5 Reasons to Join Google+

It’s now been a little over a year and if you haven’t already created a Google+ account you probably are now considering it. There has been a lot of talk about Google+ and for good reason. To help you with that decision I am going to give you five reasons to make the move to Google+.

Circles

One of my favorite features about Google+ is their “circles.” Unlike Facebook where everybody is your “friend,” Google allows you to categorize those you associate with into circles. I can have my family in one circle, my close friends in another, and those I simply just want to follow in another. What does this mean? I now can make a post and pick which circles (or individuals) will see my post. Yes, I know, Facebook originally created this concept. However, Facebook has done a horrible job at marketing the feature and it is not anywhere near as user friendly.

The other reason I love circles so much is because it allows me to run two lifestyles on one profile. For example, I being an SEO analyst, publish a lot of SEO/technology content on my Google+. I publish my professional content to the public so anybody who follows me can view it, but I still want to use Google+ as me; the guy who loves his wife and family and wants to share personal experiences and photos with friends and family. I don’t want the public to see that content, and I’m sure the public could care less about a cool vacation I took last week. With circles I can easily tag my posts/photos to ONLY go to my family and friends circles.

Hangouts

Remember Facebook Chat? Do you know why it died? Because people kept adding so many “friends” they eventually started adding people they wanted to ignore, so they went “invisible” to avoid them. Eventually majority of Facebook users were going “invisible” because they all had “friends” that they didn’t want to chat with. So Facebook Chat died and everybody went back to texting. Google+ Hangouts changes all of that. Now you and your family, friends, co-workers, or even followers can meet up in a live video chat room and simultaneously talk and share content with each other as if you are in the same room. More and more businesses are using it for interviewing, team meetings, and conference calls to clients. This feature is a winner and I am shocked Facebook hasn’t even tried to do video yet. Will somebody please tell them it’s 2012! 

Pages

Pages for your brand’s fans are nothing new to the web. Facebook has had pages for a long time and they have done a fantastic job with them. However, with the recent need to monetize their website even further, Facebook has cut into the user experience in order to make a few extra bucks. Page owners on Facebook now only reach 10-16% of their audience when they make a post. It’s not like Twitter where only a small percentage of your fans are online when you make a post. Facebook now purposely does not show your post to 84-90% of people who agreed to see your posts. In order to reach your full audience you now have to fork out money to Facebook and “promote” your post. I can see promoting a post to reach a new audience, but having to pay money to allow people who already expressed that they want to see your crap on their wall? That’s the death of Facebook. Put simply, Google+ doesn’t do that, because they aren’t desperate for cash and won’t be for a long time (if ever). Oh, and Google+ Hangout’s gives you the ability to “hangout” with your page’s fans. Think of the possibilities that opens up.

It’s Google

The sheer fact that Google is behind this social network tells us two things. 1) It’s going to be around for a long time. 2) Just like all of their products/services it’s going to be smooth, innovative, and flat out awesome. Odds are you already have a Gmail account, so why not keep your social networking on the same great platform you are keeping your mail, calendar events, and documents? Not to mention they have a monopoly on the search engine market which gives them (and you) a big advantage in getting noticed. Google’s ultimate goal is to have everything you do on the web through them. It’s the socialism of the internet. I’m no socialist, but if they keep putting out great services like Google+ I might just make an exception for them.

Smart Homepage

None of this “wall” crap goes on at Google+. They call it what it is– a damn homepage. Did you ever stop to think how ridiculous you sound to the outside world when people hear you talking about how you read a great article at home on your wall? You sound like a fool who doesn’t get out much. The homepage of Google+ not only shows you the latest posts of the people and pages you follow but it slips in extra content it knows you’ll love. Ever notice how all the ads all over the web happen to relate to what you search for and do on the internet? Google uses that same technology when adding extra content on your wall. So now you can stay on top of what is going on in your friends lives as well as the outside world.

If these five reasons haven’t convinced you to join Google+ then I don’t know what will. If your concern is the number of people on Google+ vs. Facebook all I have to say is just be patient. The better products always win in the end. If you have any comments please let me know in the comment section down below!

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Brandon Hassler

Senior Account Manager at 97th Floor

Brandon Hassler is a Senior Account Manager at 97th Floor. He currently assists brands in elevating their web presence and is always looking for ways to learn more and innovate the industry.

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