Google+ Gains Popularity—may Reach 400+ Million By End Of Year

Google+ is proving naysayers are wrong. Google+ hit an all time high in traffic in December with over 49 million unique US visitors to the social network. The high was up 55% over the previous month. According to an article by Andrew Couts, DigitalTrends, “Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, who has kept a close watch on Google+ stats since its launch this past summer, estimates that Google+ now has more than 62 million users as of December 25. If the site can continue its current growth rate of 625,000 new users per day, Allen predicts the number of Google+ users could reach more than 100 million by the end of February, and over 400 million by the end of this year.”

Which is better, Google+ or Facebook? Google’s social media efforts in the form of Buzz, Wave and Orkut have failed thus far to touch Facebook’s monopoly. Google+ seems to be different, and poses more of threat to Facebook. However, for social networking, Facebook is still number one. But for businesses and marketers, Google+ has the advance over Facebook. According to an article on TopDog Social Media, “Facebook pages have been a staple to millions of brands and companies since it made its original debut. Over time, marketers and businesses alike have progressively begun to feel snubbed by the lack of exposure they get within their fans’ News Feeds as Facebook continues to favor posts from personal profiles over pages. Google, on the other hand, has received massive amounts of praise since it introduced Google+ Business Pages. It provides much more flexibility with how you can interact with brands by extending the Circles feature to incorporate business pages as well. This allows the user a bit more freedom in how they want to interact with you versus an algorithm solely deciding that for you.”

Google is growing by leaps and bounds. With a sort of slow start in June 2011, the growth has astounded everyone. Below is a graph of the growth trend for Google+ from June 2011 through December 2011. As you can see, Web analytics tracker Experian Hitwise's chart shows we should pay close attention to Google+. It is estimated that Google+ already has over 62 million users as of December 25, 2011.

For businesses, Google+ has the advantage over Facebook with search engine backing. Google is by far the leader for search engines. But Facebook could jeopardize Google’s online dominance by developing its own search capabilities. And so the battle continues in 2012. Who will be the victor? Most likely Facebook will prevail for social networking, as Facebook has already killed off most competitors already. But as far as businesses go, Google+ may just win out over Facebook. I have tried the Facebook ads and have much better return for my money with Google. And of course with organic searches, Google wins hands down.

By: CellPlaza

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