New: Google+ Collections to categorise your content [@SmartInsights Alert]

Google+ follows Pinterest with a new 'Collections' feature

Rating: [rating=2]

Recommended Link: Google Official announcement - Introducing Google+ Collections

With this new feature Google+ seems to be following the popular model of Pinterest boards, where posts can be categorised into topics and interests, to share with family and friends on the same basis as the posts.

You can see the example at the head of this post where we grouped some of our infographics and they appear as 'cards' similar to Pinterest. Google explains 'Collections' this way:

"Every collection is a focused set of posts on a particular topic, providing an easy way for you to organize all the things you’re into. Each collection can be shared publicly, privately, or with a custom set of people. Once you create your first collection, your profile will display a new tab where other people can find and follow your collections".

Google's apparent reason for this new feature comes from behavioural research which identified that connections were taking place around 'interests'. Although there are sceptics which reveal that take up could be low, as activity is not around public posts.

They are clearly treating it as a major feature since when you add collections the link/tab to them is in middle of the main page navigation.

How does the new collection feature work?

You can use this page to create your first collection collection, and a new page will then be created to allow others you follow and share your collections.

To 'road-test' the feature we created a collection featuring our Digital Marketing infographics - view example.

This new feature is available this week. It can be accessed via Android and the web, with iOS is to follow.

What  are the implications for marketers?

Well, this depends how important Google+ is important to your business now and how you see this changing in the future. We have seen the number of shares of our content via G+ decrease steadily over the last 18 months while Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn shares have continued to grow. For this reason we have rate this as [rating=2]. It is a major feature in the sense that it is shown in the main menu of the header. But we don't see it as significant enough to increase adoption or engagement of Google+ by businesses or consumers. Or to look at it another way, the grouped content is not as clear as Pinterest (from the home page of the brand), so it's unlikely to attract Pinterest fans.

Given this, our advice would be not to bother about Collections unless you already have an active Google+ business page with thousands of followers.

What do you think of the Collections feature - Game Changer to revive Google+ engagement or a minor feature update?