You’ve tamed your Twitter spam, isolated Grandma on Facebook, and finally become Mayor of the coffee shop you pretend to work at while you’re really playing Angry Birds. Then, along comes Google+, and now you’re circling people like an angry John Madden.
As search marketers, there’s value in social media – I can trace real revenue to it, and I’m not the only one. The first 30 minutes are incredibly valuable – it’s the next 7 hours that are the problem. I understand both extremes – I once spent 24 straight hours on Twitter, and I’ve quit social media cold-turkey for 30 days twice.
So, here are a few tips for adding Google+ to the mix without losing what little work-day you have left:
Mind Your Circles
When I first joined Google+, I joked that my circles looked something like this:
The visual simplicity and cute animations make the real power of circles easy to miss, and it’s something Facebook and Twitter don’t do very well (at least without 3rd-party apps). Circles are an essential way to not only manage who you’re following, but to manage your time.
When you’re short on time, you don’t have to follow what everyone is saying – focus on a core circle or two. Circles can go a lot deeper than relationships, too (and they can overlap). Consider circling people by:
- Job/Industry
- Interests
- Activity level
- Likelihood to engage
- Country or time-zone
The list goes on, but the key is to think in terms of how you can best use your time. If you log on at 2am in the US, see what your UK friends are up to. If you’re only on for 5 minutes, check the people who are interested in whatever you’re working on at that moment (for inspiration). If you really need to get a link out, see what the people most interested in that niche are up to.
Flow with the Stream
Eventually, you have to accept that you can’t keep up with everything. Google+ is just out of its wrapper, and yet 15 minutes would barely let me skim the last hour of activity, let alone the links and comments. For reference, the bar on the right is a condensed version of my unexpanded stream from just the last hour.
This is more philosophical than tactical, but you have to let it go. The real-time stream is just that – jump in, swim forward, and don’t worry too much about what’s behind you. If it’s important, it’ll get repeated.
Social media is so real-time that it can even alienate people to rewind too much. I’ve had people comment on something I said the day before on Twitter, and it completely confused me. With Google+ and Facebook, the conversation structure is easier to manage, but past a point we move on. Right or wrong, that’s the nature of the beast.
Engage Your Base
This tip can tie into your circles, but it applies to any social media platform. When you’re short on time, engage the people most likely to reply or reciprocate. They may be your friends, your fans, or just generous personalities who you happen to get along with.
This isn’t about opportunism – it’s about relevance. If you’ve only got 15 minutes (which is probably split into 5-minute chunks), check in on the people whose content and interaction you value. You have to pick and choose – 5 minutes will barely get you through one hilarious cat video and half the comments.
Be Highly Visible
Ultimately, social media is all about perception. You don’t have to be on it all day – you just want to seem like you’re always nearby (but not too nearby, because then you’re obviously goofing off).
Back in graduate school, I had a roommate who was always in his office – he regularly got there at 8am, closed the door, and didn’t come out until 8pm. Meanwhile, I liked a little variety, so I’d work at home, in the lab, and in my office. In between, I roamed the halls and talked to a lot of people. Granted, I also liked to procrastinate, but I valued the social aspect of school.
One day, someone commented that I was always around, but they never saw my roommate. Here he was putting in 12 hours days in the office, while I usually spent 4-6 hours/day in the office or lab. Was it fair? No, but it taught me an important lesson – perception is everything.
Being visible in social media is easy – engage. In fact, make the first 5 minutes of your 15 minutes all about engagement. Reply to people, [+1] their posts, and generally make yourself seen. Lurkers die lonely.
Give First, Then Ask
So, you’ve spent the first 5 minutes making your presence known. The next 5 minutes, in my opinion, should be all about giving. Share other people’s posts and links, and [+1] what you like. If you run out of time, that’s fine. Giving back builds up dividends, and you need to do it every day. That way, when it’s your turn to share a link, you’ve already got friends lined up.
There are a lot of ways to handle social media, and I don’t think any single style is right, but I do think that virtually everyone should try to give a lot more than they take. This isn’t just altruism – reciprocity is a very powerful thing.
Bonus Tip: Try Trunk.ly
We’re desperately afraid to miss anything on social media. Practically speaking, I’ve found that fear overblown – most things can be missed, and the important stuff will keep appearing in your stream. For tracking your links, though, I highly recommend Trunk.ly. It not only captures the links you post on Twitter and Facebook, but your friends' links as well:
Yes, that is a link to a Smurfberry Crunch Ad from 1982 – STOP JUDGING ME! The best thing about Trunk.ly is that it aggregates recent links from your friends. While it doesn’t support Google+ yet, I expect it to soon. If anyone knows of similar tools that do support Google+, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Double Bonus Fun!
This probably has no value other than general mischief-making, but I made a Photoshop version of the Google Circle that you can easily edit (or possibly even convert into other shapes). It was created in Adobe CS5 for Windows, but hopefully it’s readable by other versions. You can use it to create such useful diagrams as:
I honestly have no idea how this can be used for good, but I made it and so I thought I’d share. Here's the link to download the Google+ Circle Photoshop file (it's only 100KB).
That .psd file is a much better idea than randomly renaming circles, taking a screenshot, and then trying to remember what they were originally named. Thanks! (BTW, It works fine on CS5 for Mac)
Excellent - glad it worked. Thanks for letting me know.
CURSE YOU SOCIAL ADDITION!!!... I just lost 15 more minutes of sleep every night!
..Kidding. Good post. It's been fun watching the firework show... Now for the real work.
I have to agree that making the circles into bite size pieces and realizing that you are not going to be able to consume it all is a good step.Thanks for the advice doctor!
Your post perhaps unintentionally highlights what I see as the main issue with Google+ - whereas we as SEOs might consider how we can factor Google+ into our day, is the average man, woman or child going to do the same?
Facebook is like the Coca Cola of the social media world, and I guess Twitter is like Pepsi (at least in the UK where Coke is the more popular) - it is difficult to see how anyone could come along and break the monopoly. Sure the 'Google' can looks nice and people within the fizzy drinks industry (SEOs) might like to give it a try, but the majority of people will probably stick to what they know best - Coca Cola (Facebook) and Pepsi (Twitter).
The question is whether or not Google+ will become another Virgin Cola (failed fizzy drink competitor). Apologies for going nuts with the analogy there!
I.Am.Thirsty.Now. :D
I think that's a good point - for most people, if Google+ doesn't replace something else, it may not get traction. I think the first people this happens for will naturally be the ones who use Google products. Already, Google+ is sucking me in because I'm on Gmail all day. Apparently Google Docs sharing is coming soon (the ability to share directly to a G+ circle), and other integration is on the way.
The question is, will it reach critical mass? I was joking the other day about how Google claims G+ has reached 10M users, but the only people I know on it are SEOs - a couple of people commented that they already have a chunk of friends and family on it. So, we'll see.
Ultimately, though, I agree - what's my incentive to spend a substantial amount of time in G+ AND Facebook, given their similar style and functionality. Twitter still has a unique form factor for me, but I'll be hard pressed to pour time into both G+ and FB.
Well I'm glad the analogy kind of made sense at least. In my own experience, when using social media for personal use I tend to choose one social network (in fact I only really got into Twitter when going cold turkey from Facebook!), although I know that some people obviously do use multiple accounts.
I agree though, I don't think Google+ is distinct enough from Facebook to warrant people using both and it certainly doesn't offer enough currently to force people to abandon Facebook, where they no doubt have plenty of existing contacts.
I just can't see Google+ being the major success that Google would hope it would be, without Facebook having a News of the World-esque PR nightmare.
Nice post, breaks down all the areas of Google+ in an easy to read format.
It really does seem that SEO's are the popular force one google+ along with social Media people atm,
I love how easy it is to throw up new ciricles and place people into different sections, for example at work I have all my people in different sections, then SEO, Friends, Family ect.
I feel at the moment Google+ is like Linkedin to me, I have the same business savvy/socail people on it and we all share similar content, what Google+ needs badly and will be the most important thing is to crack into the main stream market, I am sure we will see more of how they do this soon.
Regards,
James Norquay.
"Angry John Madden", LMAO! That is soooo great! I miss John Madden. He would make a great sponsor for Google+. They should think about hiring him for a commercial.
Now on a more serious note. Nice article and I completely agree. The first thing I noticed about Google+ was the circles and how much sense it made. In fact, I couldn't believe that this wasn'y already common practice for all the majors. It helps keep things organized and in perspective.
I like your time managment suggestions. They too, help to add some perspective.
Yeah, I loved the John Madden line. Dr Pete, I tweeted it with a link to your article. Cappy, that would be a great viral video. Or at least Frank Caliendo (plays John Madden on MAD Tv) should do a YouTube Video.
This is fantastic - and a lot of it applies to more than just Google+ as well. Especially loved the "Lurkers die alone" line - relates well with a Brian Levy saying; "Bashful salespeople have skinny children."
Hi Pete,
Thanks for the Trunk.ly mention! Just thought I'd add a quick comment to say that we definitely intend to support Google+, we just have to wait until Google release their API which they haven't done as yet. As soon as that's out, we'll get it integrated quick smart.
Cheers,
Tim - (Cofounder Trunk.ly)
Thanks, Tim - I figured everyone was waiting on the API at this stage. Appreciated your post the other day and hope the funding situation turns around for you soon. Really love what you're doing with Trunk.ly, and trying to juggle a 3rd major platform only makes it a more essential tool.
Is it just me that thinks that SEOs are committing way too much time to Google+ at the moment? It feels like an entire industry has a brand new toy to play with and they seem to be forgetting about everything else! I'm sure it'll end up being quite a cool little product that may, in the future, have a part to play in the way that people find information on the internet. It may also be a cool little product that goes the way of the many other Google experiments that have not gone to plan (was there this much excitement over Google Wave?)
It's a cool new product and yes, everyone is excited, but to quote someone who I'm afraid I can't remember the name of, while the SEO industry is busy playing with Google+, SERPS could have changed beyond recognition and nobody will have noticed.
We're easily distracted, that's for sure :) Honestly, I think paying attention to Google+ may be pretty vital to understanding where SEO is headed. If it takes off, this may have a major impact on the SERPs down the road. For all our playing, I think many SEOs are also minding the store and trying to staying ahead of Google's future plans.
I'd agree that Google+ is definitely a signal of the way Google intends to display the SERPS in the future, the integration of personalised search seems to be the the direction that all the main search engines are heading in and I have no doubt that this is Google's way of developing this.
My observation is that the SEO community is spending so much time playing with what is in effect a BETA product and I think that while it's important to look to the future, there are so many "what ifs" attached to Google+ that I wonder whether it deserves the manic hysteria it seems to have caused at this point in time.
Pay attention to it, sure. Learn the ropes and monitor it. But until then, those of us who are paid by companies that want to see results would be better off concentrating their time on what will definitely make a difference right now rather than things that might make a difference in the future.
I'd certainly agree with that. Some days, you have to put the toys down and get back to work. I'd say that goes for any social media tool and many apps/sites, but Google+ is no doubt our current shiny distraction.
I wonder how many people are using a iGoogle's customized homepage right now. How will that integrate into the Google+?
I do wonder the same thing!
I would have to agree with alanjgraninger here. It seems that all SEO's are so excited about Google+ and the possible effects it COULD have on the SERP's in the future, that no one is worried about the changes that are actually occuring. I know this is not the case, but there seems to be a bit of hysteria running through the community.
I am personally more worried about algorithm updates, and how they will effect my web rankings, than I am about learning the ropes of Google+. Once I see a substantial benefit for SEO I will spend more time with the program, but until then its just another new toy that wants to waste my time.
I don't really disagree, but I would argue that tools like Google+ help us understand where Google is headed. The problem with focusing on the changes that are "actually occurring" is that, too often, it's reactionary. We're seeing with Panda, for example, very few sites recovering, and it's taking weeks when they do. If those same webmasters would have made the changes in advance, they might've saved thousands of dollars in some cases. Now, they're scrambling to catch up on to an algorithm that is, at least temporarily, unforgiving.
Google+ is telling us where Google is headed and what they value. Should we all spend all our time on it - no, absolutely not. Some people don't need to be on it at all yet. I would argue, though, that it's important for some of us in the industry to be on it and to push its limits.
It's a very good point you make about it being important for some in the industry to be involved and to push its limits and I definitely agree with you here.
Not wishing to suck up to SEOMoz too much here (!!) I think it is things like this where SEOMoz really comes into its own, especially when you look at it from a small/medium size business perspective. Where SEO individuals/small in-house teams may not have the resources to get stuck in and test things like Google+ to their limits, there are some good services like this available that are willing to share their findings with their peers.
Personally I think that for now I will avoid the Google+ bandwagon and watch the reaction from the sidelines until a clearer picture emerges, but I must say that posts like this do make life easier for those of us without great testing resources to stay abreast of what's going on. And thanks to Dr Pete for getting involved with the discussion, it's been great hearing your points of view on this.
Always happy to have a friendly debate (unless it starts with "Why do you suck so much, Dr. Pete?" ;) ), and having worked with many small clients, I understand where you're coming from. I'm definitely not encouraging all of my clients to go on Google+, but for what I do, I think it's important for me to test the waters.
"Dr. Pete, why do you suck so much?" J/K! :) I think the Google + is a great step for Google to gage into customized SERPs because it's all about the user experience!
Hi Peter!
Am i wrong or are you specializing yourself in "How to something in 10/15 minutes" (still remember your Audit in 10 minutes" post here on SEOmoz)?
You make really good points. G+, as any other social media is a time sucker.
About "categorization" of the Circles, I've tried to separate people:
About feature, the one I miss the most is the # function, even though I've read that something similar is going to be implemented in G+
Finally, as in Twitter: if someone start following me, if I don't know him, his profile is substantially empty of information and he don't start a dialogue, I will probably not follow back.
And if I follow someone but I see that the only things he shares are monumental stupid things (a few memes are ok, only memes not) or - worst - resindicates clients' links, I will probably unfollow him and, maybe, block him.
It is not because I'm snob, it is because I want to maintain my mental sanity :)
LOL - I have been a bit obsessed with time management, haven't I? It might help if I wrote about it less and did it more :)
Nice Breakdown of Google+ I do agree that its Good in a mix! Well the time I spent of Google+ the best thing I like bout it was circles… and you explain it very correctly!
When you have lot of friends, family member or people from your professional circle you obviously cannot follow all of them so the better idea is to follow the circle which is important for that day nad move on...
Do you think Google would be better off opening Google+ to everyone ASAP?
pretty much done
I still get
"Google+ is in limited Field Trial At the moment, we're testing with a small number of people,"
when I try with any of my accounts to log in and use G+. Clearly 10 million people is just a small field trial ...
Send me your gmail, I'll try to invite you.
Had same problem! I finally able to get in the project! It's very similar to Facebook. IF you send me ur gmail, I will get you an invite
I think it comes down to making it more "exclusive", if you didnt have the invite thing then people would not be out begging to check out the new platform.
Especially as all friends are on the platform people think they are missing out.
It is one of the oldest marketing tricks/ event promotion tricks in the book.
Yeah, the Facebook rollout was done with exclusivity in mind, as anyone who's seen that documentary The Social Network will be able to tell you :D
This invite only thing is a good idea for a very short period of time to generate some hype. But if they wait to long hype turns into boredom. My guess is that they will open for everybody in the next two weeks. Let's be honest: does anybody believe that Google has a problem with too much traffic? Hardly.
There! I +1'd you. Maybe someone will see this in there Google Webmasters account. Woot Woot.
CHECK OUT THIS DEMO FROM GOOGLE!! https://www.google.com/+/demo/
My biggest complaint (and time suck) so far is I can't narrow down what people are talking about. Easy enough to sort them into group but they don’t seem to be sorting their own content (yet).
G+ would be really powerful if one could add Sparks to the Circles such that you only get posts on certain topics from that author.
In general, the Sparks (aka tagging, hashtags, folksonomy) concept is just too narrow.
I think you'll see some kind of tagging pretty soon. Personally, my biggest issue is the formatting - at any given time, only about 1-3 posts fit on a screen. I'd like to see an option for a condensed mode.
Have you seen this?
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mnhiknfpdlpmmgmecadnffgmgpgaldlo
At least some space is returned by minimizing the comments.
Well-intentioned post, but I guess most people can't make it in 15 min and get stuck several times of the day ;-)
I agree.. hence the reason it's an addiction.
Excellent post, I really try to be in social media all the time, read all the posts in my favorite blogs, trying to catch up with everything on my Google reader subscriptions....it's not possible...i remember telling to my fiance yesterday that i sleeping is a waste of time, the tips in the post are very valuable in terms of self managment, also, i was not familiar with Trunk.ly and it's looking great, thank you!
Thanks Dr. Pete. My Circles do look a lot like your fictional circles.
I'm one of those people who falls off the face of the earth every other month because I forget the importance of Social Media. Don't be me.
thanks Very Intresting...
Nice post.Google+ is rocking.Its features are very good and users friendly.
[link removed]
Nice break down of Google +. But let me tell you one thing - Google + is extremely bugged. Unless they fix these bugs, it'd again end up as a huge flop like orkut and certain other projects of theirs.
The psd's have given me a great idea for my new google + avatar. Thanks guys.
thanks for providing such a important information because this is a very good feature to seperate your family,friends,office colleagues into different circles.this feature is not present in facebook which creats problem for college students who dont want any type of information to share with their families.
I like google + and cicrles as an idea. But I haven't spent any time on it yet because most of my contacts still use facebook.
Thanks for the nice analytical break down of Google + --maybe they'll allow you to create an app for different shaped circles.
I like Google + but I would recommend 30 minutes per day and be sure to have a clear strategy.
Yeah be highly visible is one of the best thing to get your cirlces with lots of followers, and i highly recommend this too
I am a little confused about G+ is I get notified about some people tagging in Photos I even don't know them. Some people adding mw to circles without asking me? Why?
Circles are slightly odd. Adding someone to a circle is, in one sense, like following them on Twitter. If you only post to your circles, though, even then the person won't see what you wrote. If someone adds you to a circle, you won't see what they post unless you view your "Incoming" posts. At least, that's how I think it works - I'm still a little confused myself, honestly.
Nice post Dr. Pete! I need to follow this. My 15 minute intensions have turned into multi hour forrays too many times already lol
Very interesting read. I think it will do us all some good to follow the doctors orders. Thank you Dr.Pete!
Great line up for Google +,I feel Google + is a combined form of Twitter and Facebook with some enhanced additional feature-hope this time Google will compete the social battle!
Yeah, with all said and done I spend more time on social media sine google+ came into town then before, I spend even more time than I ever did on Facebook, but I'm not giving Twitter's position number one :) So far I can see the benefits and I love G+, just have to wait and see what else they will roll out and how it will change over time with more and more users coming in.
Very impormative post! Thanks Pete for your time compiling this thoughts!
Keep it up!
Still trying to get signed up for the Google + project. Says it's still full :( I'm curious to see how the public to react to a new social network.
Woot! finally able to get in the project! It's very similar to Facebook
I'm curious how Google+ will delevolpe.
I am trying to figure where to take the 15 minutes from? I have always like the saying of the Kirgan in Highlander, "It's better to burn out than to fade away..." Maybe I'll take it from my sleep time :-)
This question gets really interesting if your answer is any of the following:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Quora
...
Thanks for the guidance Pete, still working out the best way to juggle my circles.
Have added your post to a little resource guide we've put together https://www.dottourism.com/blog/view/a-resource-guide-to-google-plus/
I'm curious about business pages and the amount of spam they'll receive when they'll open. If they're anything like Facebook fan pages, I'm sure they'll get spammed.