Google+: A new playground for the same games

I've been wanting to write about Google+ for some time -- not to critique the new social platform, as I don't think it's worth making a full-on critique until I see how people use the platform and if they use it at a sustained rate like Facebook.

However, Google+ has grown at an incredible rate - 18 million users in 21 days...something that took Facebook 2.5 years to achieve, as stated in the below presentation. What interests me most about this, was something I was asked a year ago, "Is Facebook a fad?"  The answer has been made clear by the launch of Google+. Facebook may come and go, but the behaviour it has strongly influenced is not a fad and won't go away.

In essence, the playground may change, from MySpace to Facebook to Google+, but the games will remain the same. If anything, people's social behaviour will only grow and evolve to a more elevated social level. After all, we've always been social creatures, and the tools have evolved to allow our social behaviour to stretch farther, to more people and faster.

So, it would be silly if brands avoided joining the social conversation, and not develop a strategy on the role its brand can play in the online social environment.

Here's a presentation I came across the other day, which I felt was a good summary of how organizations should start looking at Google+...enjoy:

Google+ for brands_ogilvy

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