users to create circles and essentially manage how they interact with each of their connections manually.

At the Web 2.0 Summit in October, Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president spelt out what he thought would need to happen for Facebook to lose out to a new player stating, “It’s very tough to compete with network effects.” He sums it up simply, “So Facebook would have to screw up royally and Google would have to do something really smart.”

(starts at about the 26:08 mark)

Also in October, Google’s own Software Engineer, Steve Yegge wrote a rather long and candid perspective on Google+ and Google’s flawed attempt to outdo Facebook, ironically posted to his own Google+ account. He’s since deleted the post, but as with everything online, once it’s posted, it can never be truly deleted. Yegge’s rant can be summed up in his own words, “Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. But that’s not why they are successful. Facebook is successful because they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work. So Facebook is different for everyone. Some people spend all their time on Mafia Wars. Some spend all their time on Farmville. There are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there’s something there for everyone.” He says “Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don’t get it.”

To confirm Yegge’s rant further, bloggers have been quick to point out the low usage by Google’s own senior leadership. After several public posts in the summer, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped off the site almost completely and only started posting again once bloggers began pointing out their lack of participation in the platform. Google’s executive chairman and former CEO, Eric Schmidt, posted his first about three months after Google+ went live; a short commemoration for the passing of Steve Jobs.

So what’ll it take for Google+ to become a going concern?

First, as Parker noted, Facebook will need to screw up while at about the exact time, Google+ will need to do something truly great. Facebook has had its challenges with privacy concerns, and Google+ clearly took direction from this, but so far, the different approaches to privacy don’t seem to be a huge differentiator.

Second, users will need to transition to Google+ en masse, and this will need to happen rapidly or it won’t happen at all. The way Google+ was engineered, if a user creates a profile and doesn’t add connections, they’re left with a pretty isolated experience and less than likely to return. Slow growth won’t do. The platform needs to be embraced by large volumes of connected users, or it’ll be stagnant growth for the foreseeable future.

Third, more features are needed. Facebook does a good job of providing a deep experience with little complication. Its a basic system that users of varying levels of technical experience can easily navigate, but yet, there’s a broad sense to it in terms of built-in features and third party apps, games, and API integrations. Google+ on the other hand only recently opened the door to business, and seems to focus largely on games as its feature set. Connecting with users, sharing content, and engaging with games is just not enough to attract the user base they need.

Finally, Google needs to increase its attention towards brand marketers and agencies – the folks that spend incredible amounts of time and money to develop innovative platform-integrated experiences for users to interact with. Facebook’s launch of Facebook Studio shows their commitment to agencies and brands, and provides a snapshot of the extensive and diverse work being done with their platform to connect consumers and brands. The fact that Google delayed its business pages and has yet to roll out any kind of agency program is an incredible oversight. Partnering with major consumer brands, like many other consumer technology companies should have been part of the game plan on day 1. People don’t want a relationship with Google. They want a relationship with the brands they have affinity towards. Pulling those brands into the fold early would have been a sure bet.

The coming months will be telling, with Google+ fighting for a piece of Facebook’s 160+ million monthly unique visitors and its user base of over 800 million. With what Google+ offers now, they’ve got a long road ahead.

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