Who’s the top dog when it comes to social media marketing?
Well, most people would probably plump for the usual suspects – Facebook and Twitter. However, according to a recent survey Google+ is waiting to be crowned the champion of champions in the very near future. A study by SearchMetrics suggests that by 2016 Google+ sharing will overtake Facebook. However, it perhaps isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds: the study didn’t really compare like with like, so its conclusions are a little misleading. The study compared +1 clicks on Google+ with ‘shares’ on Facebook. Had it actually compared Facebook ‘likes’ to +1 clicks, or Facebook ‘shares’ to Google+ ‘shares’ the conclusion would have been entirely different. So who really is the king of the castle in social media? Which platform should your internet marketing business be targeting?
Well, according to another study by Gigya, it’s certainly not Google+.
The study found that in the second quarter of 2013 (April – June), only 2% of social sharing took place on Google+. That figure is dwarfed by social sharing on other platforms during the same period, where Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest ruled supreme. As you would expect, Facebook is the dominant player in the market, but Twitter and Pinterest are also driving large amounts of social sharing. Overall Facebook attracts an audience of 50%, Twitter 24%, Pinterest 16%, LinkedIn 3%, whereas Google+ attracts a lowly 2%.
In terms of media/publishing sharing, Facebook is king with 52% of the market. Twitter attracts an audience of 23%, Pinterest 18%, LinkedIn 3%, with Google+ attracting just 2%. If those figures are surprising, then consider these. In terms of e-commerce sharing, Pinterest reigns supreme with an audience of 41%: that’s 4 per cent more than Facebook. Twitter attracts an audience of 17%, Google+ 2% and LinkedIn a lowly 1%.
How does Google explain these poor figures?
Well, they rationalise them by saying that most sharing on Google+ happens privately, and that this makes this sharing invisible to data crawling. Is that really the case, and does it paint the full picture? Well, it’s difficult to say. All that you can say with any sort of conviction is that very few people are choosing to share content of Google+, and that should be worrying for businesses. If businesses want to share content with their audiences, then the lesson would appear to be it’s probably best to share it on other social media channel.
