8 Features that Make Google+ Better than Facebook and Twitter
Numbers can tell a story. As of December 2011, Facebook had 845 million monthly active users. As of September 2011, Twitter had 100 million active users. As of January 2012, Google+ had more than 90 million users.
Facebook and Twitter reached those numbers in years. Google+ reached the 90 million mark in less than 7 months despite accepting only invited members when it launched. These statistics give you a feel for how quickly Google+ has become a force in the social media sphere.
There are reasons that set Google+ apart from Facebook and Twitter. We’ll look at 8 of them in this article.
I’ve picked up on only those points that seemed most important to me, your list may differ. Please leave a comment if there is a Google+ feature that excites you.
1. Your Google+ Activity Affects and Shows in Google’s Search Results
Brian Clark says “Google+ is Google… period.”
Gmail, Google docs, Google Chrome, Blogger – all came later. The idea that gave birth to Google was search. Google+ is designed to provide maximum advantage to the giant search engine Google. Google+ supplements Google.
Although it’s true that your business’s Facebook and Twitter activity will also count towards your Google’s search rank (for example. Google’s spiders consider the number of tweets and Facebook shares your articles receive) but some of your Google+ activity will actually be displayed in the search results.
For example, Darren Rowse’s wonderful blog ProBlogger ranked fourth in search results when searching for the keyword “blogging”. The search result included a link to his Google+ profile and also displayed the number of people (76,288) who have circled him (or follow him) on Google+.
I’ve scratched only the surface here. I strongly recommend the following article from Social Media Examiner – 5 Ways to Use Google+ to Improve Search Engine Optimization.
Every serious businessman who has been avoiding Google+ should read the above article.
2. Hangout
You might have heard news that President Obama used Google+ hangout to answer people’s questions live on YouTube.
Basically, Hangout is just a group video chat. Twitter does not support any video chat. Facebook does but whenever you wish to do a video chat there, you must notify people in advance and they must be added in your profile.
Hangout takes this technology a step ahead.
Suppose I find the above post in my stream. I like it so much that I don’t want to discuss it in the comments below. Instead I want to do a live video chat with anyone who is interested in discussing the same thing. Clicking the “Hang out” link will take me to a special video chat room designed only for me and others like me who are interested in doing a video discussion on the same topic.
An automated message will be posted in the comments below the post, which will notify people that I’m hanging out and anybody can join me.
3. Watch YouTube Videos as You Surf Google+
The small YouTube icon at the top right of the page is given for a good enough reason. Hover on it and it spreads into a search bar. Punch in some keywords and the topmost video result from YouTube begins to play in a new window which opens on the same page of Google+.
For example, I punched in the word “writing” in the search bar and hit enter. Below is the screen shot of the result.
As you can see in the image above, the look of the YouTube content of this window is not exactly the same as the YouTube home page. This window has been specially designed for Google+. This is more or less analogous to a smart phone app.
This window can be resized, completely minimized (in case you want to hear only the audio), or placed anywhere on the screen as per your wishes.
Facebook and Twitter both do not have any such options.
4. You May Edit Published Posts
Suppose I make the following flawed post on my Google+ profile.
When a concerned follower informs me that I’ve made some errors in the post then I don’t need to delete the complete thing and type over again.
I only need to click the options menu – the small arrow icon in the top right – and then choose “Edit this post”.
This opens up the post for editing.
I can now make the necessary corrections and then click “Save”.
My old post is now edited.
This option proves to be of great help when you have to edit a post with lots of characters and tons of media.
Facebook and Twitter both have no options to edit a published post or tweet. You’ll have to delete it and write all the material again if you want to change even a comma into a full stop. Not only is it time consuming and frustrating, but it also changes the sequence of things.
I mean, suppose you find that a post (or a tweet) that you made two months ago is flawed. Deleting and re-writing it will make it appear in your latest feed. This can be very confusing for your followers.
5. Complete Control on Comments and Shares
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, posts on Google+ can be individually monitored. You can control individual posts as to which of them can receive comments and which of them cannot.
Click the options menu and then click “Disable comments” in the posts on which you do not wish to receive comments.
Similarly you are in total control as to which of your posts can be shared by others and which of them cannot.
Click options and then click “Lock this post”. This will disable anyone from sharing that post with their circles.
Both these options can be undone later.
6. Unlimited Characters Allowed in Updates
Everybody knows about the 140 character limit of Twitter.
Few know about the 63,206 character limit of Facebook. Try to post anything larger than 63,206 characters in your status. You’ll get an error message as shown below.
Google+ on the other hand has no character limit for status updates. So if you have a really long post you should choose to publish it on your Google+ profile.
7. Narrow Down Trends
Trends is a list of some of the most popular topics which people are discussing on the website.
Facebook has no such feature.
Twitter has this feature, but when you click on a Trend, you are taken to a list of all the related tweets. Also, those tweets are arranged with respect to the time when they were posted – newest first – and not with respect to quality. Searching for what you want there can be frustrating.
In Google+ Trends, you can narrow down the search results of Trending posts through several ways.
For example, when I was writing this post the keyword “Syria” was leading the Trends. I clicked on it and that lead me to a page, part of whose screenshot is shown below.
The options encompassed in red rectangles above, enable you to pinpoint your search results.
You can search only for the best results of Trends, search only for hangouts in Trends, search only for people and pages, search results from only your circles, or search via location.
8. Instagram like Software to Edit Images
Facebook and Twitter have almost no options to edit your uploaded images. At the most you may crop some edges and choose the size of the thumbnail visibility.
Google+ enables you to edit your images with far better capabilities.
Google+ has a full fledged photo editing software named Picnik which is not too different from Instagram. This software enables you to edit and get desired results on your images even if you don’t have photo editing software installed on your PC.
Let me show you an example.
Go to Photos section and then click “Your albums”. (Note – You can upload images by clicking on some other options too). Click on the “UPLOAD NEW PHOTOS” tab at the top-right of the screen and upload the required image/images.
Hover your arrow on the image and click the edit icon.
As shown above, the image is now opened for editing. As you can see, there are several options to change the look of your image.
I selected the “Effects” tab.
After selecting “Effects” the left sidebar changes as shown above. Then I selected the “Green Fade” and you can see how the image changed.
There are many more photo editing options contained inside, which you can explore further.
Google+, Facebook, Twitter, or All Three
Do note that whether Google+ is better than Facebook and Twitter will depend on your needs. Each of these popular social media apps have features that make it valuable to freelancers and small business owners. It’s important to develop a social media strategy that fits your business.
There is no one correct answer to the question that “Out of Google+, Facebook and Twitter – which is the best?” The answer will vary from individual to individual depending upon his needs and requirements. And you’ll likely use all three of them for various purposes.
In this article we’ve talked about 8 features that help Google+ score better marks in the above mentioned categories. There are surely other features where Facebook and Twitter will rank better than Google+.
I would love to know which is your favorite social media app? As well as your favorite features? Leave a comment below and participate in the discussion.
Icon Design credit: Some rights reserved by Sean McCabe.
Leave a Comment
it’s G+ and twitter for me. i just wish i could easily cross-post from twitter to G+… i can go from G+ to twitter with services like ManageFlitter, but i can’t go in reverse that i know of. such a pain.
Hi Mr. Franko. Thank you for the comment.
Unfortunately I too do not know of any such services that will update Google+ from Twitter but I’m sure there will be some.
I’d recommend that do not use such services until you are really out of time.
I wrote an article on my blog about the disadvantages (and a few advantages) of integrating Twitter and Facebook. Some of those points may be relevant to you – http://www.writeregion.com/2011/11/facebook-and-twitter.html
Thanks for this post Farhan. I feel like I have a much better understanding of Google+ now.
You are most welcome Ms. Brooks. Thanks so much for the appreciation.
Hi. My favorite is Twitter+Linkedin+blog to 2B2 commerce, Facebook+blog to B2C commerce.
In Spain, where I live, google+ only is useful to SEO. Nobody uses it. (And still very few and techies Pinterest)
Great work
Thanks for the comment.
SEO is extremely important. It is the second most popular online activity after using email as per this article of Search Engine Land. – http://searchengineland.com/pew-young-or-old-search-cuts-across-age-categories-16346
I found all my favourite blogs through Google search.
In Spain even if Google+ works ONLY for SEO, it’s a hugely important reason to use it.
Fair points. I’d point out a few things though.
90 Million users for google+ isn’t really that much. google already had a billion users, so rolling out a social network for them isn’t like it was for Facebook or Twitter. They’ve also advertised it pretty heavily, especially recently. It’s a little like apples to oranges in my opinion.
Next I’d say, the limit oharacter shares doesn’t really matter that much. Twitter has success with a 140 because that’s a niche of social sharing. People don’t oftentimes want to read paragraphs and paragraphs. It’s a great way to get, “Lebron to Miami”, instead of an hour long special, or a two paragraph article on it. Let’s be honest, how often does anybody reach facebooks limit. This comparison is actually an even comparison, but the chances of any normal user reaching that limit aren’t likely, so it’s not really an issue.
Your other points are totally true. Google+ has some awesome features, but I don’t think it’s every going to measure up in terms of a social network. In reality, it’ll still have success because of the integration into everything google. In my opinion though, Facebook and Twitter both dominate what they’ve been made to do, and it’s going to be really hard to knock them out.
Thanks Mr. Johnson for the detailed comment.
You see, it’s not important HOW Google+ reached 90 million members. The important thing is that it has 90 million users and by making a profile there you will place your business before such a huge audience. That’s all that matters to me.
Yes I think most people don’t cross the character limit of Facebook but still Google+ has an advantage over Facebook by allowing unlimited characters in status updates. It will be surely useful for some people if not all.
As I’ve pointed out in the article, which of the three is best for you will depend upon your requirements. Sonia Simone of Copyblogger once said – “The one (social media platform) that is the best for you is the one where your customers are.” So surf and fish and be active where your customers are.
The thing that’s killing it for me, unless I’ve missed it, is that I have a profile with my majority of circles / content, and then when Google announced that it was the right time to go ahead and set up your Google Apps account (read: everything I use daily – email, analytics, calendar etc) and that there would be a migration tool coming within the month (I think this was last November?) …I don’t want to duplicate content, and it’s starting to bug me that there’s no update.. If anyone can shed any light, please do!
Great article though, thanks for taking the time to write it.
Simon
Hello Mr. Pollock.
I’m sorry I couldn’t understand your question. Could you please elaborate and give me the original links of the Google’s announcement? I may help then.
Hi Farham,
Here’s the original G+ for Google Apps post; [Oct 27, 2011]
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/google-is-now-available-with-google.html
You will see at the bottom of that post that it’s mentioned a migration tool for those that are using non apps accounts, if people want to start their apps account;
“Just the beginning
For those of you who’ve already started using Google+ with a personal Google Account and would prefer to use your Google Apps account, we’re building a migration tool to help you move over. With this tool, you won’t have to rebuild your circles, and people who’ve already added you to their circles will automatically be connected to your new profile. We expect this migration option to be ready in a few weeks, so if you’d like, you can go ahead and get started with your Apps account today and merge your connections once the tool is available”
And that a migration option would be ready within a couple of weeks.
I have a G+ account with my 4000 or so circles, and my new Google Apps + account with a mix of new circles and some old +’ers that are following me in both places – the migration tool that was “ready in a few weeks” in October 2011 was set to migrate my original account into my new account…
Not a word, no updates, typically Googled.
Hope that clarifies.
Best,
Sime
I’m sorry I don’t know the answer to your question.
I think if they would have launched the feature then they would have mentioned it in that post itself under the heading of “Update”.
I think you should email them or leave a comment below the post asking them the question. Someone may reply.
The issue there is that Google+ does not yet offer a public interface for posting content. The website and Android app are currently the only supported methods for posting. Hopefully this will change in the near future, but until then, content will only move one way: from G+ to other services.
Thanks for the comment Mr. Charabaruk.
Let’s hope Google+ will soon implement that feature.
I think after the utter failure of Google Buzz, the authorities were not sure how Google+ will turn out. Perhaps this was the reason why they allowed only a limited, invite based members when Google+ launched to test the waters.
They used to display a message then which read somewhat like – “Google+ is in its testing phase. Some of our features may not work properly. Some of our features may get deleted after some days”. (This quote is not verbatim.)
So I guess they are still testing things out. But considering the huge response people gave to it, I think they will surely improve on the functionality and features very soon.
Another nice feature I’ve found is that you can use Wiki-style markup to style your text.
Ya that’s interesting and can be very useful. Those who don’t know can see an example here – https://plus.google.com/109256952249197436980/posts/jN93nZWj7FA?hl=en
Thanks for the comment.
May I ask how did you discover this feature?
I loved Google+ when it first came and and your points here do bring it to an even better tool. I think it’s just a matter of catching on and getting better and MORE integration with other Google tools to people keep using it.
Nice article and all valid and good points!
Thank you!
Yes that’s so true. I think the more time you’ll spend on Google+ by experimenting with its features the more you’ll learn.
Fabulous post sharing some great features and why we should all be including Google+ into our online marketing strategy.
Wendy
I did look to +1 this but couldn’t see the button…
Thank you so much! You’ll have to click on the “SHARE” button (above the “tweet” button counter) to find the Google +1 button and other social media sharing options.
Thanks for this. Useful stuff … have to say I haven’t embraced Google+ at all yet – but probably should. Alex Mathers has written a really good guide to using Google+ for freelancers which expands on some of the themes you cover here.
http://redlemonclub.com/googleplusguide/?e=ticktockdesign
(this is an affiliate link)
Hello Mr. Horn.
Thanks for the comment.
If you want some more free information on Google+ then consider visiting Brian Clark’s link in the article above. He has some fantastic external links in his article about Google+.
Actually here’s the link again – http://www.copyblogger.com/google-plus-content-marketers/
Hi Fanko,
take a look at https://twoogleplus.com/
holy cow — THANK YOU, Luc!
“Google+ reached the 90 million mark in less than 7 months despite accepting only invited members when it launched. These statistics give you a feel for how quickly Google+ has become a force in the social media sphere.”
No, they don’t. Firstly, you’re comparing apples to oranges, because the Facebook and Twitter users are “active users” and the 90 million on Google+ is just the number that have signed up.
Page claims 60% to 80% of the 90 million are the active users, but this number has been debunked. Google counts any of the 90 million logged in to *any other Google product* as an active user on Google+.
Google+ certainly has some interesting features, and it may make a worthy competitor to Facebook, but let’s be clear about what the numbers do and do not mean. Active users is the most important metric for judging a social network, which is why Facebook and Twitter quote it so much, and it’s that number that is lacking on Google+.
Hello Mr. Gabriel.
Thank you for commenting.
I think comparing users or even active users can hardly be balanced. It will almost always be analogous to comparing apples to oranges for the following reasons.
The company’s records are private. We only know what they reveal. The problem is they reveal too little.
The foremost problem is, how do you define “activity”? How many hits per month by a specific user will qualify him as an “active user”? We do not know.
Secondly different social media sites reveal “active users” for different periods of time. For e.g. Facebook says it has “845 million MONTHLY active users” while Twitter claims it has “100 million active users”. Twitter doesn’t tell us how many MONTHLY active users it has. So even that comparison is analogous to comparing oranges with apples.
Thirdly Mr. Larry Page announced 80% of Google Plus’s 90 million people are active WEEKLY. He hasn’t revealed the MONTHLY active users.
I don’t think that the same 80% will go on visiting the site every week. A different set of 80% people will visit the site every week and so if you consider the MONTHLY active visitors the figure will become close to 90 million.
If this were not the case, I don’t think a person as reputed as Larry Page would have announced the 90 million number. It’s useless to announce the number of inactive users.
But that’s just my speculation. I agree that I should not have used the word ACTIVE while quoting Google Plus’s stats. I’m editing it.
Could you please give me an official link to your claim that Google Plus’s stats have been debunked?
wonderful features. As far as i think Google loves its own product very much and do not want to leave any corner untouched to make G+ better than Facebook and Twitter. But still prefer Facebook.
Thanks for commenting.
Yup. Some technology experts are too saying the same thing – Google+ is intended to do those things right which Facebook and Twitter are doing wrong.
But still only time will tell – will Google+ defeat the other two?
Wuhooooooooo…..!!!!
We just crossed the 200 tweets mark. Thank you everybody for reading, sharing and commenting on my article.
It took me about 18 hours to complete this article. I’m very happy that you all are liking it.
I agree with a lot of what you said. Google+ has some really great features. For me I appreciate the Circles option, and I also like the Hangouts. Especially where Skype falls short in video quality and limits you to one on one calls on their free service. Pay and you can then do group calls. With Hangouts you don’t have that glitching issue, and you can easily talk to multiple people all for free. If I could just get a lot more of my friends on Google+ I think I’d be able to utilize it more.
Side comment, I hate Facebook’s Timelines.
Hi Theory. Thanks for commenting.
Ya I think Hangout is one of the most prominent and attractive feature of Google+.
I haven’t switched to Facebook’s Timeline yet and have no intentions to do so. I hate learning new formats every now and then. Old Facebook works fine for me.
Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned as almost all my friends have transitioned.
You said you “agree with a lot of what” I said here. So will you please tell me with what do you disagree here?
Actually disagreeing readers usually prove to be quite informative.
Why can’t you edit your tweets? It can’t be that difficult can it, it drives me mad.
Great articles – didn’t know about the photo editing, still getting to grips with Google+ and like loads and I’m trying to be an advocate and get all my mates, colleagues, clients etc on there as I think it’s a lot better than facebook or twitter.
Hi Moyolkrec.
I have no idea why Twitter doesn’t allow editing of tweets. They haven’t revealed the reason. Let’s hope they will update this feature considering competition from Google+.
Yes I too personally feel that Google+ is a lot better than Facebook and Twitter. But then, as I mentioned in the article, the choice varies from person to person.
Thanks for the comment.
Google+ is in fact more useful and cool, as far as features go, but it is still lacking a few things. It still seems somewhat cluttered. And like most Google products (although they seem to be working on this), it’s still a little bit of a douzy to navigate and get exactly where you want. One more downside: Nobody promotes their Google+ page in comparison to their FB pages.
Can’t say anything against Twitter though, mainly due to the fact that it is very different from Facebook & Google, and doesn’t seem to be moving in the direction the 2 giants are.
Thanks for commenting Zombie.
Well, again I think that will vary from person to person. When I first when to Twitter, I didn’t understand anything. On the other hand my first experience with Google+ was far better. It seemed simple and clear.
As I have mentioned in the article, there are 850 million active Facebook users and 90 million Google+ users so people are concentrating more on Facebook. But considering Google Plus’s growth rate, it seems Google+ will not stay behind for long.