Hey friends. As part of my mission to get more out of social media (for work) I am trying to understand how to use google+. I don't mean the mechanics of it (which are easy enough) but the USE of it. Twitter and Facebook are different interactions, you would post different things to those sites.

So how does google+ differ from Facebook in terms of what I'd put on there? Should I just be repeating my status updates on google+? keep it entirely work related? just link to cool stuff? not just how does it work but what makes it thrive?

thanks
AC

I have about 2700 followers on G+ and the way I got followers was primarily by following others. Folks tend to follow people back. Once you have followers, then the items you post to public and "extended circles" will show up in their stream and gives them a chance to read it and re-share if it's interesting. One suggestion is to not just post about yourself, also post things that are simply interesting to you. You want people to form a habit of reading your posts and sharing them.

The next question is, well, who do you want following you. So looking for people who are interested in the same topics you're interested in posting about will increase the likely-hood they'll be interested in what you say and re-share it. The way I found people who fit this criteria is by following popular folks in these areas (such as tech journalists for me) and then reading their posts. I then circle people who make good comments on these posts, and the circle starts to widen... rinse and repeat.

Also, there is a site that publishes the public shared circles that folks post along with a description of who is in the circle. You can find interesting circle shares and quickly expand the number of folks you're following (and hence will tend to follow you back).

Finally, G+ is unlike twitter, facebook, or blogging in that it tends to not be an anonymous thing. Folks do seem to get to know each other and, pun intended, form circles. That means you may need to spend the time to foster relationships.

why would i not just share everything PUBLIC? doesn't that superceed adding specific circles?

Sharing a post public will show it on the streams for people following you. Sharing it with extended circles will show it on the streams of people following you AND the streams of anyone they are in turn following. So you get a wider audience of pushed content.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

any way to change which circles you've posted to after you've posted?

also, you wanna give me a few +1 or whatever get me started

They recently made some changes, so I think you can make posts public now if you posted them to limited circles.



I've been resharing your posts, so you bet!

Best thing is to go here http://publiccircles.appspot.com/ and find some circles that have interesting people and add them to your circles. Some of them will circle you back and so see your posts on their stream. As you get better known some folks might include you in circles they share which adds to your followers as people copy that circle.

thanks for all the guidance!