Comments are circulating:
- “I just can’t manage another social network.”
- “Who needs more Facebook?”
- “Google+ will never replace a social network that has more than 800 million users!”
I too am skeptical that Google+ can attain the same broad reach that Facebook enjoys as a social network. However, what I did not realize is that the critics of Google+ as a social network are actually barking up the wrong tree. The fact is that Google+ is not trying to be Facebook – it just wants to be Google+, and it almost already has you as a participant without you even knowing it.
How many times did you refer to Google Maps this week? How many times have you checked your Gmail account today? How many Youtube videos have you streamed in the past week? How many Documents, Spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations are you currently sharing in the Google platform right now?
If you had an answer other than “zero” to any of the above questions, then you are an ideal Google+ target.
The idea behind Google+ is not a social network. Rather, it is a way to integrate all your Google services into one profile, one username, and one identity. Google+ aims to link all your Google-related online activity, thereby making it easier for a huge number of users to simply start using the other Google services they have not yet engaged without the cumbersome account sign-up, password management, and multiple identities when subscribing to new web-based networks and services.
Rolling all your Google-based services into one entity is just the beginning of the Google+ growth. Once your business begins to understand the increased visibility in a search engine by using Google+, many will start finding reasons to be a Google+ subscriber – and from what I’ve read here, and here, and numerous other articles, it seems as though many people already have a very good reason.
