The fastest growing social network in history (at least until the next one) is now officially Google+, which has grown to over 25 million visitors since its launch a mere 5 weeks ago, according to Reuters. The numbers include the 7.5-odd million who have visited from overseas (India, Canada, Brazil, France, Taiwan…). So thus far things are looking really good for Google’s latest foray into the social-networking universe.
On that particular point: rarely do we get to point out how right we were with a prognostication. But we feel justified in tweeting our success in that the MKCREATIVE blog predicted great things for Google+/Google Plus. Our egos are just as quickly checked, though, when we remember that the success we thought Google+ would enjoy might take a year or two to achieve – not a month.
Will it last?
The same Reuters report cautions us all about the meteoric rise of social networks: “MySpace grew to 25 million unique visitors in less than two years — faster than Facebook or Twitter. However, it’s lost a lot of visitors in the past year, comScore data show.”
Does Google+ have what it takes to continue to grow? Like many smarter pundits, we think the ease of implementing and managing “Circles” will be a huge draw to the network. Circles allow users to have easy control over who in your vast network gets what information. No need for the manager to see your pictures from the beach-side bar on your last vacation, eh?
What Facebook now has (a couple of years in development) are ways for businesses and organizations to develop Pages to present themselves casually yet professionally to the huge Facebook community, allowing the “Likes” to spread through various people’s networks within minutes.
Until Google+ develops similar features, institutions and nonprofits are not likely to add SM-development budgets to get on board – much less move t0 – Google+. But it seems a pretty easy guess to say that Google will develop such pages. Once charities and small businesses have the opportunities to group their followers in various circles (say: “Female customers,” “Sports enthusiasts,” and/or “Recent new donors”), they can tailor messages to each constituency with ease.
Oh, and then they can start up a video ‘Hangout‘ to draw people to their meetings, events, volunteer- or donation drives. Fair enough, MySpace broke records in rise and in fall. But Google+ is entering a more mature market with better-informed clients. So while the network’s developers are thus pressed to impress almost from the get-go, all the numbers say they have done just that.
