How Google+ Works
Figuring out how Google+ works is essential especially since the much anticipated social media platform just opened to the general public today. We want to explore how Google+ works so that you can master the platform, be able to discuss it with your collegues, and hopefully come up with ways you may be able to use it for your business once Google+ releases business pages.
How Google+ Works | Circles
Its important to recognize the importance of Google+ Circles when discovering how Google+ works. Google+ allows you to segregate your friends into Circles, which lets the users share certain information with particular Circles of their choosing, which is one defining feature to recognize when looking at differences between Google+’s platform and Facebook.
Circles allows you to categorize your network into many unique little pockets. For example, if you’d like to know how Google+ works for business, you could easily separate your customers, business partners, employees, outsourcers, and potential clients all into different categories. If you wanted to send out a message about the problems with your new product, you probably wouldn’t want your customers to see this, but you also don’t want to send out individualized messages to all of your employees either. Well how Google+ works is that it allows you to send this message to your employees solely.
I’m sure that everyone has run into problems with information being shared with your entire network concerning your personal life. Take young job seekers for instance, you probably don’t want that keg-stand picture from Saturday night visible to the HR departments of every company you applied for, well with Google+ you don’t have to worry about that.
How Google+ Works | Hangouts
Google+’s answer to video conferencing in a social setting is its acclaimed feature, Hangouts. How Google+ works with Hangouts is that it allows up to 10 people to chat with one another simultaneously but how Google+ works with conferencing is a bit different than what you’re used to.
Here’s an excerpt from InteractMarketing in their article about how Google+ works:
The concept behind Hangouts comes from real life. Google has crafted a platform that allows users to interact, in real-time, with friends and family via video. A user starts off by logging into their Google account and creating a virtual avenue to interact with their friends. As friends notice your presence they can choose to also join your hangout or create one of their own. Hangouts are an attempt to mirror the kind of interactions shared with family and friends. For example, you run into a friend or family member at a shopping center. Hangouts mimic the decision to walk over and “hangout” with them online. Unlike standard video conference applications where all participants are shown in different windows, Hangouts displays the video of the person speaking and will alternate the video as different people join the conversation.
How Google+ Works | Sparks
So its Google, so you probably already guessed that they’d implement search in there, well how Google+ works with search is pretty amazing. You can pick a topic of interest and Google+ will recommend pages and links that match your interest. Listen small businesses! You’ll want to make sure that you have a lot of good content online and categorize yourself correctly when Google+ does in fact open up business profiles (which they’ll do soon).
Go ahead and get yourself started with Sparks, this way you’ll be able to gain some insight into how a page ends up being recommended. Stay ahead of the game, play as a civilian, learn how Google+ works, and you’re on your way.
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