IMPERSONATE: Think like a CMO
IMPERSONATE: Think like a CMO
On October 8th, 2018, Google announced that it will shut down Google Plus, the company’s latest attempt to capture the social media market. Google Plus will turn off its consumer version in August 2019 but its corporate version will still be available. The decision came after Google discovered a security vulnerability that exposed data of up to 500,000 users.
With this announcement, yet another attempt by Google to capture the social media market proved to be a failure. A platform that was seen as a direct competitor to Facebook and which was reported to have caused panic in the rival companies will cease to exist for consumers. Even though the security leak was the incident that triggered this move, it can be argued that this was inevitable.
Background:
Google Plus was introduced in 2011 and was the company’s fourth attempt in social media after Google Buzz, Google Friend Connect and Orkut. At the time of its launch, Google Plus was positioned as a social media platform to allow people to connect and share similar interests. Unlike other social media platforms, joining Google Plus was possible only through invites from friends or waiting for Google to send one. In order to differentiate with the competitors, Google Plus offered a variety of features.
1. Circles: This was the central feature which allowed users to organize their connections into discrete groups called Circles, e.g. friends, families, work etc. People who were added were sent a notification and had the option to add the other person to a circle of their choice or not add them at all. It provided flexibility and more control to the user. 2. Posts/ The Stream: This is where users share updates or information to their circles. Google Plus gives control to the user over who can see the post. Users can customize their stream to show updates from a specific Circle. 3. Hangouts: This feature allowed group interactions where up to 10 people can be added in a video call and users may watch a YouTube video at the same time. 4. The +1 button: It is similar to Facebook Like feature and allowed users to show their approval for a post. 5. Google Plus Pages: This was similar to Facebook pages and allowed setting up of brand pages on Google Plus. In July 2011, Google Plus reached 25 million members and became the fastest growing site in history. In January 2012, Barack Obama, then president of United States of America held the first interview from White House using the Hangout feature. By December 2012, Google Plus had 500 million members worldwide.
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Signs of Trouble:
In January 2012 Google released statistics which indicated more than 90 million users of Google Plus with over 60% engaged daily and 80% engaged weekly with the website. These were some impressive numbers but a closer look gives different insight altogether. It turns out the growth was not at all organic, people were not simply signing up to Google Plus to use the social media platform. Instead, anyone trying to create a google account was asked to create a Google Plus account which they later had the option to deactivate. In reality, Google Plus achieved such high numbers through a brute forced signup process. The most controversial aspect was the requirement to have a Google+ account in order to comment on YouTube videos. Google also made it mandatory for users to have a Google+ profile to access many other services like YouTube, search etc.
As per independent sources, in January 2012, members were reported to spend 3.3 minutes on the site for the month. In comparison, members on Facebook spent 7.5 hours. The devil was clearly in the details.
The New Google Plus:
In November 2015, Google announced its plans of restructuring Google Plus. The new Google Plus would focus on two key features:
1. Collections, which allowed users to view content related to topics of their interest. 2. Communities, which let people with same interests join up and discuss on topics of their choice. The new Google Plus allowed users to follow a particular topic from a person without receiving a post from the same person on other topics. Hangouts messaging was also removed from Google Plus and now existed as a standalone application. The integration of Google+ with other services like photos and youtube was also revoked.
Google announced that Google+ will automatically hide “low quality” content on posts and adjust its layout to show less white space. It also brought back the feature to create events to invite people and join. This was a possible last-ditch attempt to salvage its dwindling user base.
The Privacy Conundrum
Data privacy and its violation have become a pressing issue for social media platforms. Recent events suggest a lack of concern among these companies for user data. Google decided to not disclose security vulnerabilities when discovered citing no erstwhile federal laws requiring companies to do so. A memo was reportedly circulated among senior executives warning about embarrassment to the company if details about the vulnerability were made public. However, Google decided to make a public announcement later on.
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The management decided that the effort to maintain Google+ was not worth the returns it brought. Google finally decided to shut down Google+ for its customers in August 2019. It also announced that the corporate version of Google+ will remain alive which is reported to have a significant impact on SEO and search traffic volume.
Deliverables:
1. What led to the failure of Google+ as a social media network? 2. Design a campaign to relaunch Google+ for customers. What will be the marketing mix employed? 3. How do you propose to differentiate it from the existing social media platforms?
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EXHIBIT 1
Google Buzz, Google Friend Connect and Orkut
Launch End
Google Buzz 14th October 2011 15th December 2011
Google Friend Connect May 2008 January 2016
Orkut January 2004 September 2014
EXHIBIT 2
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EXHIBIT 3
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EXHIBIT 4
EXHIBIT 5
Google+ Demographics 2016
Number of users 440 million
Number of Google+ profiles 2.2 Billion
Average time spent by a user per day 12 minutes
Female users 26.30%
Male users 73.70%
Users between age 25 and 34 33.34%
Users from ‘other’ Google services (Search, YouTube) 59%
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