When Google+ Collections were announced a few days ago, I pretty much could hardly contain the resounding "meh" with which I greeted it. Wohoo for grouping posts by topic as "Collections".
But when playing around with them recently, I realized that this enables the killer feature I've wanted on social media platforms such as G+ and Facebook for years! Finally, there is hope that I might one day be able to filter out much of the noise I do not care about from those I do want to follow. Allow me to briefly explain...
Perhaps you're following me, but not interested in my posts about Milwaukee, dislike my Politics, or could give a rat's posterior about what's happening in Information Technology. Well guess what — you no longer have to be subjected to these in your feed!
And it's ridiculously simple to implement.
In my case, for example, you would visit my Collections page (obviously still a work in progress), and click Following/Follow to change your preference for each. And while this removes these topics from your feed, the beauty of this is that the posts will still be visible to you should you visit my page directly.
Of course, this does depend on those you follow to create and utilize Collections. But I'm optimistic that this will see wider adoption as words spreads about the benefits!
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
2012-10-25
Google+ As Your Central Hub
The Need For A Central Hub
You might ask yourself, why do I need a primary presence online? Can't I just use tools like HootSuite, Streamified, etc. to post to multiple sites/streams?
Absolutely, you could. And tools like these will remain invaluable even if you do centralize to Google+. But what you will likely find (if you have not experienced it already) is that as the frequency of your interactions online increases, and you become more prolific in posting your own original material or sharing other's is the following:
Absolutely, you could. And tools like these will remain invaluable even if you do centralize to Google+. But what you will likely find (if you have not experienced it already) is that as the frequency of your interactions online increases, and you become more prolific in posting your own original material or sharing other's is the following:
- It becomes increasingly difficult to adequately maintain a presence on all of these platforms.
This is especially true when it comes to interacting with your followers, peers, individuals and organizations you follow, and so on. And without a great deal of discipline, you will find yourself going through periods (of increasing frequency and length) in which you are completely neglecting your online persona.
- Maintaining any kind of synchronization of your "digital life" (contact info, calendars, files, etc.) becomes extremely tedious and time consuming.
Did I get that event I signed up for on LinkedIn into my calendar? What was the contact info for that person I interacted with on Twitter? How will I share your presentation from last night's user group meeting? What can I do to simplify keeping my calendar and guest list in sync for a live, online event I want to plan?
- It's not unlikely you'll eventually need one or more separate page "entities" representing a group, product, etc..
If you are managing a user group, for example, it's best to have a separate page of some sort for this purpose. Direct integration between this page and the professional persona account you use regularly use becomes invaluable when you are trying to remain organized and on top of everything!
The next post in this series will delve into the why Google+ is your first, best option to serve as your central hub when stacked up feature for feature with several major social platforms. Stop by again soon!
2012-10-16
Google+ For Your Professional Persona
A few weeks ago, I made a brief post on Google+ that attempted to summarize how and why I've seen my G+ usage steadily increasing over the last few months. That trend has continued to a point where I have found myself in not a few conversations not regarding G+ as a replacement for my personal Facebook account (even though it has been), but rather focused upon the use of Google+ as a central hub and social glue for my professional persona online.
We all have our motivations for what is common referred to as "building your personal brand" online. And by and large, there are many different paths you can take in this pursuit. Invariably, however, we all seem to have all or some combination of the following in common:
- Twitter feed
- LinkedIn profile
- professional blog
- Facebook profile
- and ever more increasingly... a Google+ account
And this presents a challenge. What will you use as your primary presence?
What follows will be a series of blog posts on using Google+ as the hub for your professional life online. To get started, in my next post I'll be focusing on why utilizing G+ as your hub to leverage the power of the entire Google ecosystem is the most practical answer to this question.
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