Are you still trying to figure out where to spend your time online in 2014?
A huge point of debate lately has been whether your time is best spent on Facebook or Google Plus, so this post is an attempt to help you sort it out.
Each network offers unique benefits and drawbacks, and when it comes down to it, it’s a personal decision based on which you prefer and where your target market is most active.
Let’s jump in and take a look at the unique advantages of both Facebook and Google Plus
Unique advantages of Facebook
Bigger user base
With approximately 1.19 billion monthly active users, Facebook is still far and away the most used social network (compared to Google Plus’s 300 million active users).
This makes being on Facebook pretty much a necessity, regardless of how much you love Google Plus! I know, I know…many are complaining about the latest Facebook changes but, personally, I think it's too big of a marketplace to ignore.
Facebook Ads and Promoted Posts
If you are looking to have some paid reach on social media, Facebook wins hands down over Google Plus in this regard (that’s because Google Plus doesn’t offer paid ads YET – more on this below!).
If you have had success with promoted posts or paid ads on Facebook in the past, you will obviously want to continue using Facebook in this way. It is unclear whether Google Plus will ever offer comparable options, however with Google Plus only being a part of Google’s massive online portfolio, there is no reason Google would need to introduce paid advertising. That doesn't mean that they won't. In fact, it is rumored that they are in beta tests now for a Google Plus ads program.
Great for building personal relationships
Facebook still remains the #1 way for maintaining personal connections online. Â While Google Plus offers most of the same features, it seems many users still opt to use Facebook more for personal connections, and Google Plus more for building new business or professional relationships.
Unique advantages of Google Plus
While Google Plus’s user base is clearly not currently as large as Facebook’s, there are a number of reasons you will want to tackle the network in 2014, if you haven’t already.
For more detailed information about this, please see my post Why Google Plus is a Must for 2014.
SEO benefits
While Google has stated that links shared on Google Plus do not affect SEO, there are other ways in which being active on the social network does impact your organic search rankings.
For instance, if a user is following you on Google Plus and is logged in to their Google account, your site will be more likely to show up for them in the search engine results. This means that the more followers you have on Google Plus, the more organic search traffic you can likely expect.
Another way Google Plus can help your SEO efforts is that content created within Google Plus (posts, Hangouts, etc.) tend to rank highly in the search engine results.
Google Authorship
I have talked about Google Authorship before here on the blog. If you are not familiar with how Authorship works, see my post How to Set up Google Authorship for SEO.
Authorship means all your content from across the web is attributed to you, giving you and your site more credibility and clout. It also means your photo is displayed next to your content in the search engine results, increasing the likelihood of someone clicking through to your content.
Hangouts
If connecting via video with fans and colleagues is important to you, Google Plus offers the unique ability to connect in real time via Google Hangouts. While Facebook offers live chat with friends (as does Google Plus, by the way), it doesn’t offer anything comparable to Hangouts that incorporate live audio or video.
Circles
Circles are certainly a unique feature of Google Plus, and Facebook doesn’t really offer anything comparable.
Circles allow you to easily control who sees what content, and which content you see from connections who you have in your own circles. This allows for greater customization and personalization all around.
No Paid Advertising
With many Facebook users complaining about the annoying and intrusive ads on Facebook, Google Plus users currently don’t have to worry about this. This keeps the Google Plus interface clean and clear of all unnecessary clutter, which some find a key benefit to using Google Plus.
In terms of reaching out to new potential customers or clients, some businesses may find the lack of paid ads or promoted posts to be a drawback. Google Plus is built completely on organic reach, meaning businesses must rely entirely on producing high-quality content that gets shared organically (this can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it).
Google Dominates
Regardless of how you feel about Google Plus, it is important to realize the sheer power of the Google empire. Think about it…even if you don’t currently have a Google Plus page, you very likely have some kind of Google account: Gmail, a YouTube account, Google maps, etc., etc. Google is everywhere!
While we don’t know all the implications of having Google involved in virtually every aspect of our lives online, there is no doubt that Google is going to continue to dominate the virtual landscape.
And this means having a Google Plus page – even if you are going to keep using Facebook faithfully – is a smart move for business owners.
Where are you most active? Which network is giving you the best results for your business? Share below!
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5 thoughts on “Google Plus Versus Facebook in 2014”
Seem to be more advantages in this article for G+ than Facebook.. I still love G+ but rarely go there as none of my real life friends and family will ever be there.
I love Google and would like to take advantage of SEO for my website nap-sack.org which will be challenging Facebook. I just find it frustrating to find so many companies wanting so much just to get you good ranking. This to me is unfair.
Why is this unfair? They are in a service based business and that is what they do…trade their knowledge for a monetary reward. You can do much on your own without spending a penny.
Disagree wholeheartedly. It’s not the platform per se, it’s how you use it from a strategy standpoint. To state that only bloggers, marketers and webmasters are suited to Google+ and that the same can’t benefit from Facebook is a mis-statement and vice versa.