For many people, Google+ is an under-appreciated social media platform.
Yet, according to recent data assembled by Craig Smith for Digital Marketing Ramblings (and other sources):
- Google+ has about 350 million active monthly users.
- Google + has about 25 million active monthly mobile users.
- 22 percent of online adults visit Google+ at least once per month.
- There are 100 million Google+ users in China.
- On Google+, 53 percent of users’ brand interaction is positive.
As a result, it is valuable for us to understand how to utilize the Google+ Dashboard in our social media analysis.
Liz Jostes has written an excellent article with tips on the Google+ Dashboard for Social Media Examiner:
“Do you know how your Google+ business page is performing? Are you using Google+ My Business analytics? The Google+ Dashboard has greatly improved the analytics it offers for its platform. In this article, you’ll discover the Google+ Dashboard and the analytics included in each option.”
Click the image to learn more about the Google+ Dashboard.
Look, I run two businesses and Google is irrelevant to both of them. It wouldn’t matter even if I believed the statistics on use, but I don’t. The question to ask is how many users there are after subtracting those who only use mapping and directions. The other question to ask is how these figures relate to estimates that show online sales as less than 15% of total retail sales.
There are product categories that just don’t work online. Einstein bagel just closed a local store and still sends me messages and coupons. I just unsubscribed. OfficeDepot closed its local store and I unsubscribed there as well. I’m not going to pay shipping costs for paper, toner or office furniture, unless you’re going to give it to me for free.
Online is one sales channel among many. In most cases, it needs to be part of a portfolio but cannot be the centerpiece of that portfolio. In special cases, it can be the core channel (software, music, ebooks). In some cases it can’t be there at all.
I’m under the impression that companies that use Google+ do so mostly to enhance their search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Google gives priority placement on search results to companies that also use Google+ social media. Being active in Google+ helps businesses get in front of their audiences through higher rankings. Apparently, Google gives away valuable search placements to businesses in order to entice other businesses to join the Google network. I suspect that many companies maintain their Google+ page updated for the sake of good search engine placement, not necessarily for the other benefits, such as the detailed analytics it seems to provide. That’s why it gives me the impression it’s a compulsory choice and not a real option.
I find it very interesting that goggle plus is a big component of Google. Over the years Google has expanded significantly, it just started out as a search engine and now for it too have all these different applications is very impressive. I can personally say I probably use a lot of these applications often and Google is now one of the most recognizable brands. People are always wondering what they will do next, which further exemplifies that they are doing everything correct.
Google plus and social analytics are important marketing, I personally use google plus and used google hangouts for an interview once. I like the platform and feel as it will constantly keep growing as google itself grows. I am interested to see what innovations are added to plus in the future. Although google plus only has 25 million subscribers, it is a relatively new concept that I believe has a bright future ahead of. I believe that it will gain more than 350 million subscribers within the next 2 years. In sum, technology is starting to shape who we are.
Google+ looks a good analytic tool to help companies track more activities of their consumers and give instant feedback to them in the business page. Also add YouTube into the analysis extremely enhance this kind of ability, because videos are saw as the most effective channel to attract audiences in the future. Therefore, companies only need create right contents to the right consumers in all the platforms which could be tracked by Google+ analytic tools, and they will have more opportunities to make traffic in their pages to create more consumers’ data.