So I’ve been on Google Plus for a while now. Actually, I’ve had an account for a while now, having received an invitation early, but I rarely post updates and I rarely read updates from my various circles. I’m simply struggling to integrate it into my life.
It’s not that I don’t like Google Plus. On the contrary, I like the interface, I like that it’s so easy to add people to circles and post updates to only specific circles, and I like that the interface is (for now, at least) nice and clean, not cluttered with ads.
It’s just that I’m feeling saturated. I already have my routine of posting interesting news items to Twitter, posting personal updates on Facebook, uploading my weekly video interviews to YouTube, checking into FourSquare when I go out to eat or visit a new place, and blogging once a week.
The question for me has become: what place should Google Plus occupy in my life?
I guess I could simply post the same updates to a bunch of social networks, but that doesn’t make sense to me. If I’m connected with the same people on multiple networks, they would see the same posts and that’s no fun and a waste of time.
Perhaps Google Plus will become, like Twitter, another public persona for me, whereas Facebook is the network I reserve for family, friends and close network.
Sean Parker, a co-founder of original music file-sharing service Napster and a prominent Facebook shareholder, says that, “power users have gone to Twitter or to Google+.” Could this be true? In my case, my techiest of friends and co-workers seem to be more active on Google+ these days but my network is still firmly on Facebook. And yet, Google+ is grabbing subscribers fast. GooglePlusWiki says that there are now over 20M people on the network.
After pondering this issue for a while now, here’s where what I’m thinking. Although the majority of my network is still not on Google+, I need to be on it. Because no one network will dominate and it will be hard to ignore Google+. Just as I tell clients that they need to be on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr because their audiences are on these networks, I know that I need to be on all the major networks personally. I will figure out where to find the time to post to Google+. I will repeat some posts because there is some overlap in connections but it’s not 100%. I will hope that HootSuite will soon let me post to Google+ in addition to Twitter and Facebook. And I will figure out what brainspace Google+ will occupy.
How about you? Are you on Google+? What is Google+ doing to your Facebook and Twitter updates? Are you posting different things? How are you integrating Google+ into your day?
9 replies on “How Are You Integrating Google Plus Into Your Life?”
Until I can log in to Google+ using my Google Apps credentials, I simply can’t get with it. I’m registered with my personal email (the only way I could accept my invitation since Google Apps logins are not yet[?] enabled), but the inconvenience (for me) and confusion (for others who may be searching for me via my work email, which is associated with my Google Apps account) factors are big obstacles. Eagerly awaiting Google’s fix on this… as are many others I know! See you there one of these days 🙂
I recently set up an account on Google+, but I haven’t done much with it since then. Like you, Joanna, I am still trying to figure out how to integrate it into my social networking. I am on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. I also have a blog, which I talk about food and traveling, which is starting to gain a following. I am also starting to use Foursquare more and more especially when I am attending events. So, to answer your question, I have an account but I also have not determined how to use it yet.
Thanks for posting this Joanna. I appreciate your opinions and analyses, which help me understand where things fit. I’m waiting for the same reasons as Stephanie Kelly. I bet there are a lot of us.
Google+ has been a big hit for me. I tell people to think of it as the best parts of Facebook, without the tsunami of clutter and friend-spam (e.g. Farmville updates). The biggest win has been the combination of Hangouts and Huddles. Finally, really easy group video chat… *for free*. And Huddles is a fantastic way to coordinate a group of friends with mobile devices. Say, you’re at ComiCon, scattered throughout the arena, and want to meet up for lunch or something. Are you going to call everyone? No. Email? Slow, clunky, and wire-crossing. Huddle is instantaneous group chat, optimized for mobile.
They did a lot of things right. The biggest hurdle, like Joanna mentioned, is the big blue F. Everyone (well, almost everyone) already has a facebook account, and we’ve been slowly trained for years that when we want to share stuff to the largest group of people we can, we share it on Facebook. G+ will get there. In my eyes, it’s already there. Every week, there is a new privacy backlash with Facebook. That’s an open door for G+
Twitter is another battlefront, because it’s a different type of service. They really don’t stack up and compare side-by-side, except for sharing. Commenting on Twitter is basically non-existent; you can’t have a running conversation without spamming your entire list of followers. It’s also the **exact opposite** in terms of privacy. Twitter is for carpet bombing, G+ is for precision. I have a circle in G+ for my weekly spades game, where I can post get-togethers just with them, and have a conversation about the upcoming game. I can’t do that with Twitter (and not without significant work on FB.)
I’ll close with this. What if Google+ came first, and Facebook came second? Would we still be having this debate? Is it merely the convenience of “we already use this, and don’t want to switch”? When evaluating G+, many folks I know need to step back and look at each product individually, instead of the effort needed to switch.
I found this and thought your article, it’s a flow chart of social media outlets, and when to use one for status.
http://www.breakingcopy.com/social-media-flowchart-status
Why people still make use of to read news papers when in this technological world everything is accessible on web?
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