Social media loves big numbers. The excellent social media revolution video makes a great play of showing off just how quickly social media has grown and how many people use it each day. The individual social networks like to join in this game as well. Large user bases are attractive to both users and advertisers alike.
But how relevant are these numbers? The number of active users at Google+ has been under particular scrutiny after the Wall Street Journal labelled the network a ghost town after comScore data suggested users spend on average a few minutes on the site each month.
So news released yesterday that they have grown staggeringly well in the past month or so comes as something of a shock. What comes as even more of a shock is that according to Google I'm an active user of the social network. It should be said that I stated my dislike for the network pretty early on, and whilst I have a profile there it would be stretching it to call it an active one. But y'see, that in itself doesn't matter, because that's not how Google are defining an active user of Google+. I use YouTube alot whilst logged into G+. That makes me active. I use GMail whilst logged in. I use the Google search engine whilst logged in. All of these things apparently make me an active user of the Google+ social network, even though I haven't actually logged on to plus.google.com for some time.
Now of course everyone knows deep down that boasting about having a huge Twitter following or lots of Facebook fans is a waste of time, because the percentage of those people that actively engage with you regularly is much less than the headline figure. That's fair enough, but what Google are doing is worse than that because they are being a bit sneaky with what actually is a user. It begs the question if they have nothing to hide why they're being quite so slippery with their user figures.
I've written before that as marketers we should only be interested in the people that engage with us regularly. They're the key people, they're the ones that are going to make or break you. So don't fall into Google's trap of chasing big headline numbers because they matter as little for you as they do for Google.
Well said, Adi. The statistical game is one that always seems to get the headlines. Facebook will reach 1 billion fans! Twitter reached 500 million users! Google+ will have 400 million users by end of 2012! Ok, but so what? If people just spend 3 minutes per month on their G+ account, that says something about its lack of stickiness.
Now, if Google starts calculating time spent on Youtube, Gmail, Picasa and other related platforms as part of its G+ approach, indeed it puts into question the whole credibility for this kind of exercise. Will Facebook take into consideration time spent taking pictures via Instagram in their calculation? Not too serious, in my humble opinion.
Cheers,
Frederic
I think they're all as bad as each other Frederic. I believe in Facebook's IPO document they reveal that if someone signs into a site using Facebook connect, they're counted as an active Facebook user. Ditto if they like something on a third party site. Probably the bigger issue is whether they inflate their stats just to fool us outsiders or whether they're believing the stats internally as well.
I think that all these social networks are trying to outdo one another with their numbers. And Google of-course is worried about Facebook and FB search! Do you know, that if I do a keyword search to see how my article is ranking on Google, I first see the Google+ link to my post (since I always put my posts up on Google+). So they've bribed me into making sure that I always post my post (wow, that was a mouthful:)) on Google+ first. You bring up some good points. Numbers are least relevant because of the way they are twisted, but rankings are another matter altogether:)
I think that whole practice could land them in anti-trust difficulties to be honest.
It is weird how Google are being quite so evasive over user numbers. They really haven't sold Google+ to the public at all well.
Ooh I love this post! From reading this it reminds of how men compete with each other on how big their thing is. The bigger the better they say, but it's how you use it that really matters.
Google may have big numbers and be growing at a steady rate, but correct me if I'm wrong, I still don't see what the real benefit is there. People are joining just to see if it can be of use to them.
There are certainly benefits in terms of search engine rankings, but there is no real connectivity. It just doesn't feel like a community there yet.
lol, yes it does have an element of willy waving about it doesn't it. Very aptly put 🙂