Current estimates indicate that Google+ (which started in 2011), has 343 million active users and 100,000+ communities, whereas LinkedIn has 238 million users and 1.5 million LinkedIn Groups.
Most LinkedIn members use their profile for professional branding purposes. The active LinkedIn members engage in business development and job search/placement activities. In contrast, initially many Google+ users used the features for personal interactions such as photo-sharing with family, hangout with family and friends. Also many G+ users don't realise that their personal posts are making it to the public webspace and that they should reset their visibility preferences of posts and "About" page. Those users detered others from engaging with them.
However, the demand and growth of Google+ has been phenomenal this year. Moreover, after LinkedIn deployed an unprecedented and Members-UNfriendly policy called Sitewide Automated Moderation (SWAM), thousands of professionals and small businesses are exploring and migrating to Google+. Those who are active in Google+, are more than ever separating their professional profile from their personal profile and are engaging at different levels.
If you are considering to put your efforts into only one channel that helps you manage your customers better and more effectively, then you must start by comparing the features of each channel. The following tables compares all the known features available (as of September 1, 2013) with a free LinkedIn Membership and a Google+ profile (which is free).
The features marked in "blue" are the ones that we consider as very user-Friendly. The features marked in "red" are the ones that we consider as user-UNfriendly.
Overall
| Feature | Google+ | |
| People | Circles, Pages, Communities | Connections |
| Companies | Circles, Pages, Communities | Company Pages |
| Posts | Text, Photos, Links, Videos, GIFs |
Text, Links and Image files |
| No limit on text/character count |
Limit on number of characters in post |
|
| Tag people and pages with @ and + |
Tag people and companies with @ |
|
| Add hashtag for global SEO | Does not contribute to SEO | |
| Discussions | Communities: Private, Public with invite moderation, Public-Open | LinkedIn Groups: Private, Public with invite moderation, Public-Open |
| Home | Home | Home |
| Login | Email Automatic sign-on with login to any other Google products |
|
| Like | "+s" | "Like" |
| Mobile App | Available | Available |
Home Page and Posting Capabilities
| Feature | Google+ | |
| Home: Ability to post updates |
No restriction in text length Editing after posting View shares and ripple effect Share to other social-media channels via paid or free products such as Friends+Me or Buffer |
Restricted Text length Images and Videos only as files, no inherent video player (all are links) No editing after posting Delete post Only can add a link to post (no edit) Cannot disable comments Cannot disable reshares Can see direct "Likes" but no reshare data (other than a count and only limited to last 15 posts Share to LinkedIn All Connections, Connections, to Twitter |
| Home: View updates from Others | Only posts made by those in your circles (individuals and companies), communities and pages that you follow Can control the frequency of view in "All Posts" setting Can partition views in tabs by circles Linear and Tabular Views |
Posts and Profile Updates from your connections, Companies you follow, Sponsored LinkedIn posts, LinkedIn News curated by LinkedIn (called LinkedIn Today), Groups you belong Can change in settings to disable/enable Companies, Profile Updates, Group Updates No ability to partition Linear Views |
Profile: Data
| Feature | Google+ | |
| Profile: Data fields | Tagline | Tagline |
| Photo | Photo | |
| Introduction | Summary | |
| Work: Employment | Experience | |
| Education and Courses | Education and Courses | |
| Introduction | Interests | |
| Basic information | Personal Details | |
| Work: Skills | Skills and Expertise | |
| Introduction | Advice to connect | |
| Links: All web-links, Media links, Blog links, Other social-media Authorship/contributor (helps with SEO and Author rank) |
Media Links and Contact Info No Authorship |
|
| Introduction | Languages | |
| Locations Lived | Not available | |
| Reviews | Recommendations | |
| Others you have in your circles and others who have included in your circles (can manage view settings) | Your connections (can manage view settings) | |
| Apps linked to G+ | Not available | |
| Settings: All data field has Custom view settings | Settings: Some custom view settings | |
| Profile: Data | No specific who viewed your profile data Overall statistics via Google Analytics and Apps |
Who viewed my profile (only last 5 views displayed in free, paid subscriptions provides more data) Two trend graphs: How many times your profile was found in search? Number of profile views by day |
Contacts, Job Search
| Feature | Google+ | |
| Contacts: connect and information | Include any page or people in circle (unidirectional); Max 5000 people and pages | Send email to connect -- once approved, you connect (bi-directional) No limit on number of connections |
| If you have Google for business or Gmail account, circles are automatically available on "contacts" for email (provided their email addresses are available for share) Download and archive all Google+ data via "Data Liberation Army" -- a Google app to csv or xls files and extract can be selected using "from" and "to" dates |
Download contacts information CSV file but not by dates | |
| Search is Google search |
Search by company, tags, titles, locations (Paid subscriptions provides more search categories) |
|
| Jobs | No functionality Search for candidates harder as almost all text search is via semantic search Any job posted in Google+ can be found via Google Search bar via keywords and can directly apply via link provided in the Google+ post Free job ads Google analytics with Click-through Rates (CTRs) but no specific information Searching through profiles easy with keyword search |
Jobs has both paid and free functionalities Search by database fields Specific views and downloads are available Analytics for recruiters Job Posts with analytics are not free |
Company, Product or Brand Page
| Feature | Google+ | |
| Company |
Company pages (as many you want for each brand) |
Company pages (as many you want for each brand) |
| This is for any organization or entity linked to a profile You can create your own circle with pages such as "Education" |
This is for any organization or entity linked to a profile "Education" tab is a grouping of individuals by school |
|
| Analytics of Pages via Activity Log and Google Analytics No download of follower demographics data except via paid apps Ripple of posts including who reshared |
Analytics with categories of views, shares, engagements, follower demographics, Employee insights, Insights Aggregate data on Impressions of Posts but no specifics on reshares (free subscription) |
|
| Page Moderators | Company Administrators | |
| Circles | Followers | |
| No connectivity with others | Those who work or were with the company will automatically get the company logo on their profile | |
| Reviews | Recommendations | |
| Local Business Listing via Google Local | No local business |
Discussion Groups and Communities and Search
| Feature | Google+ | |
| Discussion | Communities | Groups |
| You can join any number of communities as long as the community moderator allows you | Maximum limit 50 | |
| No Google sponsored news or posts | LinkedIn News and Influencers; Sponsored posts | |
| Community: joining by request; posting guidelines | Community: joining by request; posting guidelines | |
| Community: Post in any number of topics set up by moderators | Groups: Post in discussion, jobs, promotion -- pre-determined categories | |
| Community Owner and any number of moderators | Community Owner and any number of moderators | |
| Create as many Google+ Pages linked to original account | Create sub-groups | |
| Posts made on community is only visible on author's profile (if public) and community page (if you are a member of the community) | Posts made on group is only visible on group page | |
| Moderation: Moderators can mute comments, and remove Members. Individuals can: Mute comments Report abuse "+" comments Share posts Comment on post |
Moderation: Moderators can Block, Delete, Revoke, Site-wide automated moderation(SWAM) Individuals can: Flag comments "Like" comments Comment on post |
|
| Search | Google Search Engine for any text and keywords Search results displayed by "Everything", "People and Pages", Google+posts, communities, Photos, Hangouts, events, From your circles, From you, To you |
LinkedIn Search on keywords included only in these fields: Profile Summary, Group summary, Job Summary, Company Description, University Description, Job Summary |
| Unlimited Saved Searches | Only 3 saved searches with Free subscription | |
| None available | Job reference or recommendation search |
Hangouts, Meetings and Other Features
| Feature | Google+ | |
|
Hangouts (Competitive Advantage) |
Google Talk and video capability free and with innumerable viewers and participants Can be directly posted as recording on YouTube channel Competes with Skype group video, WebEx and Gotomeeting |
Not available |
| Seamless integration | YouTube Google Analytics All Google products such as Google Maps, Gmail for Business, Contacts, Photos, Google News, Blogger, Translate, Google Scholar, Google Books Google Apps Marketplace |
Slideshare, Pulse and LinkedIn News |
| Events | Event announcement and invites | No |
| Notifications | Managed settings | Managed settings |
| Gmail and Gmail for business or Google+ mail | LinkedIn mail | |
| API developers | Yes; More Open | Yes; More Closed |
Ask yourself these questions:
"1. What value should these channels generate for me?"
"2. What value will my customers get from me by engaging with me on these channels?"
"3. What are my goals? How will I measure those goals?"
"4. Which activities will I most likely do on social-media channels like these?"
After you have answered those questions, then revisit the above tables and we think you will find a winner or a winning combination.
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