Marketing Handy

Google+ What the Data Really Says…

Large images are available here… http://bit.ly/GooglePlusDataPhotos  

The timeline of mentions:  Mashable ran a story with this timeline yesterday (it was from Sysomos so it looked a little different). I will get to it later in the posts but I have some issues with this data as being a good indicator for total mentions in the Social Media Space about Google+. 

There is something important to note, Google+ even if this is a measure is one of the most talked about websites in the world. In a future post Ill put the number of conversations in Context.

Lets talk about the data…

Q1: What social media sites are talking about Facebook, Twitter and Google+?

Google+ is being talked about most on Twitter and Forums. Facebook doesn’t register these conversations. No monitoring tool is currently tracking G+ internally so that data is a huge X factor. (This was only one day of Google data but its a good snapshot of where conversations are happening. The launch data (where we see the spike) skews to far in favor of twitter and distorts the total number of conversations.

Twitter is talked about mostly on Twitter. As a matter of fact Twitter is almost exclusively talked about on Twitter. This data should already give pause about the simple timeline at the start of this post. No one is measuring G+ internally, Twitter is talked about on Twitter almost exclusively so the timeline is likely missing a huge number of conversations. Larry Page stated in his end of quarter address that Google+ already has over 2 Billion posts. This graph shows data for the last 30 days.

Facebook is talked about on Twitter a lot, but Facebook is also talked about a lot on Facebook (more than any other social network). Keep in mind this data only represents between 25% to 50% of total Facebook users because the data must be public to be indexed. If you haven’t figured it out yet, this also says something about how bad a straight timeline measurement is for mentions since Google+ is a unknown.

Up Next Normalized timelines…. 

If you start a timeline on the day Google+ actually launched and you factor out posts on Facebook and Twitter… The timeline will look like this. 

 Look how close these graphs get and look what happens to Twitter when posts on Facebook and Twitter are removed from the equation… If you have been paying attention this is not a shock. Social Networks talk about themselves when you make an even playing field these things sort out. I would argue that this is a possible gauge of how the user Market share will look like by early Q4. *Don’t expect Google to stay in 3rd place for long.*

For fun lets look at what happens when only Facebook and Twitter are used in timelines…

Facebook’s Timeline 

Twitter’s Timeline

Up Next: How do users feel about the networks… 

First Google+ 

 Google + people love it or hate it that seems to be the trend at least. Of the posts ranked for sentimentality Google did really well. Positive feed back ringing in at 63%, when this data is normalized (meaning networks that talk about themselves not included)  Google is by far the most liked network.

No Shock here when all networks are used Twitter is the benchmark. They have more positive feedback than any other network. The normalized view is a little different..

Normalized data (meaning twitter excluded from talking about itself) speaks very well for Google + when comparing it to Twitter. However Twitter has a significant percentage of of positive feedback. Now lets look at the big guy… Facebook…

Facebook had by far the worst sentimentality rank. However there is a large group that love this network. It looks as though half of all users (based on data) are up for grabs. When data is normalized the network has a significant number of detractors…. more than any other network by far. 

Facebook the most populous network on the web is the most disliked according to this data set. 

So what does all this mean… 

1. It means Google+ is going to be a major network and brands shouldn’t ignore it.
2. You can assume several users of Facebook and Twitter will make Google+ their new Social Media home.
3. It is highly probable that all three networks will exist simultaneously…. 

One bonus graphic for you Tumblr users…

Thanks to syndication (people forwarding posts to other social networks) Tumblr is the most mentioned Social network on the web…