On April 2, 2019, we finally waved goodbye to Google+, as parent company Google shut down the platform for good.

Officially, the death knell sounded for Google+ in March of 2018, when a data breach affected more than 500,000 accounts. However, many believe that the writing was on the wall for Google+ long before this breach ever took place.

Let’s face it, Google+ always had its work cut out. Competition in the social media market is just so steep. Despite the fact that Google+ had a core of loyal users, it simply couldn’t compete with other social media giants like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Google+ lack of popularity (and its decline) can be seen in the table below which compares total active Australian users in December 2016 and March 2019.

Instagram was one of the biggest winners of all the social media platforms across this two and a quarter year period, achieving serious growth of 80% and a current Australian user base of 9 million.

However, it is both Facebook and Youtube that reigned supreme with 15 million Australian users each (which is 60% of the Australian population); their positions at the top never in doubt.

Google+, as the statistics show, never came close with a 25% decline to its poultry 45,000 users (before Google chose to “sunset” it).

The Evolution of Instagram as a Business Powerhouse

When you think of Instagram, the first thing that may come to mind is the legions of celebrities using the platform to post selfies or snaps of their fabulous lifestyles. However, Instagram is so much more than this, and businesses are starting to take notice.

It is common sense that, wherever your customers go, you need to go too, and this works in a digital sense also. In these last three years, users have flocked to Instagram in their millions, so it is easy to see why businesses are opting to do the same.

Instagram gives businesses a platform to reach out and engage with their customers on a daily basis. As these businesses start to share more and more user-friendly content, they attract more potential customers to them.

How Feedsy is Making the Switch to Instagram

At Feedsy, our goal is to stay on top of the latest changes in the industry, and evolve alongside social media platforms and best practices. This is why we’re removing the Google+ profile section of our sites, and adding Instagram profile display in its place. We will be introducing this in the weeks to come and you’ll see this switch when you take a look in the “Join Us” section in our FeedsyWeb and FeedsyMail themes.

If your want to include a link to your Instagram profile, all you need do is email us at [email protected]!

Another change is removing the Google+ in our “Share This” options. However, we can’t currently add Instagram as a sharing option because Instagram doesn’t allow for the sharing of external articles (as Instagram is photo-based). However, we’re currently developing a way to allow our customers to auto-share selected Feedsy content (like inspirational quotes) straight to your Instagram.

Stay tuned to find out more!