On Social Networks and How Marketers Don't Get Them

I regularly receive free ebooks and webinar invites from a company called Hubspot. Hubspot is an online social media marketing platform and marketing consulting agency. Generally speaking, I find their stuff interesting and educational (I would say useful, but I honestly have no use for it right now).

This morning, however, I received an ebook whose title alone was enough to make me believe that they really don't know anything about social networks and how the average person interacts with them. The title was, "Google+ vs. Pinterest: Battle of the New Social Networks." Now, most people wouldn't necessarily see this as problematic. So lets follow my logic here.

How many social networks do you have profiles on? More than one right?
I have a profile on pretty much all of them.So, lets say I have 6, just for the sake of simplicity.

How many do you actually use?
Well, I spend the most time on Facebook, but I also use Twitter, G+ and Pinterest regularly.

If the assumption the above entitled ebook makes is correct (That all social networks provide exactly the same service and are in exact competition with one another) then why would I use all of these? Everyone I know uses Facebook, why do I need the others?

The answer is that I use them all for different things. Each does one thing better than another or is designed to fucntion in a certain way that the others do not. They have carved their own niches. People go to Pinterest AND Google +, not one over the other. Pinterest, for one, isn't as socially heavy. Google + is this weird blend between Facebook and Twitter that I haven't yet mastered, Pinterest is tumblr with less 13 year old and more housewife, less blog and more content. You go to pinterest to find cool things on the internet. You go to G+ to see if anyone posted anything interesting there that isn't on Facebook or Twitter already, and because that's where your friend's blog posts to. I use G+ because it's integrated with the rest of my Google things, and I can one click a post, while posting to Facebook from Google can sometimes be a hassle.These reasons, for Pinterest and G+, are not the same. They have no similarities in fact. So, G+ and Pinterest are not in a "Battle" of any sort.

And this is why I think I want to go into internet marketing. Clearly, these people need some advice from some digital natives.