Pinterest is the fastest growing social networking site in history to reach 10 million unique monthly visitors and remains one of the top websites to generate referral traffic. With 28 percent of all adults online using Pinterest, it’s only natural for other social platforms to try to harness the success of Pinterest-like features, which is exactly what Google is doing.
Pinterest now faces new competition with the release of Google+ Collections. On Monday, Google made the announcement for the launch of Collections on the official Google+ page, stating:
“Our happiest Google+ users are those who connect with others around shared interests and passions. So we set out to give people a place to express the things they love.”
The new feature allows users to breakdown content by category to organize their interests, which is similar to Pinterest Boards.
Google+ Collections
Collections gives Google+ users a fun new way to share their interests publicly, privately, or for specific Google+ users. Google+ users can create boards to organize and share videos, images, and other content, which can then be followed by other Google+ users.
The Collections are easy to set up and will be displayed in the home feeds on Google+ accounts. Similar to community posts, the posts within the collections have a simple indicator. To set up the collections, the revised share button has a new feature for individual posts on the Google+ feeds. Featuring a dropdown menu, users are prompted to share a particular post to a collection or create a new collection. Users can move their own posts into collections or re-share a specific post into a collection to keep their interests organized.
A Collection tab will appear on profiles to provide easy access to the boards. It’s believed users will also have the ability to browse public collections to find those of interest. While not all users are seeing the new feature, as of right now, Collections are visible via Android and the web, but the new feature will be supported on IOS devices soon.
Collections for Marketers
This new Google+ feature will add to the benefits of Google+ for marketers because it eliminates the need to create separate Google+ pages for different topics. Instead, marketers can now create topic-based feeds to give fans the ability to follow specific categories.
The Collections option holds the same potential marketing benefits as Pinterest for increasing website traffic, expanding brand exposure, and catering to loyal followers. Collections supports the features that appeal to today’s internet users, which largely contribute to Pinterest‘s 66 percent growth from last year. Although it’s still too early to tell and Google seems to just be testing the waters, Collections may just be the next hit marketing platform marketers can’t ignore.
Sources
- “Demographics on Key Social Networking Platforms” Pew Research Center
- “Statistics and Facts about Pinterest” Statista
- “Google+ Collections Features Begins Its Rollout” Android Police
