LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weinerhas spoken his opinion about Google+ for the first time this week, suggesting that ‘nobody has any free time’ for the new social network.
Slashgear.com reports that Jeff views social media networks as having three main uses: ‘Twitter for micro casting short snippets of information; Facebook for communicating with family and friends; and LinkedIn for your professional life. That leaves little room for Google+, he argues.’
Facebook, which is currently the leader in social media with over 750 million active users, is not immune to the competition Google+ may present.In fact, Facebook recently ranked‘in the bottom 6% of the American Customer Satisfaction Index’ which measures the level of customer satisfaction and user experience of over 220 private companies and 200 government services. Surprisingly, only 14 out of 220 other websites ranked alongside or worse than Facebook in the index.
The main issues users reported with Facebook are:
- Security and privacy concerns
- Over commercialisation
- Unexpected changes to the user experience
A considerable 58% of social media users have report privacy concerns in regards to personal data on networking websites. This was highlighted in 2010 when Ron Bowes, a security consultant, collected ample data from Facebook users and published it as a downloadable file online.
As for over commercialisation, companies may want to consider extending their advertising tactics to the rapidly growingGoogle+ which has amassed 10million users in a matter of weeks. Mintel, the global market research company, has revealed as little as 13% of members actively use Facebook to find out more information about brands, which questions the effectiveness of corporate pages on Facebook. Experts have advised that, “companies who use social media as a one-way advertising tool will not attract customer loyalty; instead companies should use social media to engage and interact with consumers.”