As we look forward to a new era on Google+, we can now focus on what we need to do to maximize what we get out of it as a social network, and on what we need to do to maximize our engagement there. In order to measure engagement on Google+, we took a look at 33,282 posts on Google+, and sliced and diced them based on the nature of their content.
This video summarizes what we found. For complete study results, click here.
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Links Mentioned:
- Everything in its right place
- Twitter Engagement Unmasked: A Study of More than 4M Tweets
- The New Google Plus: Will Tighter Focus Lead to Success? (by Mark Traphagen on Marketing Land)
- All of our “Here’s Why” Videos
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Full Transcript:
Eric: Finished! And now, publish. Some people have written off Google Plus as a ghost town, but others see tons of engagement and rich conversations there. What makes the difference? Why do some Google Plus posts get lots of engagement while others die a quiet death?
We wanted to know, so we studied over 33,000 Google Plus posts to find out. Hi, I’m Perficient Digital’s Eric Enge, and in this video, our Mark Traphagen will ask me about our results.
Mark: Hi, Eric. Before we get into the details of your study, why should we bother with Google Plus at all? When so many have written it off as dead, why did you go ahead with a study of engagement on the network?
Eric: Actually, Mark, I think our study couldn’t have come at a better time in the history of Google Plus. In late July 2015, Bradley Horowitz, the VP of Streams, Photos, and Sharing for Google, announced a major new focus for Google Plus. In a nutshell, Horowitz said they had learned from users that they really didn’t want another “do everything” social network, and they didn’t like being forced into Google Plus in order to use other Google services.
So the two biggest changes coming to Google Plus are, one, you will no longer need a Google Plus account to use other Google services such as YouTube and Gmail, and two, Google Plus itself will become more focused around people’s shared interests. That latter change, as it is developed, may breathe new life into the network and bring in new, more active users. So I think this is an excellent time to look at what generates the most engagement on Google Plus.
Mark: Fair enough. So what was one of the biggest factors affecting engagement for Google Plus posts that your study turned up?
Eric: People say a picture is worth a thousand words, and on Google Plus we found that to be true as well. Our study found that Google Plus posts that include a photo get over three times as many plus ones, over eight times as many re-shares, and just over twice as many replies as posts with no photo. Another powerful factor for engagement is plus mentions.
Plus mentions happen when a Google Plus user types a plus sign and another user’s name in a post. Google Plus changes the mention into a link to that user’s profile, and the mentioned user gets a notification that she or he was mentioned. As you can see from this chart, posts with plus mentions also got significantly more engagement than those without plus mentions.
Mark: What about hashtags? Most people think of Twitter when it comes to hashtags, but Google Plus has had them for a long time now. Do hashtags contribute to more engagement on Plus?
Eric: Indeed they do. As you can see here, posts with hashtags get almost twice as many plus ones, and five times as many re-shares. However, hashtags don’t seem to have much effect at all on the chances of getting comments on a post.
Mark: So photos, plus mentions, and hashtags all helped increase engagement. Were there any surprises in your study results?
Eric: Oh boy, was there ever. The biggest shocker was that videos shared on Google Plus actually seemed to decrease the amount of engagement. Here are our results. And we found that videos auto-shared from YouTube fared even worse. However, soon videos uploaded to YouTube will no longer be auto-shared to Google Plus. So you’ll want to concentrate on the data we showed for videos uploaded directly to Google Plus.
Mark: What about the text of posts themselves? Did post length, for example, show any effect on engagement?
Eric: It sure did. We found a sweet spot for increased engagement at between 500 and 1000 characters.
Mark: Thanks Eric. In December of 2014 you did a similar study of engagement on Twitter. Anything pop out in comparison?
Eric: There were some interesting contrasts between Twitter and Google Plus. Basically, we confirmed that Google Plus is much more of a discussion platform than Twitter. For example, you are 22 times more likely to get a reply to a post on Google Plus as you are to a tweet.
In addition, while mentioning someone in a tweet only increases chances of a re-tweet one point three times, Google Plus posts that include a mention are re-shared almost eight times more than those that don’t. We also found that hashtags have a more profound effect on engagement on Google Plus over Twitter.
Mark: So Eric, what is your one main takeaway for Google Plus users from this study?
Eric: I think our study strongly confirmed the strength of Google Plus as a discussion platform. If you are posting with the goal of getting a conversation going, you’ll probably find that you start getting more engagement. Photos, user mentions, and hashtags all add significant value that make other users want to plus one, re-share and comment on your posts.
Mark: Thanks again, Eric, for that valuable information. To get the full details on Eric’s Google Plus engagement study, go to the URL showing on your screen. Perficient Digital has published many other big data social media and SEO studies, and there are more to come in the future.
