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Permalink Reply by Tracy Playle on June 26, 2012 at 16:42

Many thanks for sharing and emphasising this Sam. It's an interesting state of affairs with Google+ at the moment. It doesn't really seem to be gaining a great amount of traction right now from a user perspective, but you are absolutely right about its importance to search (specifically Google search, of course). It can also help people think more about a move towards more segmented content engagement, which is absolutely critical (whether done through G+ or other sites) to effective engagement through social media. 

For those getting started with Google+ pages, edSocialMedia have a useful guide and webinar published in November last year to help education organisations think about this. 

Permalink Reply by Sam Schofield on June 27, 2012 at 10:45

I totally agree that Google+ isn't gaining a great deal of traction at the moment. From the blogs and reports I've read, it seems businesses and individuals are creating accounts but spending very little time on the site and creating very few posts, compared with Facebook, Twitter and most other social networks.

Here's an interesting graphic I just found on www.businessreviewusa.com. As you'll see, Google+ is still trailing far behind the others (and these stats were taken in January this year, apparently). (I have to admit, I'm slightly shocked to see Myspace still eating up on average 8 minutes of a user's time.)

However, Google is not to be underestimated. It is a giant. In June last year, the media went crazy for the latest stats, revealing that Google had reached a milestone of 1billion unique visitors a month. (Here's the Telegraph's story.) Google is finding new and innovative ways to integrate it's social network into its other tools/websites, including the previously mentioned search changes, which will drive up traffic and time spent on the site. I can't see it going away anytime soon.