Many people on Google+ are complaining about a lot of things: How super popular techies are dominating the stream with content and comments, the cat picture people, the animated gifs people, etc.
Google+ Circles are amazingly simple and smart. What I see is that Google+ is an incredible OPPORTUNITY for a Social Media friends “do over.” I filled my Facebook and Twitter with anyone. Over the last few years I’ve gotten to know whose stuck and who hasnt. Who has good content and who doesnt. My advice is use Google+ Circles to start fresh and new. Do a whole overhaul of your friends and their stream.
Heres my suggestion. Sometimes I like serious smart thinker content. Put them in a Circle called “Thinkers” or whatever. Yes maybe certain Techies get tons of content but the discussion is smart and gives me business and money making ideas. If you’re not learning you’re not getting smarter.
Next Circle, put the people whose stream is endless animated gifs, cat pictures, etc. Next Circle put in all the people who 99% of their content is just re-sharing every article they find on the internet. I’ve noticed something really funny about these 2 groups of people. Usually if I can find someone posting these items a couple of times, I can goto their profile and its 99% of their feed. Kinda funny and easy to jam into a particular Circle.
Now the cool thing about this is if you want to look at Smart stuff, get some laugh pictures, read news, you can flip between the Circles almost like CHANNELS. This way depending on your mood, you can find more of what you want in one place and change the Channels (Circles). Now you have an education channel, a news channel and a mindless or mind numbing channel.
Finally, consider your re-shares (retweets), I try to be conservative with mine so I dont get mislabeled as a 100% re-sharer. I analyze whether I think something will get popularly over shared or if its from a less popular source thats unlikely to be abused. In essence, I look for re-share gems. If any giant news source is getting re-shared multiple times on Google+ maybe you should guess that if you’ve seen it a couple times, your friends have already seen it five times. Back away from the re-share pile on. I think of it as saving me work if everyone else is doing the work for me, I dont have to re-share everything thats a major story some one else is doing it. Say something interesting and unique.
Agree with this approach. I think we all have added and added, and this is an opportunity to really plan out a phase I of using g+. We also all know that business profiles are coming, so we can think ahead.
Personally, I am loving it, but trying to really get a sense of strong points and how I want to use.
Good article, Chris. I always learn so much techie stuff from you!
Nice effort, very informative, this will help
me to complete my task. Thanks for share it keep it up.
Nice effort, very informative, this will help
me to complete my task. Thanks for share it keep it up.
Great point of view and tips on Social Media. Some feel # growth reflects popularity. In essence it only shows a # – not good/worthy/related content to that particular business…and if that # does reflect worthy content than, WOW.
some really good points, I was only thinking this today..strive for relevance and quality. That is what I constantly try to achieve.
some really good points, I was only thinking this today..strive for relevance and quality. That is what I constantly try to achieve.
I like this idea in concept. Unfortunately it requires a lot of maintenance – more so than FB or Twitter because of the number of options available with Circles. Like Twitter Lists, which take days if not months to setup and use appropriately.
The other issue I’ve notice with G+ Circles is that everyone still seems to be posting to “public” not to their circles. That’s why we have the issue with personal content being put side by side what we might consider interesting or news. This is happening because no one knows what Circle they are put into and therefore don’t want to take the chance that someone who has Circled them won’t see it (because we don’t all circle the people who circle us). Unfortunately I think Circles was implemented backwards.
I’m trying to adopt this approach with my circles. I want to both contribute and react. Therefore if I’m contributing I want to send the right post to the right circle rather than just ‘all circles’ BUT please correct me here, I still add ‘public’ most of the time. This is because I may post a link to the G+ article on Twitter and therefore whilst I may not want the post to appear in someone’s G+ stream (because I perceive they may not be interested) I do want them to have the ability to see the post if they search / click the link in the Tweet. I’m not planning on hiding anything from anyone – just trying to be appropriate to my audience. Much of this relies on people having accurate profiles so that I can circle them appropriately.
so does that mean I shouldn’t click on the G+ since your post has been reshared? :>) Great post, I’m getting into G+ more and more, primarily because I’m addicted to learning and reading everything tech. But I do love the cat photos being a proud Siamese cat owner!