Google Plus Features

Hello, and welcome to our Fifth Social Media Blog where we will explore the features of Google+. 

 

Last time we introduced Google Plus.   In a sentence, Google know ‘Social is Key’ and Google+ is all about being social.  Google+ makes it easy, very easy, to publish content rich information and get your messages in front of potential customers.  This time we will introduce some of the features of the Google+ web site

Stream - Simply a news feed of the latest content shared by the people you’re connected to on Google+, same as Facebook's news feed.  Posts are listed by age, you can “like” a post using google’s “+1”.  You can share posts with people you’re connected to.  You can post status updates via the “Share what’s new...” box.   And sharing pictures, video and web links is ... trivial. 

Circles – A crushingly simple way to organise your connections into social groups, “Professional”, “Family”, “Friends” etc.  This way Google gives you more control over who see’s your output and your content, by sharing posts only to members of a circle.  This works in both directions, you can control what content appears in your “stream” using Circles.  Making sharing online more like sharing in real life - different conversations with different people.

Hangouts  - Easy, quick video conferencing with up to 9 other people.  Organised, pre-arranged or casual by inviting people in your Circles that are already on line. Cool enough, but recent developments include – Integration with Google Docs, Sharing PC screens and a communal Sketchpad.  Update - Hangouts are now a separate tool available outside of Google+

Mobile – Google Plus has a mobile app (Google own the Android Operating System).  As well as Hangouts and Stream, two interesting app’s are - Messenger which allows a number of separate conversations to run simultaneously in one simple group chat.  Instant Upload which seamlessly and instantly uploads pictures to a private Google+ album, similar to Apple’s iCloud, but using DropBox.

Communities - This is Google+ equivalent to LinkedIn Groups.  Simply a forum to connect with people united by a common subject or interest.  Great places to meet people to network with, to share your content, to find other people's content, to discuss matters, ask and answer questions.

Pages - Have your business on google for free.  You can now have a Google+ Business Page, where your customers, and potential customers (as now you can be found on google searches, google maps, google+ and mobile)  and can connect and keep on top of your news and posts.  

Events - Google Plus Events contain the expected, usual, user-friendly features you see in typical online invitation sites, if you have used Facebook Events, then Google Plus Events will feel familiar.  

When you create your event, you get to choose from a number of different themed photos, or you can upload your own pictures or logo’s.  You get to name your event, give details  and instructions. And the remember this is Google so the location and directions can be viewed via Google Maps or Google Local - easily.

Where Google Plus Events wins over other online invitation offerings what Google refer to as Party Mode functions.  Where guests can contribute their own pictures during and after the event. And prior to an event, invitees can add comments.  Google Plus Events can be private to groups of individuals and circles, or made public for all users. You can search and browse public events, allowing an unrestricted number of Google+ users to access.

Searching – And finally Google Plus inevitably has excellent search functionality, some say its the next Google!!

Introduction to Google Plus

Hello, and welcome to our fourth Social Media Blog this time we are introducing you to Google+

Google+ is Google's latest attempt at taking Google Social, in fact its Google’s third attempt, plus, having also taken time to observe Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc you would hope Google would get it right this time.  After a promising start - it looks like Google are moving features and functionality away from the platform and its future is not going to be as a full on Social Platform.  Currently its major benefit is for sharing content and the benefits of its association with Google... 

Google have been helping us search, find and explore the internet.  Google know what we look for, what we find of interest, where we go and how long we stay there – at least on the internet.  Google have huge data on our web behaviour, and from this data, Google know something.  Google know ‘Social is Key’ and Google+ is all about being social.  Google know that traffic from social web sites convert better.

Google+ makes it easy, very easy, to publish content rich information and get your messages in front of potential customers.  Google+ makes it easy to segment your connections into communities (circles as Google+ calls them) making the whole social networking experience more real.  Your public Google+ posts are indexed by Google so Google+, and especially having a Google+ company page, has considerable SEO benefits. 

And when I say it’s easy... get this... it takes me twice as long to deliver a presentation on how to create a Google+ Company page than it takes the audience to go away and do it.

Next time, more on Google+ as we explore some of the features of Google+