by Dan Slee
There's nothing quite like the launch of a new social profile for the hype machine to swing into operation.
Google+, Google's fourth attempt at social networking, is no exception. Around 40 million users registered within five months of launch in summer 2011. You can find out the basics of it via Wikipedia.
Is it a success?
Read some bloggers and it's the future of everything. But more realistically, the jury remains out. A piece on the influential Simply Zesty site wonders whether or not Google+ pages are dying a slow death.
There's nothing quite like the launch of a new social profile for the hype machine to swing into operation.
Google+, Google's fourth attempt at social networking, is no exception. Around 40 million users registered within five months of launch in summer 2011. You can find out the basics of it via Wikipedia.
Is it a success?
Read some bloggers and it's the future of everything. But more realistically, the jury remains out. A piece on the influential Simply Zesty site wonders whether or not Google+ pages are dying a slow death.
Take Coca Cola as an example, they say. Their vibrant Facebook page has 36 million likes. Coke were a Google+ early adopter but at the time the piece was written had encouraged only 800 people to include them in their circles. Pepsi Cola have a slightly more encouraging 20,000. In digital terms that's pretty insignificant.
Even before that Google+ got a bashing from one of their own members of staff. An engineer posted a 4,000 word rant on his own Google+ profile thinking it was for internal consumption. It wasn't. Google+ enthusiasts may argue that's maybe not the best yardstick to look at. The best innovation in places like Twitter and Facebook were not from the big corporations.
But what of local government?
There's precious little signs of life. There's Manly Council in Australia putting a toe in the water and a handful of councillors too. Aside from that there's very little.
Simon Wakeman, of Medway Council, made a good point on Twitter. His council has taken out a page to stop cyber squatting and are waiting and seeing before putting too much time, effort and resources into
it.
Watch and monitor is probably the best tack to take. Like all platforms, local government is probably best placed to wait until there is a sizeable number of people using it.
But we're really keen so what do we do?
One of the best pieces of advice for anything digital is to start using whichever platform you're keen on as yourself first. That way you can get your head around it and make a few mistakes without too much to worry.
If you do want to give it a go, here are a few useful resources to help you get started ...
Watch and monitor is probably the best tack to take. Like all platforms, local government is probably best placed to wait until there is a sizeable number of people using it.
But we're really keen so what do we do?
One of the best pieces of advice for anything digital is to start using whichever platform you're keen on as yourself first. That way you can get your head around it and make a few mistakes without too much to worry.
If you do want to give it a go, here are a few useful resources to help you get started ...