Last year social war hit hard. Google disrupted the online community scene with its rollout of Google Plus. This took the battle for the best online social platform to a higher playing field. Searches customized to specific needs, friends recommendations and personal preferences, combined with sharing-your-story features, forced the other big players in the online world to act quickly. Questions arose regarding the influence of Google+ into the way Facebook and Twitter will be used by its consumers. As far as we know Google+ hasn’t shown the back of its tongue yet and Facebook and Twitter will have to get ready for war. Google+ allows people to post, check-in, share, like and comment to friends and followers. One may say it combines Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and even Youtube into one. Which of course didn’t come as a surprise to most of us.

After a major redesign of Youtube, Twitter introduced a new layout allowing people to enjoy a more intuitive experience. And now, shortly after their trial run, Facebook Timeline arrives for everyone. Like almost all redesigns Facebook introduced, a warm welcome by the big crowd stays out. Apparently most people have problems with change and reviewing Facebook’s – almost yearly – redesigns, it shows in consumers behavior. Adaptability is a major skill most of us, not even I, have totally captured. Nevertheless, in my opinion for a marketer to consider the new channels and ways of marketing is about opening oneself up for engagement with its customers and new opportunities. Being able to see and grasp these chances, competitive advantage is in your sight. Don’t be oblivious to the newly created needs in this world market, sooner or later you’ll need to fulfill these.

As simplicity is a humans survival instinct, to survive the battle of the toughest, we like to focus on one platform. Which social media channel should we then be most active on? Which one will win the fight? And what will 2012 have in store for us? Google Plus is for many people still ‘another’ Facebook and that gives Facebook a slight advantage this first quarter. As long as we open up for new things we will be able to react and respond swiftly.