Google+ Reaches 400,000,000 Registered Users

Google’s social network Google+, which was launched on June 28th 2011, has passed 400 million registered users. Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra announced this important milestone yesterday in a Google+ post as part of the acquisition of Instagram competitor Snapseed.

Chart compiled by Marketingland see article

Furthermore Gundotra added 100 million Google+ users (25% of the user base) are currently active on a monthly basis (plus.google.com and mobile app), an unheard of growth rate, as it was only a year ago that Google+ opened the public sign-up.

Average minutes per visitor to social networks

Though Google+ is growing rapidly in adoption thanks to the integration in all Google services, the average time spent per visitor on Google+ lacks far behind in comparison to other social networks like Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr according to Comscore figures from January 2012.

Engagement & Social Platform active usage

A more recent study by GlobalWebIndex puts things better in perspective in terms of engagement and active usage. The fact that Global Web Index reports 336 million Google+ active users last month is their assumption that increasingly, Google+ is just Google.

Social Platforms Active usage

The chart below gives a good overview of the dominant active social networks around the world. Facebook (with almost 1 billion registered) leads, followed by Google+ (as its further integrated across Google services), Tencent’s Weibo and Qzone and Sina Weibo enjoy incredible growth and can co-exist together with RenRen and Kaixin as all social platforms have huge adoption rates. Though Twitter has 500 million registered users versus Sina Weibo’s 300 million users, Sina Weibo has a more active user base.
This was recently demonstrated as Sina Weibo managed to beat Twitter in number of tweets during the Olympics opening ceremony. Other upcoming networks LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr and Viadeo.

Demographic profile of Western social platforms

When looking at the demographic profile of active account account users, most social platforms are dominated by men, especially LinkedIn (65%), Google+ (64%) and Twitter (62%). Only Pinterest is more female and in established markets like the US, social platform users are more female than male.

Social Platforms Report – September 2012

In the report below, compiled by GlobalWebIndex more information is shared about social platform activity on Google+ in comparison to other networks.

When looking at your use of social platforms, which 3 social networks do use most frequently?

My top 3:
1st place: Facebook – A daily stream of updates from IRL friends, who share what’s happening in their lives
2nd place: Twitter – A daily stream of interesting news, discussions and mind blurbs of like-minded people in my industry
3rd place: LinkedIn, Pinterest, Weibo – for industry news, inspiration and insight into the Chinese social media world

Though I use Google+ occasionally and post regularly, I find Google+ a combination of  Twitter (though more visual) and group videochat (hangouts), engagement (comments and +1’s) is increasing  though lower in comparison to Twitter.

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About the author

Paul van Veenendaal (34) is an all-round marketing professional from the Netherlands with 12+ years of online experience and co-founder of ViralBlog. Currently Paul is working at Starcom Amsterdam as Social Media & Communnity Consultant for Honda, Samsung, GSK, Redbull, Heineken and Nintendo.

You can connect with Paul via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Weibo, Pinterest, Del.icio.us or send him an email at [email protected].

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