From Plus To Minus: The Death Of Google+

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When Google+ was launched in 2011, the idea was to create a formidable rival to take on Facebook, the undisputed Cinderella of social media platforms. But that shoe never did quite fit. In its 4-year lifespan, Google+ turned out to be the undesirable stepsister of social media – and her demise, it seems, is now imminent.

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Google recently announced a major strategic pivot for the ailing platform. Under the new system, a Google+ account will no longer be a prerequisite for using YouTube, or any other Google-owned site. This comes after months of what can only be described as a gradual dismantling of the ill-fated social network. Google has singled out and extracted the platform’s more popular features – with standalone Photo and Hangout spin-offs – and the remaining skeleton has just about been left for dead.

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Before the final nails go into the Google+ coffin, we should stop to ask: Why are we seeing yet another social platform bite the digital dust? There’s no single answer to the question. But the following three reasons go some way towards explaining where Google went wrong with Google+.

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1. If We Build It They Will (not necessarily) Come• In Hollywood, a farfetched idea like building a popular baseball diamond in a

remote cornfield in Iowa just might work. But reality operates a bit differently. In reality, the singular act of making or building something – whether it’s a baseball field or a social networking platform – provides no guarantee that people will use it.• In the case of Google+, we see that building a social media platform and filling a

social media platform are two very different challenges. For a social platform to succeed it must attract and nurture a critical mass of engaged, dynamic users – Google+ has not come close to meeting that challenge.

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• Recent statistics are especially grim. Earlier this year, Edward Mobius analysed Google+ activity for January 2015, finding that the platform is basically a ghost town.• There are about 2.2 billion Google+ profiles – but that’s only because, until the

recent pivot, the platform has been linked to Gmail, Google Drive, and all of Google’s other apps. The original goal of Google+ was to give users one identity across all of its services.• Do those billions of default profiles reflect a thriving platform? Definitely not.

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Closer inspection reveals that 91 percent of those 2.2 billion profiles don’t have any publicly posted content – nothing, nada, not a skerrick. Of the remaining 9 percent of profiles which did have any signs of life (that’s around 198 million users), the most recent activity for more than a third of users was a mere YouTube comment. When you whittle Google+ down to its core of active, public users – you are looking at somewhere between four and six million.To put that in context, Facebook recorded 968 million daily active users and 1.49 billion monthly active users on average in June. To say that the two platforms are in different leagues would be an understatement – Google+ is barely in the game.

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2. Innovation Beats Imitation• In the digital space, innovation underscores every success story. One of the first

and greatest missteps that Google took with Google+ was trying to fill a space in the market that was already occupied.• When the platform was launched, Facebook was already established as the major

player in the social mediasphere. Other newcomers – like Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest – found their points of difference and created new space in the market. But the new Google platform debuted as little more than a floundering and belated attempt to reinvent the wheel.

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• The motivation behind Google+ was a thinly veiled desire to keep up with the Joneses and build a presence in the social arena. But you can’t beat Facebook by copying Facebook. If Google+ was ever going to supplant or even compete with Facebook, its creators needed to innovate, not imitate. As Denning laments, they were trying to chase yesterday’s big thing, instead of inventing the future.

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3. Promoting From The Inside Out• Google employees would have to be the most potentially persuasive brand

ambassadors for Google+. The rationale is simple: before you can reasonably expect others to ‘love’ you, you must learn how to love yourself.• The most effective salespeople are those who genuinely love and believe in the

product they are selling. A seller who is an authentic evangelist for their product, and walks the talk, will have good cut-through. If you know that the guy trying to sell you a Lexus actually drives a BMW, his sales pitch is likely to ring hollow.

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• When Google+ first launched, a proud team of Google insiders championed the platform. Google head honcho Larry Page embraced the platform with open arms, posting 2-3 times per week for the first six months. In the year-to-date, he has only made 6 public posts. Google’s other Co-Founder Sergey Brin has mustered just one lonely post all year.• A similar level of disengagement can be seen at all levels within Google’s ranks.

That sends a very clear message to people, both inside and outside of the Google camp: The Google+ party is over.

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Thank You

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