Current estimates indicate that Google+ (which started in 2011), has 343 million active users and 100,000+ communities, whereas LinkedIn has 238 million users and 1.5 million LinkedIn Groups.

Most LinkedIn members use their profile for professional branding purposes. The active LinkedIn members engage in business development and job search/placement activities. In contrast, initially many Google+ users used the features for personal interactions such as photo-sharing with family, hangout with family and friends. Also many G+ users don't realise that their personal posts are making it to the public webspace and that they should reset their visibility preferences of posts and "About" page. Those users detered others from engaging with them.

However, the demand and growth of Google+ has been phenomenal this year. Moreover, after LinkedIn deployed an unprecedented and Members-UNfriendly policy called Sitewide Automated Moderation (SWAM), thousands of professionals and small businesses are exploring and migrating to Google+. Those who are active in Google+, are more than ever separating their professional profile from their personal profile and are engaging at different levels.

If you are considering to put your efforts into only one channel that helps you manage your customers better and more effectively, then you must start by comparing the features of each channel. The following tables compares all the known features available (as of September 1, 2013) with a free LinkedIn Membership and a Google+ profile (which is free).

The features marked in "blue" are the ones that we consider as very user-Friendly. The features marked in "red" are the ones that we consider as user-UNfriendly.


Overall

Feature Google+ LinkedIn
People Circles, Pages, Communities Connections
Companies Circles, Pages, Communities Company Pages
Posts Text, Photos, Links, Videos, GIFs
Text, Links and Image files
No limit on text/character count
Limit on number of characters in post
Tag people and pages with @ and +
Tag people and companies with @
Add hashtag for global SEO Does not contribute to SEO
Discussions Communities: Private, Public with  invite moderation, Public-Open LinkedIn Groups: Private, Public with  invite moderation, Public-Open
Home Home Home
Login Email
Automatic sign-on with login to any other Google products
Email
Like "+s" "Like"
Mobile App Available Available

Home Page and Posting Capabilities

Feature Google+ LinkedIn
Home:
Ability to post updates

No restriction in text length
Add Photos and images and videos

Editing after posting
Delete post
Change and add link to post
Disable comments
Disable reshares

View shares and ripple effect
Share to different circles, public, communities or email to your selections

Share to other social-media channels via paid or free products such as Friends+Me or Buffer

Restricted Text length
Images and Videos only as files, no inherent video player (all are links)
No editing after posting
Delete post
Only can add a link to post (no edit)
Cannot disable comments
Cannot disable reshares
Can see direct "Likes" but no reshare data (other than a count and only limited to last 15 posts
Share to LinkedIn All Connections, Connections, to Twitter
Home: View updates from Others Only posts made by those in your circles (individuals and companies), communities and pages that you follow

Can control the frequency of view in "All Posts" setting

Can partition views in tabs by circles

Linear and Tabular Views
Posts and Profile Updates from your connections, Companies you follow, Sponsored LinkedIn posts, LinkedIn News curated by LinkedIn (called LinkedIn Today), Groups you belong

Can change in settings to disable/enable Companies, Profile Updates, Group Updates

No ability to partition

Linear Views

Profile: Data

Feature Google+ LinkedIn
Profile: Data fields Tagline Tagline
Photo Photo
Introduction Summary
Work: Employment Experience
Education and Courses Education and Courses
Introduction Interests
Basic information Personal Details
Work: Skills Skills and Expertise
Introduction Advice to connect
Links: All web-links, Media links, Blog links, Other social-media

Authorship/contributor (helps with SEO and Author rank)
Media Links and Contact Info

No Authorship
Introduction Languages
Locations Lived Not available
Reviews Recommendations
Others you have in your circles and others who have included in your circles (can manage view settings) Your connections (can manage view settings)
Apps linked to G+ Not available
Settings: All data field has Custom view settings Settings: Some custom view settings
Profile: Data No specific who viewed your profile data
Overall statistics via Google Analytics and Apps
Who viewed my profile (only last 5 views displayed in free, paid subscriptions provides more data)

Two trend graphs:
How many times your profile was found in search? 
Number of profile views by day

Contacts, Job Search

Feature Google+ LinkedIn
Contacts: connect and information Include any page or people in circle (unidirectional); Max 5000 people and pages Send email to connect -- once approved, you connect (bi-directional)
No limit on number of connections
If you have Google for business or Gmail account, circles are automatically available on "contacts" for email (provided their email addresses are available for share)

Download and archive all Google+ data via "Data Liberation Army" -- a Google app to csv or xls files and extract can be selected using "from" and "to" dates
Download contacts information CSV file but not by dates
Search is Google search

Search by company, tags, titles, locations

(Paid subscriptions provides more search categories)

Jobs No functionality

Search for candidates harder as almost all text search is via semantic search

Any job posted in Google+ can be found via Google Search bar via keywords and can directly apply via link provided in the Google+ post

Free job ads

Google analytics with Click-through Rates (CTRs) but no specific information

Searching through profiles easy with keyword search
Jobs has both paid and free functionalities

Search by database fields

Specific views and downloads are available

Analytics for recruiters

Job Posts with analytics are not free

Company, Product or Brand Page

Feature Google+ LinkedIn
Company

Company pages

(as many you want for each brand)

Data Fields: Tagline, Introduction, Links, Contact Information

Home Page

Local Pages with Maps

Connected via all Google products including YouTube

Company pages

(as many you want for each brand)

Data fields: Size, Description, Founded date, Status, Address, Products, Industry classification

Home Page

Links

No Maps

This is for any organization or entity linked to a profile

You can create your own circle with pages such as "Education"
This is for any organization or entity linked to a profile

"Education" tab is a grouping of individuals by school
Analytics of Pages via Activity Log and Google Analytics

No download of follower demographics data except via paid apps

Ripple of posts including who reshared
Analytics with categories of views, shares, engagements, follower demographics, Employee insights, Insights

Aggregate data on Impressions of Posts but no specifics on reshares (free subscription)
Page Moderators Company Administrators
Circles Followers
No connectivity with others Those who work or were with the company will automatically get the company logo on their profile
Reviews Recommendations
Local Business Listing via Google Local No local business

Discussion Groups and Communities and Search

Feature Google+ LinkedIn
Discussion Communities Groups
You can join any number of communities as long as the community moderator allows you Maximum limit 50
No Google sponsored news or posts LinkedIn News and Influencers; Sponsored posts
Community: joining by request; posting guidelines Community: joining by request; posting guidelines
Community: Post in any number of topics set up by moderators Groups: Post in discussion, jobs, promotion -- pre-determined categories
Community Owner and any number of moderators Community Owner and any number of moderators
Create as many Google+ Pages linked to original account Create sub-groups
Posts made on community is only visible on author's profile (if public) and community page (if you are a member of the community) Posts made on group is only visible on group page
Moderation:
Moderators can mute comments, and remove Members.

Individuals can:
Mute comments
Report abuse
"+" comments
Share posts
Comment on post
Moderation:
Moderators can Block, Delete, Revoke, Site-wide automated moderation(SWAM)

Individuals can:
Flag comments 
"Like" comments
Comment on post
Search Google Search Engine for any text and keywords
Search results displayed by "Everything", "People and Pages", Google+posts, communities, Photos, Hangouts, events, From your circles, From you, To you
LinkedIn Search on keywords included only in these fields: Profile Summary, Group summary, Job Summary, Company Description, University Description, Job Summary
Unlimited Saved Searches Only 3 saved searches with Free subscription
None available Job reference or recommendation search

Hangouts, Meetings and Other Features

Feature Google+ LinkedIn

Hangouts

(Competitive Advantage)

Google Talk and video capability free and with innumerable viewers and participants
Can be directly posted as recording on YouTube channel
Competes with Skype group video, WebEx and Gotomeeting
Not available
Seamless integration YouTube
Google Analytics
All Google products such as Google Maps, Gmail for Business, Contacts, Photos, Google News, Blogger, Translate, Google Scholar, Google Books
Google Apps Marketplace
Slideshare, Pulse and LinkedIn News
Events Event announcement and invites No
Notifications Managed settings Managed settings
Email Gmail and Gmail for business or Google+ mail LinkedIn mail
API developers Yes; More Open Yes; More Closed


Ask yourself these questions:

"1. What value should these channels generate for me?"

"2. What value will my customers get from me by engaging with me on these channels?"

"3. What are my goals? How will I measure those goals?"

"4. Which activities will I most likely do on social-media channels like these?"

After you have answered those questions, then revisit the above tables and we think you will find a winner or a winning combination.



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