Google+: Understanding Social Media Marketing’s Competitive Field [Chart]
What does Google+, the 900 pound search marketing gorilla’s entry into the social media market, mean for marketers and social media platforms? To understand the true paradigm change Google+ represents, acknowledge that Google+ represents a battle for users’ time and attention, their most scarce resources regardless of income. Social media, by attracting users and keeping them on their platform(s), has changed the online game for digital players, consumers and marketers. For Google, this is a significant shift because by its nature, search runs by sending users to other sites so that the better a search platform works, the less time users spend there.
Google+ had 1.8M total visits as of the week ending July 16th according to Experian Hitwise. With less than 0.5% of Facebook’s traffic, Google+ is growing fast with the potential to keep growing exponentially. As such, competitors and marketers alike should be paying attention. Since it’s critical for marketers to be where prospects and customers are, Google+ has the potential to marginalize targeted offerings like Twitter and Foursquare.
Beyond jumping onto Google+ and testing it, here’s how the platform’s functionality appears from a competitive prospective. As a marketer, it’s important to understand this potential to ensure that your marketing will maximize its reach cost-effectively.
The bottom line is that Google has the power to leverage and integrate a wide variety of products into Google+ and offer them to consumers for free. Further, as a late entrant to the social media market, it can learn from others’ mistakes and doesn’t need outside funding. If you’re a smaller player in the social media market, the challenge will be how to make your offering relevant as a niche player.
Are there any changes or additions that you’d make to this chart? If so, what are they and why would you do so?
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
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Photo credit: jo-h via Flickr
