When Google launched its social network Google+, back in June, within weeks the marketing blogs I follow were full of posts about it. Should you have a Google+ presence? What does Google+ offer to your business? And so on.
But where marketers might see an exciting new opportunity to demonstrate their worth, the rest of the world seems to have yawned. Google+ registered a couple of big spikes in interest: right after its launch; then again in early September, when it transitioned from its invitation-only beta to being open to anyone; and a third time in mid-October, when it began to offer business pages. In each case, after the spike came a big lull, as traffic either declined sharply or at best stagnated.
There’s lots of discussion out there about what’s going on. Some argue that Google+ is fatally flawed and has already squandered its chance to compete with Facebook. Certainly the history of Google’s ventures into social media bodes ill for Google+. (Raise your hand if you remember the annoyance of Buzz, merely a year ago.) Others claim that the great features of Google+ combined with its tight integration with the planet’s leading search engine make it an inevitable success.
We say: wait and see. So far there doesn’t seem to be any first-mover advantage to being on Google+, nor is it yet so pervasive that you must represent yourself there, as has become the case with Facebook. Google would certainly like you to believe that your search rankings will soon be dependent on your Google+ activity, and your marketer friends would like you to hire them to build you a Google+ page. But we don’t think you need to worry about it just yet. After all, there was a time not so long ago when “everyone” had to have a presence on Second Life.
You have an audience. You have customers. Speak to them where they are now, not where the hype says they might be next year. If six months from now Google+ really has taken Facebook to the woodshed, that’ll be the time to take action.
