For A Ghost Town, Google+ Sure Grew A Lot Last Month - Wonder if SMBs Helped?

[Linda Buquet]

Was just reading the following article about Facebook growth being up 1% for the month
and Google+ usage being up 43%.

Wonder if all the Place Pages being converted automatically to G+ Local pages thereby forcing businesses to use + had anything to do with it?

Wonder if on top of that, all the businesses pushing customers to join G+ so they can leave a review had anything to do with it?

For A Ghost Town, Google+ Sure Grew A Lot Last Month

The words “Google+” and “ghost town” are often found in the same sentence, but new data from Compete appears to indicate that, at least in the U.S., Google’s social destination is growing nicely in unique monthly visitors.

In June, the number was nearly 32 million, up 43.08% month-over-month.

What do you think?

 

[Don Berthiaume]

Linda, I saw this article earlier today and also though that G's forcing the issue to sign up for Local most definitely would have had an impact.

Along the those same lines, my concern now is that those who may have been on the fence to leave a review for a local business will now choose not to because of the fear factor G instills when signing up for an account... that the entire world will now be watching the reviewer's every move should they sign up with Google.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I think the # of people who have a profile is irrelevant. The reason why Facebook is still so powerful is because people spend HOURS on it each day. I'm sure that this migration and review change has forced a lot of people to sign up for G+ but I'm curious to see if the average time spent on G+ by these users is anything significant. Most of my clients who have been soliciting reviews have been having success but I doubt their customers are actually using G+, they're just signing up, leaving a review and then vanishing.