Facebook should be careful from now on. A new research reveals that it may not be the leader of the social media walk for much longer. The research shows that Facebook’s social lead is falling, when Google and Pinterest followed its position.
However, it’s important to note that a measurement of social logins is entirely different than a measurement of site traffic coming to or from social networks. This study simply shows which social networks people prefer to use when logging in to third party sites, and it’s important because it reveals users’ preferred networks.
According to its latest numbers, Facebook continues to dominate social logins at 54%—but Google+ is following at 24%, a percentage that is growing every year. In 2011, Google’s logins were at just 12%.
Google is making a strong effort to keep shifting this balance of power. In May, Google made a big overhaul of its Google+ social platform in order to make sharing simpler and cater to its Android-user base. Google+ may not be the perfect system, but nobody can argue with the ease of using your primary email as a social login.
The sparkling newcomer that attracts everyone’s attention in this research is Pinterest, which has actually surpassed Facebook, at least when it comes to e-commerce sharing. Basically, if something is being shared from a retail site, there’s a higher chance that content will end up on Pinterest instead of Facebook. (Pinterest obtained 41% of the e-commerce traffic to Facebook’s 37%.)
There’s no reason to believe that next year’s survey will show similar growth for Google and Pinterest. The takeaway here is that users are using what’s simplest for them. Signing in with your email that is probably already your Google account beats signing in with Facebook, especially as Facebook usage declines among youths and teens. And if you’re going to share your shopping list, why not do it on a social network designed specifically for that purpose?
Check out the rest of the complete data from the research below: