Google+ given major revamp in attempt to find a niche

Google hasn’t given up on Google+ yet

Importance: ★★★★ For Social Media Marketers

Recommended link: Google's announcement
A social network that failed at being social, Google+ is often the butt of jokes in the marketing community. Google built a capable platform that tried to do everything, but ended flopping because it didn’t fulfil a need. Google essentially admitted this earlier this year when they stopped Google+ from being a requirement for other Google accounts, removing it as a social layer unifying Google’s products.

But rather than giving up entirely on Google+, Google has decided to invest in a major redesign and shift its focus to some of the more popular features in the hope that this will give the network the unique selling point that it previously lacked.

The new look launched by Google yesterday is available now if you elect to opt-in, and offers a focus on two Google+ features which have been proving more popular than the platform overall: Communities and Collections.

Communities

Communities are online forums for discussions about a given interest. This is one feature of Google+ that is thriving, as they reportedly are receiving more than a million new sign-upsdaily. It provides a service that hasn’t quite been cornered by other social networks. Facebook has groups, but these tend not to be used this way, whilst LinkedIn groups used to work well for this be recent changes have diluted their effectiveness. Even if LinkedIn perfect groups, they will still only be for professional topics, leaving Google+ free to corner the market for discussions around general interest and entertainment topics.

Collections

Collections are a relatively new feature of Google+, having been introduced in May this year. Collections are designed to give people and brands a way to organised their posts into categories based on their topic. Google reports these have been growing quickly, and if they get a big boost from this Google+ change, then they could be an extremely effective tool for brands to market themselves.

New Design

The new homepage design is far less cluttered than it was previously, and as mentioned, communities and collections feature prominently, being top of the tab list. Google described the changes as so:

‘We’ve made it easier to find Communities and Collections in search, post to Communities and Collections and browse all your favorite content in a beautiful new home stream. The new web experience loads fast and works beautifully on the smallest mobile screens and the biggest desktop displays.’

It remains to be seen if these changes will breath some life into Google+, but it certainly is a positive sign for marketers looking to utilise the platform.

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