Could this survey predict Google+'s growth after a year?
Another social media trend and usage report surfaced early this month, when YouGov announced the results of the Bloomberg/YouGov joint survey which sampled over 1,000 adults within the US online adult population. A month after Google launched its latest social network, YouGov made an online survey from July 29, 2001-August 2,2011. The survey aims to gauge the repercussions and impact of Google+ across the social media arena and various social media community.
Google reported recently that 25 million accounts have made already that has industry pundits wonder if it's raking some engagement levels from Facebook and Twitter. Some of the reasons of Google's tremendous growth are real-time social sharing, a "more" open and public" network, and instant content curation. YouGov's Michael Yardis thinks that Google+ can be a threat to both social media giants.
According to the survey, 13% of adult Internet users in the US have Google+ accounts already with 9% planning to try Google+ in the next 12 months. Google+ is new, which is why it's not surprising if those who are signing up are spending more time there. Here are some figures:
• 45% of users report reading content once a day or more (only Facebook's 62% is higher among social networks) • 46% of Google+ users report creating content (e.g., creating updates; posting links) at least once a week. This is on par with Twitter (42%) - which focuses on easy content creation
As I've mentioned in a previous post, not all social networks are for everyone. The demographics of Google+ is different from social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook. As both networks "mature" as products such as Facebook now offering Facebook for Businesses, they tend to entice more professional and mature demographic. With Google+, early adopters are young, male, and educated. Are we seeing a trend here? Nardis says that Google+ is tracing a path quite similar to Facebook's initial growth through a core group of early adopters. Facebook started out with college students, while Google+'s trajectory are young and educated men who are heavy internet users. Here are some figures:
• 3 men for every 2 women (vs. 1 man for every 1.2 women on Facebook) • 43% of membership is 18-29 (vs. 31% for Facebook) • 59% has a college degree (vs. 37% for Facebook) • 48% are Single (vs. 33% of Facebook users)
While sign ups have been increasing, the steep launch trajectory made a number of early adopters to turn into early abandoners. Early joiners (31%) report that they ditched Google+ or have little engagement in it. But as Google+'s growth continues, it might impact Facebook usage, as 30% of Facebook users that have Google+ accounts are planning to reduce time spent on Facebook this year.
However, I still reckon that people aren't leaving their current social graphs in favor of new one. While some users will spend time on Google+, Facebook is backed by its 750 million user base and the impact of Google+ will be a mere nudge and won't be enough to rake major share of users.
Furthermore, Facebook is has been aggregating trending topics which merits engagement from a user's network. Sounds familiar? Well, this is the repercussion brought by the real-time search being junked by Google earlier this year. This is a simple survey that might give us a preview on how Google+ will fare soon, but the interesting part will be the big Google integration which will determine if Google+ can hold its own against Facebook.