Social media platforms really need to focus on niches and this has never been truer than with your latest social endeavour, Google+. I for one am seriously rooting for G+. I believe there is great potential there after using it for a couple of months, but I implore that you focus your brand, messaging and calls to action on one subset of the population. If you try to get everyone to join, most will ignore those welcome signs.
____________________A Quick Letter Diversion for some Background
For general readers, all social media platforms will inevitably face a key decision at the outset if they strategize properly. In other words, as the founders are sorting out who they want to appeal to, they will either consciously or subconsciously arrive at these three thoughts:
1.) Get as big as we possibly can as fast as we can [Ex: Aim for 50 million users within one year]. This is the least likely to succeed of these three, but when you're Google, well you know.
2.) Go public with an IPO. In my eyes, an IPO is more likely than item one especially with larger networks.
3.) Let's focus and refine the design on one niche audience and cultivate that online community. This is the most likely to succeed if done properly and assuming it's a social network that's in demand. The best part about item three is that this works with a multi-million dollar backed network, or with a start-up online community that needs some guidance!
Facebook is acutely aware they cannot compete with all the communities out there that are focused on one category or industry. I've said it before and I'll say it again, one website cannot be everything to everyone - no matter how many users they have!
The functionality of a social network becomes beautiful when it's built around one industry. An online fashion community has completely different functionalities than a restaurant review network because user actions each have a different result.
As some of you may have read, Facebook recently dropped Places functionality because they realized that their users do not fit into a check-in digital lifestyle. This speaks directly to what I've been saying for about a year now. Facebook is so big, they will need to re-focus if they hope to keep users and not become another MySpace. But this is not a letter to Facebook, so let's get back to G+.
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The Chief Marketing Officer blog posted a relatively scathing review of Google+, its challenges and design flaws. I can't count how many bloggers have called Google+ one giant echo chamber. I for one see your biggest challenge as the bait that you've created. Before going live with Google+, you tried to implement the +1 [PlusOne] button across the web. Unfortunately, this has set you up to go down a dangerous path for the survival of Google+. Now that it's out there, your plusOne has naturally pulled your project managers and G+ developers to doggedly pursue mass adoption, but I will state this explicitly, not everyone will join Google+, but that's ok!
So what can Google Project Managers and Developers do to prevent Google+ emptying out like people leaving a stadium muttering, "Well that was fun while it lasted". It's actually pretty simple, they need to look at who their users are, then re-focus the community brand on these current users and only implement functionalities [new or changes] for those user-groups. Some bloggers are inferring that most G+ users fall in the techie, early adopter and/or "sick of Facebook and want something new and shiny" categories.
The niche that you might focus on based on deep analytics might be different than the techie demographic. I have access to some public statistics, but not nearly as much as Google Scientists, plus that's what they're paid for! I deeply believe that you will set up a very successful long term social network, but that niche must be established then reinforced through Google messaging and branding. If done correctly, perhaps non-techies will slowly get converted and join later down the line when Facebook empties out like a stadium, who knows! All I'm saying is don't aim to get more users than Facebook, they are an exception. That's just about as big as you can be in terms of a social network before coming face to face with the challenges of growing into countries that you might not want to grow into. G+, You need to focus on who's in your community now and cultivate the room to be more welcoming.
I honestly never thought I'd be giving marketing advice to Google, but here I am. I'm staring straight at the future of online communities and I know deep down inside that niches are the new gold, and that goes both for marketing and communities. It's just taking longer for people to catch on to this fact. If Google+ attempts to appeal to everyone, it will go downhill and the "echo chamber" - that seems to be repeated more and more - will solidify. If you establish who is actually using your platform and who signed on early, then don't think you are doing a disservice to the rest of the world. They have not tried to get in for whatever reason. The one billion social media users out there are probably happy with staying in other social networks, so let them stay there and focus on who's in your community already.
I just really hope that Google at least catches on soon and saves their shiny new social network before it's too late.