“Psst… Hey, Kid. Have you heard of Google+? You wanna join? It’s free. And there’s candy.”
Okay, maybe that’s not the exact approach Google is taking. But Google definitely wants your children to abandon the Facebook ship in favor of Google+. The tricky part is that Google doesn’t make it obvious. It isn’t taking a very direct approach at marketing to young teens in particular, but the undertones are definitely there. Google+ is a network that wants to recruit users of all ages, but it understands that the fastest growing age group for social networking is teens under 18. Google+ would be missing out on a huge chunk of Internet users if it didn’t allow teens, and it just recently dropped the age requirement from 18 to 13 years.
Okay, maybe that’s not the exact approach Google is taking. But Google definitely wants your children to abandon the Facebook ship in favor of Google+. The tricky part is that Google doesn’t make it obvious. It isn’t taking a very direct approach at marketing to young teens in particular, but the undertones are definitely there. Google+ is a network that wants to recruit users of all ages, but it understands that the fastest growing age group for social networking is teens under 18. Google+ would be missing out on a huge chunk of Internet users if it didn’t allow teens, and it just recently dropped the age requirement from 18 to 13 years.
Getting in Through the Back Door
Now many parents aren’t okay with their 13-year-olds using social networking sites like Facebook, but most kids insist and eventually get their way. Since most teens need their parents’ permission for such things and most parents monitor their children’s activities online to some extent, Google+ is attempting to attract younger users by appealing to their parents. The tactic is genius and a proven successful one. If Google+ can convince the parents that its services are more child-friendly than Facebook, parents will be more than happy to let their children indulge in social networking with the caveat, “Okay, as long as it’s Google+.”
Safety Mission
So how will Google+ convince the parents? It’s already doing it, by putting significant policies and features in place specifically for users under 18. It publicizes these efforts, and most have championed Google for its commitment to improving the security of social networking for kids. There are lots of dangers in social networking for young, naïve users, particularly with over-sharing and exposure to strangers. Google+ has attempted to address these issues directly, and in this way Google+ is light years ahead of Facebook, meaning it can easily win the competition for attention from all the youngsters that will soon be “coming of age” and creating profiles. Parents will feel better about letting their kids use a social networking site that makes more of an effort to protect them.
Safety Measures
The most important safety measure in place for users under the age of 18 is that whenever they post something, before the sharing is finalized, they’ll be notified of exactly who will be able to see the information. Children will be more aware of who has access to their posts, and they can decide if such public sharing is really what they intended or want. If your kids are “hanging out” with Google+ Hangouts, they’ll be briefly pulled out of a chat and notified if anyone outside of their Circles enters, so they can choose to continue participating or not. There are additional controls that make it easier and more intuitive for you and your children to decide who they interact with. Finally, if you or your children decide to stop using Google+, they can very easily remove all of their personal information and shared content, something that’s difficult to impossible with Facebook. It may not have candy, but Google+ does have something.
Ruth Johnson follows tech trends and is often looking for useful content development tools. Ruth relies on Grammarly grammar checker to develop superior content.
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