Study: Fan Engagement On Google+ Narrowly Trails Facebook, Nearly Doubles Twitter

Here’s more evidence that smart marketers shouldn’t neglect to include Google+ in their social media mix: Google+ generates nearly as much engagement per follower as Facebook and nearly twice as much as Twitter. The surprising results come from a Forrester Research study of the social profiles of 50 global brands on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, […]

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Here’s more evidence that smart marketers shouldn’t neglect to include Google+ in their social media mix: Google+ generates nearly as much engagement per follower as Facebook and nearly twice as much as Twitter.

The surprising results come from a Forrester Research study of the social profiles of 50 global brands on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Twitter. Forrester looked at more than 3 million user interactions with more than 2,500 brand posts during the first quarter of 2014 and found that Google+’s rate of engagement per post compared very well with its competitors:

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Forrester stressed that the engagement rate — the total number of interactions with each branded post as a percentage of the relevant brand’s total fan or follower count on the relevant social network and profile — shouldn’t be considered primary success metric, rather as a stepping-stone toward getting positive business results from social efforts.

But combined with data from an April 2013 Forrester survey that found 22% of more than 60,000 U.S. online adults said they visit Google+ at least once a month — way behind Facebook’s 72%, but the same as Twitter — it’s clear that G+ should be in the mix. The report’s author, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst Nate Elliott, recommends that brands mimic their Facebook efforts on Google+, noting that most social management dashboards can automatically post on both networks.

The full report costs $499 and can be downloaded here.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Martin Beck
Contributor
Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.

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