July 17, 2013: Should You Invest Your Time and Energy in Facebook or Google +? Amongst my friends, the general perception is that Google+ isn’t worth bothering with. “But all my friends are on Facebook!” is their battle cry. However, from a marketer and social media specialist’s point of view, Google Plus may well be a much better investment of time and energy than Facebook. Here’s why:
- Facebook is a Big, Disorganized Mess. Facebook doesn’t have the clean, linear functionality of Google+. The fonts are too small. It’s hard to find a group. Facebook Group pages aren’t well optimized for mobile. Ripples — the analytics for Google+ — is far easier to access, more intuitive, and richer in data than the native Facebook analytics. Social reports on Google+ offer more data — such as conversion stats — which Facebook does not.
- Google+ Offers Better Targeting of Specific Customer Segments. Google Communities — the oft overlooked groups feature on Google+ — offers more organized access to various customer segments via communities. Google Hangouts can be used to directly represent brands by way of special events and can be of great use in activating fan communities.
- Google+ Is Cheaper. The story of George Takei and his experience with Edgerank illustrates what marketers have to face when dealing with Edgerank. Strictly from an ROI perspective, Google+ makes far more sense for a marketer to use.
- Google+ Is Good SEO. Google rewards the +1s on Google posts with better organic SERP placement.
- Google+ Offers Better Analytics. We find the influencer numbers in Ripples more insightful than the corresponding Reach metric in Facebook, and the visual guide is more engaging to us than the plain jane bar charts or the far too big CSV download of Facebook analytics.
- Google+ Offers Complete Integration With Other Google Services. This includes Maps, Shopping, Wallet, and Drive.
- Google+ is Less Intrusive With Its Ads. Because Google+ derives its ad revenue from referral traffic directly into normal Google search, the actual user interface itself is much cleaner and less cluttered than Facebook’s.
The only advantage that Facebook offers at this time is numbers, but this advantage may be fleeting. Teens are fleeing FB for alternative services, and there is evidence that some of this demographic is fleeing Facebook for Google+. While the numbers may be in Google’s side for now, we find it more prudent to be on the side of growth. Marketers should still pay attention to FB, but if we were betters, we’d put money on G+ and Google Communities.
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