Opinions about Google+ differ a lot. Some love it because of all the interaction they are getting there (more comments), others have lost interest all together. Fact is that as a social network it still has a long way to go.
But if you did lose interest because your feed kept showing the same people and you figured others would have lost interest too, you might be wrong. Experian Hitwise, who always checks the numbers, reported a few days ago that Google+ is not suffering at all. On the contrary, at least in the US. The month December 2011 was the “biggest month to date” for Google+.
Hitwise says December saw an increase of no less than 55% increase over November 2011. This would indicate the huge growth is back.
Why December was such a good month is a guessing game. Maybe its because Google really pushed Google+ in all different ways they can, maybe some updates on the mobile front helped interaction. Or maybe it was the integration of Google+ into other products like search which pushed traffic.
Now beware: traffic doesn’t tell us everything. Many tend to think that more traffic means success. There might be more traffic to Google+, that doesn’t mean it is actually used more than before. It could be people checking out the service, or less people making more use of the service. These numbers do not ‘tell all’.
Still, Google+ will continue to be a discussion trigger for marketeers in 2012. Should we or should we not use it. My personal thought is that even though as a social network it has a long way to go. It will be very dominant in what Google is doing. So you better not ignore it.
