Google+ Insight Takes Aim At Upset Facebook Users
Today, Google is announcing they will reveal info on page reach metrics, showing us things like how many saw a picture or video, or interacted with a post of ours. Insights will give a day-to-day synopsis of engagement is clearly aimed at enterprise customers who want a stronger social presence, but why is Google doing this?
The company has been positioning Google+ as an enterprise solution for quite some time, even going so far as to slowly implement a program designed to let Google+ posts become ads on other sites. By using the Google+ post as a breakout ad, we can interact anywhere, and companies like Toyota get a neat way to inexact with us on a visceral level.
Facebook has also changed their algorithm, in what is being sold as an attempt to relieve us of "garbage" posts. Those than cadge for likes or ask for re-shares will be downgraded, as will those without rich content. Facebook has many sites and businesses crying foul; they both changed the algorithm and offered up a pay-for-views synopsis where anyone could fork over a few bucks just to have more folks see their content.
Insights is really more like Analytics for social, and that's the point. Though it's available to anyone, the enterprise customer will find the tool more than a passing interest as the average user might. They'd know things like video posts do better than those with pictures, and that they've got a strong following to a particular demographic. These are important metrics for shaping a marketing strategy; something you and I just don't have for personal use.
It's unclear if Google+ has changed any algorithm, but the methods are similar to Facebook. Offering up paid posts is a way to upend organic reach issues, and both are doing it in limited fashion. Google+ is a product of Google, though, which commands a massive ad machine. Facebook has their own social graph to lean on, but it doesn't reach everywhere just yet.
Google+ is likely seizing an opportunity to sway those upset with Facebook's changes to at least give them a shot, and Insight is a tool to prove why their social reach works — just as Analytics has done for ads. Between the number of Android users who automatically have Google+ accounts and ad space on independent sites, Google's reach might be too much to ignore this time around.
Source: Google