Google claims 170m Google+ users but other reports have said it is a ghost town, so what is the truth? New findings appear to confirm the latter – despite its large number of accounts the platform is bottom of the list of social network users’ favoured channels.
Social media agency Umpf analysed 100 random online entertainment, health, business, technology and general news stories and looked at how many times each story was shared by Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter users.
The findings show Twitter as the most active social network for sharing stories, followed by Facebook in second, LinkedIn third and Google+ last:
1. For every 100million users of Twitter, 197.3 people were likely to share an online story
2. For every 100million users of Facebook, 41.8 people were likely to share an online story
3. For every 100million users of LinkedIn, 15.2 people were likely to share an online story
4. For every 100million users of Google+, 6.0 people were likely to share an online story
Whilst Google+ is the second largest of the four in terms of official users, and despite it arguably being the best placed of all four to succeed – it was created by Google post-Twitter, post-Facebook and post-LinkedIn, and designed to be the most socially-integrated network (“Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”) – it performs the worst.
Jon Priestley, of PR and Social Media agency Umpf, said: “Our findings clearly show a gulf between Google+ user numbers and their willingness to share online content, particularly when compared to rival platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
“Whilst posting meteoric increases in user numbers since its launch barely a year ago in June 2011, levels of sharing have failed to match this growth and in spite of Google’s claims that the platform would be the cure to online sharing, it seems to be anything but.
“Whether or not this lack of social sharing is down to dormant accounts, user apathy or counter-intuitive functionality remains to be seen. One thing is certain, though; Google+ is not hitting the targets its set out to achieve and has not gained ground on its rivals as a place where social sharing characterises user activity.”
Methodology
For more information and infographic of the survey results, click here
User statistics for each channel taken from each channel’s official blog:
901,000,000 Facebook users
170,000,000 Google+ users
161,000,000 LinkedIn users
140,000,000 Twitter users
Research compiled and data analysed pre Facebook’s 26 July 2012 user update from 901m to 955m
