googlepluslogo300px Worth Joining Google+ Now?

With the brand new Google+ open to the public for just over two weeks and officially still in “Field Trial”, is now the time for you to jump aboard? Yes, yes, yes! If you haven’t yet.

googlepluscomesofage Worth Joining Google+ Now?

Visual courtesy of Abid Shaikh

No Time-wasting, No Distracting Apps

Google+ is like Facebook for adults. You don’t have to waste time writing requests to be friends. You can follow a person and it’s their choice if they want to connect with you or not. There are no distracting apps. (What a relief.) How much time have you wasted deleting noisy apps from your wall or finding out how to block them?

On Google+ you can get set up quickly and straight into connecting and sharing.

Here’s where you can join by signing in with your Google account:  http://tina.bz/SignUpGooglePlus

Complete Your Google+ Profile

It’s immediately noticeable that the vast majority of the early adopters have presentable, friendly profile photos uploaded. No animals, no babies. (We’ve learned something after over three years on the Social Platforms.) Entering Google+ was like walking into a buzzing conference room full of colleagues, many I’d lost contact with in the Facebook frenzy of acquiring friends. The conversation had started, mainly about Google+, and I could dip and out as my schedule permitted. In the last two weeks everyone in my main Social Network jumped aboard.

Your Google profile photo will appear in the Google Search Results too, when you share. So first “to-do” is to complete your profile and upload a great, friendly, personable photo of you to greet your old buddies and your new ones.

Sharing on the Web, Like Sharing in Real Life

The Google+ tag line is: “… makes sharing on the web like sharing in real life.”  Larry Page, CEO of Google, reminded us of their goal yesterday. Google+ is designed to share. So if you want to share your good content, this is where you need to be active. It’s that simple.
Larry Page added in his remarks yesterday:

“Over 10M people have joined Google+.”

“We are seeing over 1 billion items shared and received in a single day.”

“Our +1 button is already all over the web. It’s being served 2.3 billion times a day”

In 2 weeks! Exponential growth is an understatement. The earlier you jump on and start being active, the easier it’ll be for your connections to grow.

Cool Circles

Organizing your friends in Google+’s circles is just the coolest interface! It’s intuitive and brilliantly thought out. You can be selective of who you follow and who you share with.

The initial reaction from everyone I spoke to was “This time I’m only going to be friends will people I actually know and I’m going to be very selective. I’m going to organize my friends better.” Google+ read our minds. My intention to until …

I started receiving notifications that I’d been added to Google+ by this person and that person and they look very nice. Google+ in their hint says: “Don’t know some of these people? You don’t have to add them back (they’ll just see the stuff you share publicly). ” I figured I’d like to connect with some new people, this is a Social Networking platform after all, and some may fit my target market later on. I’m meeting new peeps too, though selectively. We don’t know yet how Google+ for business is going to serve our need to monetize our online activities yet. They specifically asked us not to set up profiles for brands at the moment. Todd Wasserman reported on Mashable that Google have accelerated the test phase of their roll out due to partner demand.

Getting Going

Here’s 3 resources to help you get started:

1. How to Get Your Own Google+ Vanity URL

2. Search Public Google+

3. How to Install GoogleCards to Display on Your WordPress Site

This is the GoogleCard also very new from John Henson (Not even in the WordPress Plugin Directory yet.) You can download the plugin from John’s site and check out his installation steps. The latest version lets you install on multiple sidebars.

googlepluscard 300x186 Worth Joining Google+ Now?

We are on the edge of the next Social Web wave, exciting times! Will be interesting to see how Facebook responds to this challenge to their Social Media supremacy. And, of course, how this new playing field helps us grow our brands and businesses.

Would love to hear your experience on Google+ during these early days. Feel free to add your Google+ Vanity URL too so we can connect.

http://tina.bz/SignUpGooglePlus

© 2011, Tina Cook. All rights reserved.

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