Welcome to Part II of Google Plus For Dummies
If you got here through any method other than my Go Ahead... Take A Bite! blog, please click HERE for Part I
Let's pick up where we left off...
Creating and Navigating Circles:
(A very quick, basic video about circles)
Video Courtesy of Google
You will see that there is a circle provided for everyone called "Following". This is the circle that I use for all of the blogs/bloggers that I want to follow. I suppose I'd call it the G+ equivilent to GFC. You can also create new circles and use them to categorize your "followers" by genre, ex. "Food Blogs" or "Product Review Blogs".
When you add someone to a circle, they will receive an email telling them that you have put them in your circles and giving them the opportunity to add you back (follow you back). It will also show up under "Notifications" on their Google+ Home page. The same is true when someone follows you. They won't know what circle you've put them in, unless you choose to share that circle publicly.
In-depth Management of Circles:
(This is a more advanced tutorial on creating and managing your circles)
Video courtesy of Paul Melrose. The series can be found and viewed at his blog/portfolio The Tao of E-Learning
Posting, editing posts and commenting on other people's posts:
Video courtesy of Paul Melrose. The series can be found and viewed at his blog/portfolio The Tao of E-Learning
Connecting Google+ to Other Social Networking Sites:
(Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
Video courtesy of Alex. See his other G+ videos on his Youtube channel.
How To Send A Private Message In Google+:
Video courtesy of James Brooks
I really hope these videos have been helpful and that you feel a little better about how Google Plus works and how it can benefit you as a blogger. I'm still looking around for more videos that I feel would be helpful to all of us. If you have any questions or requests for specific tutorial videos, please leave me a comment and I'll do my best to find them.
I've just watched several of these videos. Up to this point I have been ignoring Google+. Thank you for posting them. Now my understanding is G+ is Google's answer to Facebook. However I have NO idea what this is going to mean for my blog? Am I going to lose all my followers unless I sign up for G+ and make "circles."
ReplyDeleteHi Liza, Right now, Google is saying that for "Blogger" blogs, GFC will still be available after March 1, 2012, so you won't lose followers who also have Blogger blogs. BUT...
DeleteFor folks who's blogs are hosted on Wordpress, Typepad etc. or those with their own "dot com" domain, they'll have to find/use another way to follow the blogs that they currently follow on GFC.
In turn, if you want to follow a non-Blogger blog after March 1st, you'll have to do so in other ways. Along with Google+, they might have an RSS feed or a Facebook page or Twitter account and you can follow them on one or more of those. There are other places to follow as well, like LinkedIn, Bloglovin' and Networked Blogs too.
The thing is... You'll need to have one of those accounts as well, if you want them to follow you back.
I hope that helps explain it a bit. If you have questions about any of the other social media sites or tools, I'd be happy to post what I know or have learned about those too. Just let me know.