Complacency Spurs on Google+

After recently opening to the public, Google+ increased by 1,269 percent. With a recording of 50 million users, the social networking infant is on it's way to compete against established sites such as LinkedIn and MySpace.

Does this mean that Google+ will be the new Facebook within the future? This is all I hear from Google fanatics.

Even after three months of operation, no other social networking site has achieved 50 million users within such a short period. However, history has shown with other social products (like MySpace) that high levels of early growth  do not always prove a global dominance within the future. Also, after spending weeks in a beta status, this growth spurt may have occurred from the site being released for the public.


Graph Developed by Leon Haland

During the week of September 24th, 2011; Facebook was recorded in having over 1.8 billion visits while Google+ only had 15 million. Also, in a blog posted by atelier-seo, Zuckerberg reported that 4 billion digital media content are shared on Facebook every day while 1 billion is shared on Google+. This shows Google+ only shares 25 percent of what Facebook shares.

 When you do further number-crunching, Facebook and Google+ are nearly 7.5 years old and 3 months old, consecutively. If Google+ users share 25 percent of what Facebook users share within 1.11 percent of Facebook's lifespan then this new social site is a deep threat to Mark Zuckerberg.

Don't get me wrong, Google+ has an outstanding performance since its inception. But the future of the site is still complacent since it is a very young social network. The critical attribute is longevity and it will determine whether Google+ will sustain itself as a social network for the longhaul.

Why Social Media is NOT for all Businesses

I read an interesting article from Forbes writer Gene Marks about reasons why some businesses should not invest or get involved with social media. I couldn't imagine why businesses would not use it. However, Gene Marks discussed some interesting reasons based off a recent survey from Webs. In the survey, the following statistics were found:

1. 69 percent of business owners say they use social media at their companies.
2. Over 89 percent of businesses reported using Facebook.
3. However, 59.4 percent of those using social media feel that it has not met their expectations.

I found the last statistic shocking, so I conducted more research into this problem and discovered another interesting article by Stanford is Pushing Social called 4 Reasons Why Businesses Shouldn't Use Social Media.

Of the four reasons, the first one is the strongest: It's not where your customers and prospects are. This reason is relevant with Gene Marks business problem as he talks about his clients and their prospects.

“My clients sell things like two-sided polypropylene film, stainless steel coils and ridge ventilation solutions. Know anyone on Facebook looking for this stuff? Probably not.”

                                 

- Gene Marks

I surfed through Facebook communities and tweets in hopes of discovering stainless steel buyers and proving Marks wrong. However, he was right. Stainless steel customers and prospects are not on Facebook or Twitter. Which means they must be somewhere else, but where?

Businesses involved within the Oil, Steel and Construction industry find other ways to build their clients or customers such as referrals, trade associations and tradeshows like the Stainless Steel World Conference & Exhibition. For Marks, this is where his customers and prospects are.

It's easy to get caught up in the "social media bandwagon" since it is innovative, low-cost and is the new "sexy" trend in communication. But if your customers or prospects are not using it then social media is not for your business.