You can throw a dart at your monitor showing Google Search results and hit a Google+ post (which I recommend you don’t do that unless you have a virtual dart). Actually, if you did throw a dart you probably would hit on an article written by so called ‘influencers’ about Google+ being less than what it really is. Ghost Town has been the most common reference they make to what these pundits of social media see Google+ being to them.
Of course they stirs up the G+ supports and rightfully so. Someone needs to show support to the worthiness of Google+…Google sure doesn’t seem to jump in to support it’s users.
But…wading in on what others say about Google+ is not what I wanted to talk about here. What I am bringing to you in todays blog has to do with what I am asked hundreds of times a month…. Why do I use Google+. It is that question I want to address in what I see value in Google+.
Clarity
I don’t want to go back and outline here all I have seen over the past 15 years of being on the internet. So to be brief, I have seen all of the online social networks from the very beginning of online social networking.
I was on Facebook before it was public. I was in the beta testing for Twitter. Over all this time I have been on (at last count) over 52 different type of online social networks. I have seen more social networks fail than succeed.
What I can say from all this time I have spent online is…. Google+ has one of the freshest and clearest user friendly interface format layouts of all.
Since the beginning, Google+ has been easy on the eyes. Outside of the overly used .gifs and autoawesomes, the G+ feed is a breeze to view. Much more organized than Facebook and a whole lot more comprehensive to understand than the Tweeter feed.
I mention Facebook and Tweeter only because Google+ is always being compared to being just like these two..which it isn’t.
Feature Heavy
One thing Google+ has that the other online social networks cannot touch is features. Google seemed to see from the beginning the need for other things to offer the user to do on G+.
Events, Hangouts, Communities, Business Pages, Photos all give users practical things to do or use. Now with Collections and the interface with YouTube there is no need to go far to find content.
Adding what I call the “Nine Pack”..the cube of nine dots at the upper right hand portion of Google+ top menu. (See below)
There you find all of the other awesome features or Google Products as they are commonly called. I use the “Google News” product to keep up on all of the things I find interesting. This product makes it easy to share with my ‘Plusser Posse’ the latest in all things awesome.
But this is just one of many aspects of G+ many people do not take the time to find out about. G+ is in fact very ‘Feature Heavy’.
Content Versital
I’ve already mentioned to people one of the reasons I use Google+ is due to the format and the ease of scanning the stream for content.
What many people are not aware of is how Google+ adjusts the content stream to the size of monitor. Goes from one column for those who live in the Facebook land of tunnel vision one column scanning, up to a three column layout for large desktops that allows for posts that contain more content or images to spread out for better and quicker viewing.
It is this content versatility that makes G+ a photographer’s heaven…even more so than Pinterest or Instagram.
Photo Friendly
Photos play a huge part in people’s lives and Google+ does a great job with how Photos are placed in the stream. I’m not a photographer so I can’t tell you all of the details on what exactly goes on when the images are posted on Google+, but I can say I am blown away with the quality of some of the photographs being posted.
The photo posting is probably the most underrated feature of Google+.
Video Heaven
There is a lot in the news media on videos and video marketing being what every business needs to have as part of their digital marketing strategy. Being in video marketing business I see all of these articles and find it very interesting how all of the sudden Facebook jumps on allowing videos to be posted in it’s stream.
Google+ has had the best video platform since the beginning and even with the naysayers who did not like G+ connected to YouTube, it was a brilliant feature. Even with YouTube and G+ now separated back to being different user bases, Google stilled kept the option for G+ to share YouTube videos to their G+ stream…and make comments that show in both spaces.
The YouTube video quality and user friendly interface will be hard..if not impossible..for Facebook to match. YouTube has a quality team of engineers with years of experience in knowing how to maximize the quality of videos and keep the stream clean of low quality videos. I am certain Google…or Alphabet…has both eyes on videos.
Since videos are the most viewed content by consumers you can bet Google is going to up it’s game to stay ahead of the other platforms.
Searchability
The biggest feature of Google+ that probably will never be matched by the other online social networks is the searchability of content posted in Google+ stream being immediately placed in the Google Search results.
This is particular feature of G+ goes over most people’s heads since most users only see the entire internet as being for ‘social’ only. They see the entire internet as nothing more than a place to talk about personal things…like what someone is wearing to class or who was at the party last night. Fortunately, how Google uses that information is exactly what consumers are looking for in the Google Search.
Here is how that works…when a consumer (yes, that is YOU) is wondering what others are saying about a red suit they saw in the men’s store they will immediately Google the name of the suit. If someone in Google+ was talking about wearing the red suit or seeing the red suit, that conversation will come up in the consumer’s search.
Yes,…it is just that simple and is nothing to be scared about…that is unless you were doing something in the red suit you didn’t want the entire world to see of which you shouldn’t have posted it in the first place.
The Internet is not just for you, or me. It is for everyone.
Nonetheless, content on G+ is immediately available to the search. So, if you have information you need to pass on to the entire word…Google+ is the place to be.
Business Friendly
This brings me up to the crust of the matter and to the point most people who use the internet have lost site. The internet may have originally been created for some sort of social experiment. However, what took place the next day after the internet was created dealt with answering the the steaming question the creators had which was…how the heck do we make any money with this toy so as to pay for all the stuff it took to create it?
Thus, came the need to make the internet business friendly. From the very beginning of the internet, and online social networking, the entire reason for enhancing the interface for humans to enjoy the internet more was all in an effort to make money. It was not to make talking to your grandmother over Gmail chat a lot of fun…of which it is but, I digress.
You have to realize businesses rule the social networks. Once you get through crying over the feeling you are being used, then you see that things are not that bad.
Realities
Actually, Google+ has by far the least presence of annoying advertisements making the content stream much more pleasant than the other networks.
This is not to say Google is not making money from Google+ directly. As I mentioned, Google makes money off of content it offers the consumer who Search Google. The more content they can shovel to the consumers the more the advertisers pay Google for shoveling it.
Again, what is the primary source Google get the content it shovels? Yes, that is right…Google+.
This also is why I say Google+ is the most Business Friendly of the social networks. If businesses were smart they would use G+ more. Why?
Google Can Work for Your Business
Businesses are out here on the internet to get their message about their product or service to YOU!
Since the other social networks throttle back commercial content posted on their platform it becomes a gamble to the businesses using those sites on if their content is getting seen by anyone.
On Google+, since all of the content….yes, ALL OF THE CONTENT….is immediately posted to the Google Search the message is immediately heard by more than just the people on Google+.
Where is the number two place 99% of consumers go to get information on a product or service?
Yes, it is Google Search that is now the 2nd choice for consumers….YouTube is now the 1st place consumers look..and who owns YouTube?
Gotta Use Google+
I think you can see where I am going with this. It is very foolish of businesses to completely ignore using Google+. Even more foolish for the leadership of those businesses to believe what their consultants are telling them of the worthlessness of Google+.
Fortunately, there are people like me who take business leaders by the hand (sometimes literally) to how the internet can work for them.
But…enough of this rant…my point here was to give you more information on why I use Google+. I think that now is clear. G+is not only an awesome place to be, it is the place to be for both social and business.
Hopefully, this has helped and thank you for getting this far in this very long winded run through on All Things Google. Maybe it will even change your mine on how you see and use the internet.
But more importantly, I hope it will get you to use G+ so I can have an opportunity to see the content you have to offer.
Until then…Let Me Know How I Can Help.
