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Really interesting Page Level Social Metrics from SEOmoz... and a little bit of Seth Godin.

Waiting for a Google Plus invite? Google is rolling out the service in waves and you can expect it to become a ubiquitous social option in the coming months. We have been playing with the service since getting invites yesterday and there are a lot of things to like about Google's new social initiative.

Unlike Google's last big invite-only rollout of a social initiative - Google Wave - users will not be confounded on just what the heck you are supposed to with the service when signing up for the first time. From Friendster, Friendfeed, MySpace and Facebook, users are familiar with how a social platform is theoretically supposed to look. At its core level, Plus is not that much different. Yet, there is so much more. How do you get started with Google Plus? Let's break down the nuts and bolts.

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Create Your Circles

Imagine the ability to break down Facebook into its various constituent parts and keep them separate from each other as opposed to one giant feed. That is what Google has done with Plus. There is one main stream where all your friends updates show up then the option to see updates from only certain groups like "Work," "Friends" or "Family." This is the essence of Circles.

From the initial interface, you will see four buttons - Home, Photos, Profile and Circles.

The first thing you are going to want to do is set up your circles. Click on the tab and it will bring you to a interface where all of your contacts in Gmail (not just Gmail addresses, but all of your contacts) are listed in a panel on top of the screen. Below is a panel that has your various circles. To add a contact to a circle, drag from the top of the list to the appropriate group. Contacts can be added to multiple circles.

One of the initial problems I had from the circles interface was that I added a couple of "Friends" into my "Work" circle and could not figure out how to get them out. You can do this from the user streams by hovering over the person's name and hovering over "Add to circles" and clicking the appropriate boxes. Yet, from the circles interface, that was not readily apparent. To take people out of a circle, hover above the circle, grab their icon and drag it back into the people plane.

One of the great differentiators between Twitter and Facebook is the "unbalanced" or "balanced" follow. Facebook was initially a two-way follow paradigm - I friend you, you friend me and we see each other's updates. This has been changed with the ability to "like" groups, brands and pages without them following you back. Twitter has always been a one-way follow - I follow you and you do not necessarily have to follow me back.

This line has been blurred in circles. If a person is in your contacts, they can be added to a circle and will get a notification that has happend (but not what circle they have actually been added to). There is also a "follow" circle. Just like Twitter, you can follow people and see their updates without them having to follow you back. As your circles evolve this could allow to track different interests, like Twitter lists.

The Stream and "Bumping"

Once you have set up your circles, go back to the Home screen to see the results. Below the profile picture you will see the choices of stream. You can view your entire stream at once (à la Facebook) or by particular circle.

There are two other options below your circles - Incoming and Notifications. Clicking incoming will bring you to messages that have been sent by people outside of your circles. Notifications will show you when people in your circles have commented on something you have posted, or something you have commented on.

Below the circles and notifications there is a tab dubbed "Sparks." More on that below.

One of the killer features of Gmail, or any Google product, is Chat. It has made its way into Plus and sits in the familiar left-hand, bottom-right portion of the screen that it is found in Gmail. Users with a lot of Circle and Chat contacts will like the ability to enable chat for particular groups. Want to surface friends and family but not acquaintances? Plus will let you do that.

If you are using Plus in a Chrome browser, desktop notifications do not pop up when someone sends you a message like it would in Gmail.

Posting a status update in Plus is not like sending a Tweet or updating Facebook. The core functions of an update are present - photos, links, video and location - but when you hit "share" it doesn't automatically post your message to everybody in your circles. You have the option to decide which circles your update is posted to, from individual groups to all circles, to extended circles, or just a single person.

An interesting feature in the user stream is that conversations will surface back to the top of the feed when subsequent comments are made on a thread. This, according to Google developer Jean-Baptiste Queru, is called "bumping." Google Buzz has this same capability and it was also a feature of FriendFeed.

Photos

Photos in Plus are relatively self-explanatory. Users can update photos from their computers or from their phones, see photos that people in their circles have uploaded. With the Android app, there is a way to upload any photo that you take with your phone straight to Plus, an interesting if slightly disconcerting feature.

When you add a photo, it will prompt you to create an album. Once that album is created it will ask which of your circles you would like to share it with. This is a prime differentiator from Facebook where all of your photos are visible to all of your friends by default (you can change who can view certain photos in Facebook preferences). You can also pick an individual to share photos with instead of an entire circle.

Photo uploading is easy within Plus. Just like adding a picture or an attachment to a Gmail document, you can drag-and-drop from your desktop or click the on the upload button and browse your computer for pictures.

Users can also add photos by posting them in status updates or by uploading them through the Profile tab.

Profile

If you use any Google products and have a Google account, you have a Google Profile. Profiles are unknown to most of the Internet because, until now, it was relatively useless to anyone but Google.

Your Google Profile is now the hub of you Plus experience, the backbone that everything else is built upon. There are six tabs in your profile page - posts, about, photos, videos, +1s and Buzz.

A significant change to your profile page is that there is now a location where your +1s live. Until now, when you clicked +1 on content on the Web, nothing happened. The information was sent to Google and integrated into some type of esoteric search algorithm. Users can now see what people have +1ed through their Google Profile. Unlike the Facebook share/like/recommend buttons, it does not go straight into your stream but rather to the profile page.

Sparks and Hangouts

Hangouts is a new feature rolled out with Plus. Essentially it is an area where your circles or a select group of friends can video chat all on one screen. To start a Hangout, go to the "Welcome" button in the home tab. It will prompt you to start a hangout and invite individuals or entire circles. Up to 10 people can be in a hangout at once and it will be seen in that circle or users' stream.

Sparks is the part of Plus where you can find content on the Web that you are interested in. In the "Field Trial" version of Plus, it looks like Sparks is a randomized version of content and news generated through Google News. Sparks can be a dashboard for things you are interested in on the Web. When you do a search in Sparks, it will predict what you are searching for with a drop down menu (like old Google search, not quite like Google Instant). You can pin particular topics you search for to the Sparks dashboard for quick access.

You can share articles found in Sparks with a share button on the bottom of every article that surfaces in a search. Like everything else in Plus, it can be shared with a specific person, circle, group of circles or the general public.

For more information, check the videos that Google made explaining Plus and all of its aspects -- Circles, Hangouts and Sparks.

Have social media networks reached a saturation point? (According to search volume)

Did you know that out of all social networking users 92% partake in Facebook, 29% participate on MySpace, 18% are on LinkedIn and Twitter is the least utilized network with just 13% usage? Or that males on LinkedIn nearly double the number of females, yet female usage of Twitter almost doubles male usage?

Today Pew Internet & American Life Project, a project of the Pew Research Center, launched a detailed report on how social networking affects our lives that contains these results and more surprising information.  The report includes a wealth of information from whether or not social media is making people less social in real life to detailed demographic data about U.S. usage of each network.

The goal of this report was to discover what social networking is actually doing to people in their personal offline lives.  These are the highlights and conclusions from the 80+ page report.

Who Uses Social Media Networking Sites?

Some of the initial information that Pew Internet presents relates to the social user and who they actually are by age, race and gender.

One of the most weighty stats about social networking usage is the fact that overall social networking usage has nearly doubled from 2008  to 2010.  Back in 2008 26% of adults were utilizing a social networking service (SNS) whereas 47% of adults were using a SNS in 2010.

Age

Leading the increase in social networking usage were those over the age of 35, which grew nearly twice as fast as those 18-35 in the same time period.  Only 18% of Internet users over the age of 35 used a social networking service in 2008 and by 2010 that number was up to 48%.    The average age of an adult SNS user jumped from 33 years old in 2008 to 38 years old in 2010

Gender

Typical to similar studies the report backs up the fact that social networking users skew female.  A notable change showed the discrepancy actually grew from 6% more females in 2008 to 12% more female social networking users in 2010:

Site-by-Site Breakdown

One of the most interesting elements of the report is the site-by-site statistics that showed who actually uses the various social networking sites.

Age

A few surprising stats arose from these findings, including the fact that the average MySpace user (32 years old)  is younger than both the average Facebook user (38) & Twitter (33) user.  LinkedIn skews the highest out of all the networks with users having an average age of 40.

Gender

LinkedIn is the only social network that has more men than women and the disparity is rather large with men nearly doubling the number of women.  Twitter, on the other hand is almost exactly the opposite of LinkedIn with woman making up 64% of the total users.

Race & Ethnicity

The information contained in the report shows that the vast majority of social networking users in the U.S. are white; the lack of minority participation on most networks is staggering.

African-American users have the lowest presence  on LinkedIn making up only 2% of the total users.  The highest saturation of African Americans is on MySpace with 16% of the total users.

Hispanic users are not prominent on social networking services either.  LinkedIn is comprised of only 4% Hispanics, compared to the approximate 14.5% Hispanic makeup of the national population. Hispanics do however make up 12% of both the Twitter and MySpace user base.

LinkedIn is far and away the most saturated site when it comes to white users who make up a whopping 85% of the user base.

Social Networking Usage

Much of the information that Pew Internet uncovered about social usage was expected like MySpace having users who have been members the longest, Twitter having members for the shortest time lengths, but there was some interesting data in regards to everyday usage.

The main finding in regards to usage is that Facebook is far and away the most popular social networking site.  Other sites don’t come remotely close to the popularity of Facebook.   Of all users on social networks, 92% use Facebook, 29% use MySpace, 18% use LinkedIn and just 13% use Twitter.  That’s right, people who have a social networking account are least likely to use Twitter.

Frequency

While Twitter finished in last place out of the main 4 sites the frequency of use of Twitter is quite high.  Facebook again leads the pack in frequency of use with 52% of users checking at least once a day, but Twitter is close behind with 33% of  users on the service daily:

Facebook Statistics & Usage

Facebook is a focus of this report and thorough usage data and user behavior is included throughout.

Facebook users are quite active in not only using the service, but interacting with others.

• 22% of users comment on another’s post or status
• 26% of users “like” another user’s content
• 15% of users update their own status
• 20% of users comment on another user’s photos

The most active Facebook users tend to be women.  19% of women update their status at least once a day, while men are about half that number (11%) when it comes to daily status updates:

In addition to commenting and updating statuses, Facebook users do “like” quite a bit of content.

• 44% of users in the 18-22 age range “like” content on a daily basis.
• Men are less likely to “like” Facebook content than women.  20% of women “like” content several times a day compared to just 9% of men.

Breakdown of Friend Relationships

In addition to usage, the report sheds light on the what the most common makeup of Facebook friends might be.

• 22% people from high school
• 12% extended family
• 10% coworkers
• 9% college friends
• 8% immediate family
• 7% people from voluntary groups
• 2% neighbors

Does Social Networking Hinder Real-Life Social Experiences?

The biggest question that Pew Internet wanted to answer with this report was whether or not social networking hindered off line activity and interactions.  The answer is clear, it most certainly does not.  Not only do SNS fail to retard offline growth, they actually help users develop connections and form stronger relationships in the real world.

Some of the most interesting stats that prove social networks are more than just online relationships are:

• Only 3% of users’ Facebook friends have never met in person.  While 89% of all Facebook friends have met in person more than once.
• Internet users have a much more diverse network than those who don’t use the internet.  Out of all social networks, LinkedIn users have the most diverse networks.
• The average user of a social networking site has more close ties than a non-Internet user and is half as likely to be socially isolated as the average American.
• Internet Users are more trusting of others than non-Internet users.  Facebook users are over 3 times more likely than non-internet users to agree that “most people can be trusted.”
• Social networking users may have more of a life than non-internet users.  There is a higher percentage of SNS users to partake in a community group, sports league or youth group than a non-internet user.

Other Interesting Learnings

• Private messages are not frequently used.  Only 38% of users claim to use Facebook’s private messages at once a week or more.
• MySpace users have a greater probability to take multiple viewpoints than any other social networking site.
• Internet users are more likely to know their neighbors’ names than non-internet users
• LinkedIn is the only platform that skews male.  Nearly twice as many men (63%) as women (37%) use LinkedIn. All other SNS platforms have significantly more female users than male users.

Detailed Facebook Demographics
Age range Male Female
14-17 9.8% 9.1%
18-20 13.7% 13.2%
21-24 17.5% 16.6%
25-29 13.2% 11.7%
30-34 10.2% 9.7%
35-44 15.3% 15.4%
45-54 10.4% 12.3%
55-63 5.5% 7.2%
64+ 4.5% 4.8%
Source: Facebook.com ad platform. Percentages include those Facebook members who include a gender in their profiles. Data collected in May 2011.