Should you use Google Plus over Facebook?

There are lots of people asking which is better social network – Google Plus or Facebook? There are certain advantages of Facebook as it already has an established user-base, a running business model that caters to the users, great apps and ways to connect, etc. Although there is a certain hype about Google Plus that just draws people in – especially the SEO and internet marketing type of people.

I’ve asked some of the most authoritative experts on the internet which they would prefer to use. Let’s see what they have to say:

“As of right now, my answer would be that I would choose Google+ hands down. Google+ now offers the kind of personal interaction we, as an online marketing community, have been craving. Now this might not last, considering that Google+ is still in Beta, but this window of opportunity to get in touch and get noticed by the bloggers that otherwise might be unreachable is priceless.

I would love to see Facebook remain a “family” social network, and Google + gear more towards business professionals, sort of like LinkedIn, just with more dialogue. From SEO perspective, Google+ is priceless and we can’t afford to ignore that. All the initial signals indicate that G+ actions, like shares, +1, etc. might become an active ranking factor in the near future.

Let’s face it: Google runs the search engine ranking show and if we want their attention, we’d better dance when they say we need to. I know I will.”

- Ana Hoffman
Self-made Internet Marketing, blogging and SEO Specialist (Check out her Google Plus Social Network Tutorial)

“I DO use Google+ over Facebook. I got rid of Facebook over a year ago for several reasons. First, I was just tired of the platform. Second, the stuff showing up in my newsfeed wasn’t relevant to me. Third, I’ve grown quite annoyed over Facebooks practices with privacy and member relations. Fourth, I was even more annoyed by all the apps and friend requests I would constantly have to delete.

Those are the reasons why I left Facebook, and I replaced it with Twitter. Twitter allowed me to follow and connect with industry peers in a way that Facebook didn’t. I’ve been quite happy with Twitter, and it’s the core of my personal brand development strategy.

When Google+ launched, I had mixed feelings. I didn’t like the fact that it was yet another social network that I needed to monitor and build friends on again. However, they did do a great job with importing contacts from your Gmail accounts, and using Circles couldn’t be a more enjoyable to create those relationship connections needed for a social network to form.

I also realized how important social signals are to search results. It’s not hard to see that Google is going to rely quite heavily on Google+ for it’s profile information and social signal mining. If you want Google to recognize you as influential on a topic, you had better build your home on Google+. If at very least you want to understand how Google’s social graph will impact the SEO industry, it would be wise to have a working understanding of Google+. Clients are going to need a strategist who understands how Google+ can help their brand, and if you aren’t using it yourself, your Social SEO strategies are going to be weak at best.”

- Daniel Cristo
Seasoned SEO professional and founder of Fluttrs

via seo-hacker.com

Posted via email from h3sean's posterous