Jul 18, 2011

Google+ Catching Up to Facebook in Website Adoption

More than a few websites around the world missed the boat on social media’s boom, but Facebook remains the top choice for the ones that didn’t. What’s surprising, however, is how Google has quickly managed to secure a place in the rankings and how much potential it has for getting to the top of the ladder.
In a report released by BrightEdge concerning the adoption of social networking platforms among the top websites, there were an estimated 51% of sites that included a Twitter or Facebook link on the front page.
“This is clearly a missed opportunity for the brands that own web properties that are not ‘social aware’,” said the authors.
BrightEdge noted its data in two ways: the first identified the types of “basic links” to social media websites that the top sites employed and then examining which of those social tools were actually put to use.
According to their data, an estimated 47.4% of all of the basic links connected to Facebook, while 41.8% linked to Twitter. Both sites experienced an increase from their numbers the month before. YouTube managed to stay consistent in the number of links to it, with only 16.75% of the share. LinkedIn also remained consistent in its low numbers, ranking in with only 3.7%.
Google Plus, however, was the major surprise. According to BrightEdge’s data, despite only recently being launched, Google’s own social networking service appeared as basic links on a total of 4.5% of websites. The authors believe this might simply be the result of the buzz surrounding Google Plus and its launch, but data indicates there is a chance it could climb higher still as time passes.
However, even the biggest and most prominent of websites were disinclined to go beyond simple basic links. The infamous Facebook “Like” button remained the most popular of the choices, with 10.8% of the websites using it. The data also indicated that the more sophisticated any given piece of linking technology was, the less frequently it had seen use in larger websites. Facebook’s “Like” box, for example, shows up only on 6.1% of websites. Two other Facebook applications, Connect and Recommendations, only barely saw use, coming in at 1.9% and 1.2%, respectively.
Twitter also seemed to not be in common use apart from basic links, with only 2.1% having the share button implemented. Even less – 1.3% – asked readers to become followers of authors on Twitter.

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