This article will explain the significance of Google+ and show you how to use it to build your online authority, expand your community, and share your content with a larger audience. You will learn how to take advantage of all the features on Google+ and know how to make the many features work for you. But before you can even consider these valuable features, let's take a look at what exactly Google+ is.
Google+ Explained
Google designed Google+ to make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. Basically, the user experience on Google+ is similar to that of Facebook. The major difference with Google+ is to make it easier to control who sees what content with "Circles," which are specific groups of people instead of just publishing content on your Wall for everyone to see.
For example, do you want your business associates to see pictures of your new kitten, or just your friends and family? Likewise, do you want to bombard your family with posts of industry news related to your businesses? Circles are the way to group the people in your life so they only see what you want them to see.
Regarding your business, Circles provide efficient, targeted messaging to your customers and clients. This can be much more effective than other social networks. Using Circles you can place your followers into categories, similar to direct mail or email segmentation lists. You may have content or campaigns intended for prospects, those who you have not done business with yet. You may run a campaign for a subset of your paying customers. You may have content for entire client and prospect base. With Circles you can control your campaigns for precise targeting.
There are other important reasons to use Google+ beyond the Circles feature, one of which is search discovery. Think of the millions of people who search Google every day. If you want to increase your Google Search presence, you should consider this—Google will always favor itself. When you share content from your website on your Google+ Page, you are helping your business rank higher in the Google Search Engine.
Google has also integrated Google+ in its other services, such as Gmail, Google Docs (now Drive), YouTube, Google Local others. And don't forget about Android, Google's platform that powers more mobile devices than Apple's iOS. Soon having a Google+ may not be an option, it may become a necessity in surviving online.
Getting Started on Google+
Creating a Google+ account is fast and easy. There are only 3 steps with only a few pieces of information asked about you, most of which are optional.
When you visit http://plus.google.com, you'll see the welcome screen with the Sign in box on the left. Sign in with your Gmail account or click CREATE AN ACCOUNT if you don't have one.
Complete the information (you don't have to put your real birthday), click the agreement checkboxes and click Upgrade.
In the next screen you're asked to add people you know. When you hover over the Add button a popup will appear with four starter Circles for you to select from.
More on Circles in the next section.
Click Continue after you add a few people or skip adding people for now.
Next you're asked to follow celebrity accounts. Click Continue when you're done following.
The next step asks you to fill out your profile. Like Facebook, you have the option of adding places you've lived, worked and gone to school. Click Finish and you're done!
After creating your account you'll be on the Google+ home page, where you can begin participating. However, you may want to visit the Setting page where you can change your privacy settings, or head to your Profile page and change your background image and profile picture. Both are available by hovering over the Home link in the upper left corner.
How To Use Google+ Circles
If the whole concept of "Circles" has you confused, just understand what a "Circle" represents by remembering they are simply groups. You can have a Circle of friends, prospective customers, current customers, business organizations, or any number of possibilities.
Creating Circles
As you may have notice when you created your account, Google+ provides a few default circles to get you started: Friends, Family, Acquaintances and Following. You can drag people from a list of suggested people into circles individually or by highlighting multiple people at a time and dragging them all into one circle. These suggestions come from your Gmail account, so if you don't see someone you'd like to Circle, try adding them to your Gmail contacts.
You can also create a new Circle on the fly by dropping a friend onto the "Drop here to create a new circle" or simply hover over that circle to create a new one before you start dragging your connections over.
When you add your first person to a Circle, you'll get a popup notification that you can now share with them and see what they are sharing with you. After you place someone in one of your Circles, that person doesn't know which of your Circles they're in. No one does. They only receive a message that they've been followed. You could have a Circle labeled "Jerks" and the people in that Circle will never know.
You will also receive a notification that they will appear on your public profile. You may not want this. If not, you can click on the "Change" link which will take you to your Google profile with a highlighted box where you can change the visibility settings to show people in all circles or just selected ones, select whether anyone on the web or just people in your circles can see that information and select whether to show people who have added you to their circles.
You may wish to add people who are not on Google+ yet, adding them to a circle means that they will receive your Google+ posts via email. You should be aware that those people haven't signed up and might not really want to receive your updates. You could perhaps create a circle for those who only receive email updates for tighter control of the message volume.
Posting
If you use Facebook, sharing content on Google+ is almost the same process.
You have box where you can write or paste a link or upload a photo. The text box supports hashtags to group posts and helpin searches.
The big difference is the To box that pops up after you enter some content. The To box allows you to share your post with any of your Circles, or a person in your Circles, or a combination of Circles and individuals.
The Public option means that anyone will be able to see your post. However, people specified will receive a notification of your post. This is important to understand: notifying people each time you have a new post may annoy them. It's best to have public posts and occasionally share something with a specific Circle or a few individuals.
After you click Share your post will appear in your Stream where people can +1 and comment on your post, similar to Facebook's newsfeed.
Next, Communities and Hangouts...
Google+ Communities
Google+ communities are theme oriented public discussion groups that exist within the social network. Any member of Google+ can create or join a community to share information or participate in discussions. Unlike Circles, members of a community do not have to be in the same Circles to participate and exchange information. Google+ communities are more like online forums meant to start open discussion and exchange ideas on specific topics.
Benefits of Creating a Google+ Community
Creating or joining a community Google Plus has several benefits:
- Communities content is indexed and discoverable by the Google search engine and on Google+.
- Create and manage your own Google+ community and become a reference on a topic of expertise to increase visibility and personal branding.
- Communities allow you to meet other members sharing a common interest, and provide a place to build relationships through social networking.
- Creating a community around a recurring event such as an annual exhibition or conference is a great use of Google+ Communities. Members can receive information before events, and continue discussion after events.
There are only three simple steps to get started with your own community.
- Go to https://plus.google.com/communities and click the Create a Community button.
- Choose if it should be a public or private community
- You are shown a prompt to set the visibility of your community on Google+. You can choose between four types of community:
- Public - Anyone can join: everyone can become a member, and you see the list of members and posts.
- Public- Moderator approval needed to join: Anyone can send a registration and may join if the moderator approves.
- Private- Let people find through search and request to join: Users can find the community and apply for registration. They are restricted in the fact that they do not have access to the list of members.
- Private- Hide community from searches: The community does not appear in the search results. Only those invited can join.
- Next, name your new community and decide if you want to approve new members or not. When creating a community on Google+, if you have a Google+ Page for your business, choose a distinct name to avoid confusion.
With those three simple steps, you have started your first community. Now you can create categories to guide conversations. You may also add a tagline and a brief description so people know what your community is all about. Your community profile should have a picture that helps describe your community. At this time (this stuff changes frequently), the picture has to be at least 250x250 pixels even though only 200x250 pixels are visible.
Note: the visibility of the community cannot be changed after the creation.
Once your community has launched, you'll can refine the look of your community and invite members.
Add a visual content in connection with the theme of the community to make it easily identifiable: Actions > Edit Community
Fill the "About" section: short description of the principle and the spirit of the community and add URL to other relevant sources.
Invite members: in the Actions dropdown menu, select Invite people. Then add names, circles, or e-mail addresses and send the request.
Create categories of discussion which can be created or modified by the owners of a community or moderators. These will act as filters and help organize community discussions. You may appoint one or more moderator for the community.
Many well-known brands have jumped on the Communities bandwagon. The truth is, however, you don't have to be a well-known brand. Anyone can create a community to discuss most any topic.
You may find that Communities will compliment your Google+ businesses pages. While Google has yet to devise a mechanism where the two actually intersect, a business page can serve promotional functions, while Communities focus on topics of shared interests and interaction.
Google Hangouts
Hangouts is one of the biggest features of Google+. Hangouts is Google's instant message and video chat apps that is fast becoming an alternative to Skype.
Like Skype, Hangouts offers chat, video calls, screen sharing and so on. But there are a few unique features in Hangouts that have people excited:
- Allows video chat with up to 10 (9 friends and yourself), while Skype charges for more than 2 people on a call.
- Has built in Google apps like Google Docs and YouTube live stream.
- People can have fun with emoji and wear animated hats and disguises on screen.
- Hangouts can stream live via the "On Air" feature. Viewers can watch a Hangout live on YouTube, great for your own "TV" show or other live broadcast.
Getting Started With Google Hangouts
To run a Google Hangout you must have a Google+ account, but you already knew that. To start a Hangout with someone, they need to be in one of your Circles. Just click on the New Hangout link on the left of your Google+ profile and invite the people from your Circles.
If you have the Google+ app on your Android or iOS device you can start a Hangout from your phone.
What to do if you want to Hangout with more than 10 people?
While Hangouts are limited to 10 participants, with On Air you can have an unlimited number of viewers. Also, if you have a Google Business Account, you can have 15 participants. Usually, you'd limit the number of presenters anyway, but if you need to have more than 15 speakers you could organize a Hangout into sessions where presenters and viewers switch. With these additional options you should be able to organize any type of online meeting.
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