First, Google Plus has more users than you think. Yes, it pales in
comparison to Facebook — but so do most other social sites. Rather than
trust Google’s own user data, we decided to run our own survey. We asked
more than 60,000 US online adults which social sites they used — and
22% told us they visited Google Plus each month. That’s the same number
who told us they use Twitter, and more than told us they use LinkedIn,
Pinterest, or Instagram. That means you can build a real follower base
on Google Plus: On average, top brands have collected 90% as many fans
on Plus as on Twitter. (In fact, the brands we studied have more
followers on Google Plus than on YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram
combined.)
Second, and more importantly, Google Plus generates much more brand
engagement than you think. Recently we studied more than 3 million user
interactions with more than 2,500 brand posts on seven social networks.
The result? Brands’ Google Plus posts generated nearly as much
engagement per follower as their Facebook posts — and almost twice as
much engagement per follower as their Twitter posts.
