Google+ has faced a lot of skepticism, and an uphill battle, to compete in the social network space. Record growth rates weren't enough to avoid the "ghost town" meme, although there seem to be fewer voices all the time proclaiming its impending doom and more admitting it's a success in its own right.
Nonetheless, questions have loomed about its marketing value. Everyone agrees it has value for SEO and various other aspects of online marketing, and certainly it acts in synergy with other products (the more Google knows about you, the better it can advertise). And yes, a well-marketed campaign on Google+ can be successful.
But if Google opened Google+ tomorrow for sponsored stories and on-site display ads, would they be worth as much as Facebook's comparable offerings? As yet, probably not (although Google+ Local throws a monkeywrench into things, because it straddles the divide between Search and Social effectively).
Overall, Google is probably not making huge revenue directly from Google+. But the first question to ask is not, "Will marketers dump truckloads of money into advertising on Google+?" That question makes sense for Facebook, because they basically sell nothing else besides ad space tied to a single service: their social network.
Google, on the other hand, "sells" a variety of products and services, some tangible (like Chromebooks), others intangible (like software), some for cash and others on a "freemium" model. This makes Google more like Microsoft than Facebook.
And as it so happens, Microsoft also has a social network, and no I don't mean so.cl, I mean Xbox Live, a social network tied to their Xbox devices and services. Microsoft loses money on the devices to make "downstream" revenue on games and content, much as Google may lose revenue or make very little from Google+. Tying Xbox to its own social network helps make the ecosystem "sticky" because products can easily be replaced, but people are much harder to replace one you've formed connection.
More important, though, than the downstream revenue from Xbox is the "network effect" it has on other Microsoft products, or which they hope it will have at least. Xbox helps, or is supposed to help, sell other Microsoft products and services, which is especially obvious in light of its recent "Metro-fication" meant to help sell Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone 7/8.
And like Xbox, Google+'s model is about downstream revenue on the one hand, and network effects on the other. I believe nothing proves the latter more clearly than the success of the Nexus 7. That it is successful can hardly be doubted anymore. Selling millions of units of a single Android tablet in a matter of weeks is an accomplishment.
Many factors have contributed to that success, including Google's flair for walking the line between budget and quality, their willingness to dump large sums of money into advertising, their willingness to subsidise free content, the cooperation of retailers who don't want to sell Amazon tablets, and their alliance with Taiwanese tech behemoth Asus.
But one factor that I've never seen mentioned before is the Google+ network effect. As Apple fan and blogger Mike Elgan has rightly pointed out, Google+ is a natural home for fans and fanbois of the Google brand.
I watched, on Google+, as my stream filled up with posts from Nexus 7 buyers, and it still does today. The more bought it, the more that others bought it because they saw the same thing I did. If Google+ is your social networking "home", you could easily believe you were the last person not to own one. It's a form of free advertising worth more than anything you could pay for.
Some of those happy customers take the "marketing" offline and "evangelize" the product to others. As Guy Kawasaki or J.C. Kendall might say, product evangelism is all about spreading the "gospel" (literally "good news") of the product or brand. And spread that news the Plussers have and do.
If Google+ never did anything else, it has already proved its value for Google by aiding their efforts to "double down" on the tablet market in 2012. And if Google ever launches a Nexus 10 (at this point a less substantial rumor than the iPad Mini), Plussers will probably do the same again, and help to sell millions.
Similar points could be made about other Google products and services, but the Nexus 7 is a very tangible and highly branded example that best proves the point. G+ may actually be worth more to Google than Xbox is to Microsoft, given that Xbox hasn't helped make Windows Phone a success. In an era where brand evangelism is almost literally a religion in its own right, Google built a great platform to bring their fans together in a way that builds value and sells stuff. And that is almost impossible to put a pricetag on.
#nexus7 #googleplus #EvanG+
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