Google+ vs Facebook

Today there is a very strong need to communicate. People want to be heard and hence Facebook, the world's most used and loved website till now is also the world's third most populous country! It is quite an achievement. With the entry of Google+, things have now heated up. People who think "Here comes Google on the Offensive", well they never backed down! Remember Orkut and Buzz. After two failed shots, Google seems to have finally got the formula right. Although Orkut was a hit initially, the advent of Facebook took the game to a whole different level and made the former out of vogue.

Google+ ingeniously integrates the best of the two worlds Facebook and Twitter. The interface seems similar to Facebook. However powerful innovations such as Circles give you an option of categorizing people in different circles and accordingly decide the content you would like to share with them. With the "Follow" option it has replicated a model similar to Twitter, but ends up offering so much more, as it takes it beyond the 140 character limit. You can now not only follow updates from people who interest you, but also share content with your friends on the same platform.  Something that Google is relying on heavily is its privacy settings. There have been some issues with Facebook privacy settings over the past few years. The functionality of tailor making your own privacy settings does not quite exist in Facebook. It sways between the extremes as in certain cases you have to make a difficult choice of either sharing your content or not.

Google+ gives you a lot more flexibility for each upload and thereby much more power in our hands. These greater privileges definitely draws us all towards Google+. But lets hang on a bit here and analyse as to why Facebook has been such a success. Every user today on Facebook, who has been active on his account for even a couple of years, has more than 200 hundred friends. We can safely assume that not all of these people would be in touch with the user on a regular basis. In certain cases the user might have just shared oxygen with some of the people on his list. However, this does not stop us from being curious about what is happening in each of their lives. Therefore, everytime there is a picture album uploaded by someone we have not been in touch with, we might still get interested to see them. The point that I am driving over here which we might not very consciously realise is that Facebook might be so "Happening" because there is a lot happening at any given point. It gets us hooked on because we get an opportunity to peek into peoples lives who might just be acquaintances.

This ensures that whenever we log onto Facebook there is something happening to keep us engaged with that medium.

BRAND BUSINESS

What does this mean for brands who have been upping the ante on this medium. Well for one, it gives the brands one additional platform to connect with their consumers. It is important for brands to realise that they do not need to priortise one over another. Google+ has not quite dished out what they would be offering to brands and the advertising world. A year later, I see these two mamoths pretty much head to head. Google+ currently has about 25 million users, a feat which took Facebook about 3 years to achieve. I would say for brands this is a win-win, as they are provided more outlets to connect with their consumer. 



All in all social media marketing is the next big thing. It is difficult to predict whether it will ever develop as a stand alone medium to connect with consumers. One needs to come out with innovative, out-of-the-box ideas to garner eyeballs in this medium. However, if used well brands have a lot to gain.


So as of now Google seems to be doing everything right with Google+. Facebook is not quite going to take a backseat when this happens. As a spectator, I am very excited to see how this war ensues.