We are at an exciting transition point. Will the masses of social media indulgers migrate to Google+ for potentially more value? Or will they stay in the comfort zone of what they know and love?
Has Social Media Changed?
There was a time when ‘Social Media’ was an exercise in sharing your daily activities, photos of dinners or family. It even progressed to ‘Selfie’s’, pictures you have managed to take of yourself not always considering what may be in the background.
The consequences of this shift to other social media sites is going to require digging out another beautiful profile picture (we all hate it!), more personal details to fill out, a different layout to familiarise ourselves with, friends to find again, but on a positive, the excitement at ‘crushes’ being friends with you all over again!
But why should we bother?
Friends, colleagues, customers will all be under one roof, no flicking between Facebook and Twitter trying to find individual people or companies, they will all be under one search of their name in Google+.
A recent study indicates that only 12% of Facebook updates (2012, Kawasaki, G – What the Plus! – Google+ for the rest of us) are being seen by all your friends as opposed to the 100% on Google+. It’s a no brainer. Why be their friend if I can’t see what they say and they can’t see my amazing posts and updates without doing a direct search?
Google+ is set out in a clear and enticing way, like Pinterest, with information on friends like Facebook and opportunity to follow celebrities like Twitter. Where Google+ gets really clever is with their ‘Circles.’ This is where you have the opportunity to focus your posts to direct groups that you create, be it family, friends, customers, work collages or celebrities. You can share with you family that little Bob has just done his first wee in the potty and then celebrate with your work colleagues the success of yesterdays pitch without the two posts crossing.
Change can be good, …Watch out Facebook.