Before you skip over this post as yet another glowing or terrible review (there seem to be both floating around) of Google+, this is not a review of the new service from Google. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you need to head back to Google and, well, google “Google+” and you’ll find plenty of great resources.   This post is not a walkthrough nor is it an explanation of how companies should be “leveraging” Google+. There are a few posts with this information floating around already too despite the fact that Google+ is really only for actual humans at this point (i.e., there is no equivalent to Facebook Pages).

This is a post that will serve (I hope) as a little bit of a warning and a wakeup call for many companies out there. The premise is simple. People are getting more and more control over what they see and when they see it. We can all agree that interruptive advertising isn’t working well, as people skip TV commercials and block website banner ads. So, many brands have turned to social media to get the word out thinking this is less interruptive. Moreover, they believe that when people essentially opt-in to their content, say, by Liking their Facebook page, then the brand is free to post whatever they want. Not only that, but they feel free to post whatever they want AND somehow believe that people will see it AND people will engage with it somehow (e.g, comment, Like, retweet, watch a video, click a link, etc.).

They won’t.

What’s important here is to understand the reason why people aren’t engaging with your content. It might not be the reasons you think. Instead of assuming that people weren’t interested in what you posted, were too busy, weren’t the right target, and so on, the actual reason they didn’t do anything with what you shared is because they never saw it. And they never will.

That’s right. Whether they Like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, or now have you in one of  their Google + Circles, they still don’t see what you’re sharing. Let me explain why this is the case for each platform and what you can do about it.

First, Facebook. The vast majority of people who use Facebook use it in a very particular way. They go to the site (on their computer or mobile device) and look at their News Feed. Most people, since the default is set this way, see “Top Stories.” Top Stories are the posts from their friends and the Pages they Like, which Facebook believes are going to be most interesting to you. There’s an algorithm that controls this and it’s called EdgeRank (I’ve written a long post about this already, if you want all the details). The basic story is this. Facebook ranks the stories that show up in each person’s News Feed by three factors: Affinity, Edge, and Decay. Affinity is basically the connection between you and the piece of content. The more times you’ve interacted with the source of the content (Facebook calls it an “object”) in the past, the higher the affinity. For example, if you comment on your sister’s Wall everyday, content from your sister will have a high affinity score because you interact a lot with her. Second is “edge.” It sounds cooler than it is. All that edge refers to the relative weight of objects. For example, a comment on a Wall Post probably carries more weight than a Like because it take more effort to post a comment. I say probably because this is the proprietary part of the algorithm. Last, and simplest, is decay. This is the time that has passed since the object was created.

And this is why most of your stuff never shows up in people’s News Feeds and, therefore, why no one ever sees your post. No one goes directly to your Facebook Page each day to see if you posted something new. They either see it in their News Feed or they don’t see it at all. For most Pages, marketers are killing their EdgeRank by ignoring two of the three factors: affinity and edge. If people never see your posts, then they never comment or Like them, so you’ll never improve this score. For all those pharma and healthcare companies that are out there, this one’s for you. If you don’t allow commenting on your posts, then you have a score of zero for affinity.  Similarly, you have a zero for edge, since you aren’t allowing any interactions. This is why I say to all the pharma companies who are panicked about the new Facebook rules which will suddenly open up commenting, “so what?” Either let people comment or you may as well not even have a Page. It’s invisible anyway. No one sees it, so why invest the resources in maintaining the Page? If you think you can afford the resources, then open up commenting (you won’t have a choice after August 15 anyway) and actually benefit from what Facebook offers in terms of connecting with people who have a connection with your brand. Otherwise, don’t bother.

When it comes to Twitter, people probably miss your tweets as well. Unless they only follow you and a handful of others, then in order to see your posts they would have to go to Twitter.com or open their stream in some application at just the right moment where your tweets was the newest. If they don’t do this, then they don’t see your posts. However, many people do use applications like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck and many use Lists as well. So, the question is: are you creating content that’s valuable enough to get you added to a List or to get your own column in someone’s Hootsuite dashboard? Probably not. Guess what then? No one sees your tweets. And if no one ever retweets your posts because they are always filled with brand garbage, then no one sees your tweets. Your potential reach is limited to your number of followers at best. Create content that is worthy of retweeting, then your potential reach is everyone on Twitter, as followers share with their followers and them with theirs and so on. So, use Twitter to answer questions if you’d like, but don’t expect it to be an effective broadcast platform for you unless your content is great.

Onto Google+, which only makes the potential challenges for brands even greater. Here’s how. Now people control not only who they “follow”, but also what access and, effectively, time they dedicate to each group of people they follow. Let’s assume for a minute that Google+ adds some feature where brands can create a profile, which means people can add a brand to one of their Circles. It’s moment of truth number one, as someone needs to decide if they feel enough of a connection to your brand to let you in by adding you to a Circle. It’s sort of similar to Liking you on Facebook. Now, let’s assume that someone does add you to one of their Circles. Your work is done, right? You’ve breached the city walls, rain down your brand messages! Not so fast. The question brands must answer for themselves is what Circle will they be added to. Google+ allow people to create (it appears) an unlimited number of Circles. When a person decides to share content, they determine which Circle the content is appropriate for. If you have a Circle for your college buddies, then you share one type of content (e.g., pictures from your drunken weekend reunion). If you have a Circle for your work colleagues, you don’t share that content with them and they never see it. It’s much stronger privacy controls than what you get with Facebook and one of the potential killer features of Google+.

Personally, I’ve got Circles for Friends, Work Friends, Acquaintances, and Followers (among others). If you add me to a Circle and I don’t know you at all or even who you are, then you go into the “Followers” bucket. I completely ignore this bucket. I may also add you to the “Block” Circle, which is supplied by Google and probably means you’ll find yourself removed from Google+ if you end up in too many Block Circles. In addition, when I log into Google+, I immediately click through the streams of the people I care most about like friends and family, which isn’t the big bucket of “Followers”. The question is where, where would I put your brand? Maybe I’d add a Circle for Brands I Love or one for Brands I Hate and I’d decide how to handle each separately. The way Google+ works, you don’t know which Circle you’re in, so you couldn’t assume that we’re really friends. You might just be in the Brands I Hate bucket and each time I see something in there, I mock the content to the entire world. Don’t be in that Circle. Bottom line is that I control what I see. If your stuff is good, I add you where I know that I’ll see what you’ve got.

The big lesson here is that people are gaining more and more control over what they see via social media. Brands can no longer be satisfied by simply being in the game. You have to create content that make people actually want to seek it out. It should be content they want to Like and comment on and retweet and now, +1. But most of you aren’t doing this, which means that you’re invisible to almost everyone. And if you’re invisible, then what’s the point? So, help this post not be invisible by clicking that +1 button at the top.

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