With all the news media attention lately, you’ve probably heard about Google Plus by now. But what about that little known facet attached to it, the Google +1 Button?
Google Plus is being set to rise as the next competitor to social media giants like Facebook and MySpace, but what about the Google +1 button? It’s basically the same as the Facebook “Like” button. Are people paying attention to it, and will Google want to continue its use in the future?
To get an idea of whether people are using the Google +1 button or not, I decided to see which of the top 100 sites on Technorati had actually implemented a +1 button for sharing purposes. As can be seen in the pie chart, there were an overwhelming number of sites that had not inserted the +1 button.
Next, I took a look at thirty of the newest posts on Social Media Examiner to see how the Google +1 button was stacking up compared to Facebook “Likes” and Twitter “Retweets.” Again, it was overwhelmingly underused compared to Facebook and Twitter usage.
To get a second look, I did the same thing with Mashable. Out of the thirty newest posts made at the time, I came up with this data. It is very similar to what I found when I looked at Social Media Examiner. Retweets win out as the most used, Facebook likes come second, and Google +1 comes in a far last place.
Conclusion
With both Social Media Examiner and Mashable, the Google +1 button is just as visible as the Facebook “Like” button and the Twitter “Retweet” button. They are all displayed in the same format and just as easily accessible.
Clearly the Google +1 button is not being used on a large scale like those for Twitter and Facebook. Not much attention has been given to the +1 button as of yet. The real question now is: with the new ramping up of Google Plus, will we see the Google +1 button usage rise in unison, or will the +1 button continue to flounder leaving Google with a decision of whether or not to scrap it all together?
