Are You Circling Around Google+?

No doubt most people here on ActiveRain have heard of Google+.

If you haven’t then you have either been incredibly busy or your head is in the sand. It would be like saying “what’s Facebook?”

Hearing about Google+, knowing about it, and doing something about it are vastly different. Bet you can guess what you should be doing.

So are you circling around Google+???

Just in case you need some prodding, and some reasons to get on board, I strongly suggest the following article, which will lead you to others that will convince you to take the plunge.

Not Using Google+? – Why Your Real Estate Competition Will Crush You by Bill Gassett

For those of you getting started, or thinking about it, are you circling around Google+?

By that I mean are you taking advantage of Google+ circles?

Circles are the way to group together your relationships on Google+. They can be likened to lists on Facebook, but are far easier to set up, use, manipulate, and share.

Eric Proulx, Google+ aficionado from RealEstate.com, has shared his knowledge in a couple of AR webinars on Google+, the most recent today on using Circles. If you saw it, you know how GOOD it was.  See Eric’s earlier video on using Google+ to increase your traffic.

If you missed it, I highly recommend a look once it gets added to the YouTube ActiveRain network, as Eric explains circles far better than I can and shows you how to use them effectively.

Also, head over to Eric’s Google+ site and add him to one of your circles (I suggest “People to Follow” or “Influencers”) so you can follow what he has to say, and he can share great info with you.

And if you need more guidance, here’s a video by Google about using Circles.

When you first join Google+ there are already several circles created for you to add people you want to follow – following, friends, acquaintances, family.

But you will want to think about other ways to categorize groups of people and create circles to add them to as you go, rather than waiting until you have hundreds which will be more labor intensive, or you won’t even bother.

The possibilities are endless but a circle should be something that makes sense and reflects your personal, business and social relations, and people you want to hear from – vendors, local businesses, clients, referral agents, influencers, and people to follow.

You could also organize by geography, by real estate companies, etc. Make it meaningful and relevant, but I would limit the number – who wants to try to manage 50 circles?

When you want to follow someone simply click on ADD TO CIRCLES from their profile. It makes sense to have someone in only one circle but you can certainly have someone in more than one circle if it’s reasonable.

You’ll find that people will be adding you to their circles, but that does not mean, in my mind at least, that you should immediately add them back. As we saw in Facebook people seem to go nuts friending everyone they can, but does that really make sense?

And no doubt there are people you simply do not want to follow, or get posts from. Hopefully Google Plus will not become more Facebook-like, with posts about breakfast, getting rich quick, photos that mean nothing, and other trivia that is best left in the dark and which the majority cares nothing about. We'll see.

It’s easy to move people from circle to circle, as you will see in the video. When you click on a particular person you will see which circle(s) s/he is in. Click on a different circle name to add to that circle, and uncheck a circle to delete from that circle.

Eric provides some other tips, too, such as how to limit the posts you receive in your news feed and which circle(s) you want to received them from.

By the way, I’d love to connect, if it makes sense and you are interested in hearing from me from time to time. Visit my Google+ Profile.