Should Google hang up its social media hat and stick to search?

It’s always hard to live up to hype. But it seemed as though Google’s much-anticipated social network launch Google+ was about to.

Techies and social junkies got all fired up when Google+ first launched on an invite-only basis. The mystery and buzz was something akin to Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory opening up to a few lucky golden ticket holders. Speculation was rife – could Google+ be a serious competitor to Facebook?

In the initial days after launching publically on 20 Sept, traffic to Google+ soared 1200%. But things quickly started to look decidedly less rosy for the search giant.

Last week, blogger Michael Degusta posted the potentially embarrassing fact that only three of the 12 people on Google’s management team page have ever posted on Google+. When a product gets such low-level buy in from its own makers (even Google CEO Larry Page has only made a handful of public posts), you have to wonder why you should engage with it yourself.

Then the Daily Mail splashed the headline “Traffic plunges for Google+ as 60% of users log off”. The hyperbolic reportage followed figures released by data analytics company Chitika, which should be taken with a pinch of salt. One might well expect to see a plunge in traffic as usage levels off after a dramatic post-launch spike.

With its innovative content-sharing features such as +Circles and +Snippets, the opportunities for social marketing on this network are undoubtedly exciting. It is now down to the users to decide whether Google+ is just a storm in a teacup or a serious contender in the social space.