My self-imposed break from Facebook and Twitter is over.

As part of a one man (not so social) experiment, for the last week I haven’t logged in to either social platform as I endeavoured to become a Google+ convert.  To be honest, this little experiment was long overdue having ‘upgraded’ (current Google users don’t ‘join, but upgrade to G+) when it first launched, but never done anything with my ‘account’.

So, spurred on by reading about Google+ undergoing a revamp and boasting of its 170m users, I decided it was time to see what it was all about.

Whilst I understand (and Google later reiterated to me in person) that G+ isn’t supposed to be a like for like replacement for Facebook or Twitter, I felt the best way to truly appreciate what the platform could offer would be to give it my exclusive “social attention”.  

I chose to treat using G+ as any other punter would (as opposed to scrutinising it as a Digital Planner might) and to be honest the first few days passed without incident – literally.  Given that only a handful of my friends outside of work are on G+, my ‘stream’ remained unchanged.  Ok, so Mashable and Richard Branson had plenty to say – but to be honest that isn’t what I want in my personal social space.

I asked people in my ‘circles’ if anyone else was using Google+ “No – I don’t get it” and “Yes, but only because you sent me a message” came 2 responses.  I was starting to feel a little isolated and was wondering what has happening on Facebook.

As the experiment went into days 3 and 4, what did become apparent was how engrained the other social platforms had become into the social ecosystem.  I felt like I was cheating on Google when I checked my LinkedIn account to be confronted with Twitter updates from my contacts and everywhere I went I was being asked to ‘share this on Facebook’, or ‘login in using Facebook’ – but I couldn’t.

By chance on the 5^th day of the experiment I was at an industry conference where a guy called Kerem Atasoy  (+kerem atasoy) spoke about how Google+ can be used by retailers and to be honest he did very little to convince me that Google’s dabble in the social world is going to be the soaring a success.  I collared Kerem at the end of the conference and outlined how I had been solely using Google+ for the past few days and asked if he could tell me how many other people in the UK only were using it – “Only Larry (The Lamb? Grayson?) knows that” was the response.  (Out of interest Kerem himself has only posted on Google+ 3 times in the last 3 months).

My interest was waning and I found myself digesting more than my average amount of daily digital news as I found that this (outside of a handful of brand pages) was the only real content I could find of interest.  Yes, a lot of big (and some smaller) brands (H&M, Burberry, Intel, Manchester United) have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, have lots of people in their circles and appear to be making a fair fist of things – but it felt very much as if I was an outsider looking in, rather than it being the social/interactive platform I was hoping for.

Many of these brands have gone to great lengths to make some really attractive looking pages and update regularly, giving those people that are interested much to digest – but at the moment it just isn’t mainstream enough to be of interest to the mainstream – clearly seen by the lack of responses to most posts.

In summary, Google will be the first to admit they are behind the curve when it comes to social.  Facebook and Twitter stole a march on them some time ago and they are now trying to play catch up.

Whilst Google+ has some nice features (Circles and Hangouts especially), I think they are going to struggle to compete with Facebook and become a social media tool that is used by the masses.  The current awareness campaign they are running may help turn a few heads and increase uptake amongst a few (hundred?) thousand of the more curious and tech savvy amongst us but I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to being as widely used as Facebook.

Admittedly for fans (and employees) of Google, G+ does help close the loop on their many product extensions but in my view it just feels a bit too complicated for the average online user – there is too much for people to get their heads around and I think this counts against it.  If you look at how simple other social platforms are to set up, understand and use, it just feels that Google have overcooked it a bit.

For brands that have the know-how and budgets, it is bound offer rewards if it is managed properly  – as no doubt Google+ brand pages will rank better in natural search and see other social platforms slide down into oblivion and it may well be this fact that many brands will consider when looking at their brand pages.  But on the flipside, this is yet another social platform that requires upkeep and moderation – putting extra pressure on all but the most socially active and well-resourced brands.

I’d like to say that I will continue to use Google+, but until less of the digital pluralists and more of my friends and the brands I am interested in are signed up – I won’t be.

Feel free to see what I don’t get up to :- +john kimbell

Useful links :-

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/hm-google-plus-brand-pages/

http://on.mash.to/xWVjIb

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/google_is_fiddling_with_the_google_plus_stats/