Google+ Pages versus Facebook Pages

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Pouring forth into the new age of social media, the introduction of Google+ business pages brings the consideration of the topic Google+ pages vs Facebook pages.

On Monday 7th Nov, 2011 Google introduced its much awaited pages into functionality. Now, as a concerned user one can vauntingly alienate his/her personal stuffs from the business and the networking one in Google+.

In a common sense, Google+ privacy & security measures are being a step furthered by with this ‘pages’ move. Giving it a priority, Google+ earlier (after its launch) announced and advised people not to create fake accounts in the name of their businesses. And respecting that very need of every business, now finally Google+ is here with the business pages.

Propagating as the most favorable source to showcase business, Google+ pages compete with Facebook pages in many ways ranging from sharing option to profile image standards.

6 Basic Differences between Facebook Pages and Google+ Pages:

1.      Theme: On its announcement, Google+ presents pages as something meant for businesses and brands. In Google’s own words “So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”  So, here is a basic difference of theme branding between Google+ pages and Facebook pages: Whereas Google+ page loudly aim for the business, Facebook is more of the general type and almost for everything.

2.      Categories: Google+ pages come with five (5) categories (as on its launch) and sub-categories as below:

A.     Product or Brand (33 sub-categories + 4 basic categories),

B.     Company, Institution or Organization (28 sub-categories + 4 basic categories),

C.     Local Business or Place (No sub-category),

D.     Arts, Entertainment or Sports (34 sub-categories + 4 basic categories,

E.     Other (No sub-category).

Facebook pages come with six basic categories and further sub-categories within them. The six categories in Facebook pages are:

A.     Local Business or Place (40 sub-categories),

B.     Company, Organization or Institution (37 sub-categories),

C.     Brand or Product (31 sub-categories),

D.     Artist, Band or Public Figure (25 sub-categories),

E.     Entertainment (29 sub-categories),

F.     Cause (No sub-category).

3.      Age Restriction: Whereas Facebook pages are for the audiences above 13 years of age, Google+ pages are literally without any such restrictions.

Google’s drudge to simplify the privacy and security options in social networking is something directly related to this point. With the feature ‘circles’, Google+ is over sure that age restriction is not something required on their portal. And in my personal view, this point is sure to raise some issues in the near future. If with its option ‘Any Google+ user’ Google+ wants to represent a borderless concept for the age restriction based on Circles, they are simply wrong. Google+ should reconsider this point as most of the kids would be sharing beyond their circles of interest as because of lack of knowledge or experience or in-fact both.

4.      Sharing Control: The two giants Facebook and Google+ differ in a good depth from each other when it comes to sharing control. Whereas Facebook gives the feature to share with the options “Public” and “Customize”, Google+ powers you to make it either Public or select the people you want to share with.

On an extended level, Facebook gives you the option to select the target audience on Language and Location (country) under the ‘customize’ sharing tab. And Google+ has the advantages of locking a post and restricting the commenting feature separately for each and every update.

5.      Insights & Apps: ‘Facebook insights’ for pages is just another behemoth product from Facebook itself. One can accurately track and monitor the level of engagement and conversations going on in a page with the help of this product. And to mention, Google+ pages were not introduced with any kind of analytics till the preparation of this article. But Google Analytics being the top most tracking tool on web, we can expect an exact amalgamation of Google Analytics for Google+ pages in an immediate future just like the stats in Blogger.

Facebook being the senior player is already up with a large array of apps for the pages. Third party page applications are also available at a varied range of applicability. But in case of Google+ pages, we are yet to experience the same. With its announcement for better API integration, a large troop of apps can be felt for the Google+ pages.

6.      User Base: Accept it or not, you can find almost 3 existing generations together on Facebook and that’s why FB stands at 750+ MM users. But Google+ is yet to get that level popularity worldwide. And same is the case with the Google+ pages. It will take some time for Google+ pages to get that level of popularity.

Though 'Google+ pages' already has grabbed a good amount of attention worldwide and Facebook making some changes to compete with it, yet it has to go miles ahead. At this stage of initial launch, they look quite good, attractive and secure as pages. But its competition would always be stiff with its big brother Facebook pages.

The differences, on which this article ‘Google+ pages versus Facebook pages’ is based on, are excerpted from the announcements and the functions publicly available to everyone. Facts like use of hangouts, direct connect available in Google+ pages are not included into this article as differences since they are something more of advantages that Google+ has. 

If you want add you point/s and the differences you see/experience, please use the commenting section below.