How much about Google Plus can we learn from LinkedIn?



Contributing Writer
Photo: Kelsey Credit: Kelsey Balling


The collateral damage that I personally experienced when Twitter broke up with LinkedIn this week was an abrupt decline in the sharing of my posts on LinkedIn.  I actually lost more than 90% of my LinkedIn shares per post – so where I might have had 40 shares before, I now have three or four.  Clearly a large majority of the shares of my posts on LinkedIn were fed from Twitter.

What I didn’t expect was how ineffective sharing on LinkedIn is (for me).  When I looked into traffic referred from LinkedIn it was (substantially) less than 1% of Twitter-referred traffic.   Yet as a percentage of shares, Leaders West received about 20% LinkedIn shares as a proportion of Twitter shares.  The bottom line is that LinkedIn was very inefficient in driving traffic to the site.

As I was thinking about why LinkedIn was such an inefficient vehicle for sharing, I kept wondering if the gender differences between platforms could explain the disparity.  Taking that thought further, I wondered if there was any Google Plus insight to glean from the sharing efficiency on LinkedIn.

ComScore released a study at the beginning of the year that said that time per user per month on Google Plus was about five minutes.  An aspect of that story that wasn’t explored (that I saw) was who shared the poorly-engaged space with Plus:  LinkedIn and MySpace.  What do the three platforms have in common?   They are predominantly male.  (as I  was reading about Foursquare for my post about their identity struggles I found out that they are likewise about 60/40 male to female)

As I read about gender differences in sociability, a common theme was a divergence in social behavior at a very young age (females explore their world socially, where males tend towards dominance), and I thought back to the insight of “deliberate practice” in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers.  Are women more sociable because they are more experienced at it?  Does that sociability advantage translate to social platforms?  When looking at a platform like LinkedIn or Google Plus, does that inversion of social mastery manifest itself in the culture of these platforms?  Or do I just know the wrong people on LinkedIn?

The point is simply that low-engagement is a hallmark of male dominated social networks (currently anyhow).  I’m curious if behaviors on these sites are reflective of the users, or if users are attracted to these sites because they cater somehow to user proclivities?  Or if gender is a factor at all?

But most of all, I’m just curious about how I’m going to make up that 1% in referred traffic.  :)

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

Jim Dougherty

@jimdougherty

Writer about social media and tech at Leaders West, I also tweet as @leaderswest.

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Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

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  • http://ICITJobs.com Lee

    “As I read about gender differences in sociability, a common theme was a divergence in social behavior at a very young age (females explore their world socially, where males tend towards dominance)”

    So, could it be that men seek Social Media platforms more vigorously due to their natural lack of social abilities (compared to women)? Could we then say that men see these platforms as “tools” to “fix” their lagging social skills, but do not fully understand the need to actually engage through them for the same reasons already stated?

  • http://www.margieclayman.com margie clayman (@margieclayman)

    I have had very little luck engaging on LinkedIn or Google Plus. I think my deal with LinkedIn is that the people I’m connected with there are many of the same people I’m connected with on other platforms where I’m more active. They don’t really need to respond there because they’re more prone to respond elsewhere.

    Google Plus just seems too busy to me for some reason. The constant refreshing of the page as new posts appear has always made it hard to handle for me. I tend to simply “broadcast” stuff on there, which is not usually my style.

    All of that being said, I’d be careful about attributing platform behaviors to genders. I know men and women who are equally good or bad at sharing things. While Google Plus certainly launched with more of a nod to men, I seem to see more women on there than men in my own little circle (pun partially intended).

    Great post – you’ve got me thinking.

  • LMorris

    Interesting – I suspect that gender differences between platforms was originally/is a symptom rather than the reason for difference in shares and click-throughs. This plus the original (perceived) purpose of the platforms: Twitter was set up as a quickshare platform across all social classes and structures. LinkedIn was/is a platform for managing contacts more akin to a business CRM platform or your old paper address book. Sharing via LinkedIn always felt like an added extra that didn’t quite fit. Sharing goes well with the “Always on” platforms like text messaging or twitter – and potentially Facebook for gen Y and beyond. LinkedIn is more like your address book – you get it out when you need it and I suspect the shares are from those who want to let you know they have their address book out rather than necessarily sharing with followers in mind. The business nature of LinkedIn also was more likely to attract men in the beginning to reflect the gender divide still prevalent in much of industry from middle management upwards.

  • http://leaderswest.com Jim Dougherty

    Thanks for reading and commenting, Liz! When you say “sharing on the platform never really fit” I found myself nodding in agreement. It seems all of these social platforms have aspirations for something more, yet their core features are the draw for their audience. Great points – I’m very grateful for your insight!1

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