Use Google+? Do you like the circles feature?
The point of circles is to separate your contacts so you can choose what to share with whom. This means that funny story, the one about going on a date with a guy who spent the whole time trying to get into your pants until you told him you were an alien from Mars on your second reincarnation and had to eat at least 700 jars of spicy pickles before your ship could fly again, doesn't go to your overprotective older brother.
Useful.
I've seen circles used by people who post about a wide variety of topics. A Doctor Who circle, for example, would get all the Doctor Who posts, while a quilting circle would get posts talking about an awesome place to buy good quality quilting needles. Building a target audience, and giving them posts relevant to them, is a great marketing tool--and it's a better social tool. You don't have to make every post immediately relevant: general status updates can be amusing to everyone. But making sure at least half the material you give any particular circle is relevant will keep people reading.
It's also good for managing your feed. Your home stream, the posts that show up on the first page you look at, might not be the best place for all posts. Say, for example, you know someone in your field who does burlesque on the side. You might not want burlesque to show up on your home stream, but the business information is useful. You can move that person over to a "NASFW" (not always safe for work) circle, set that stream to show 0% on your home stream, and check that circle's stream when you're safe at home.
I have two writing circles myself: "Public Writing" and "Interactive Writers." Anyone who circles me who has "writer" in their description or profile goes into the public circle, which shows 0% on my home stream. When they make a good comment on a post, I move them into the interactive circle, which shows 100%. This means that I don't get writers who use Google+ as a spam-promo dumping ground showing up in my feed (yeah, it can be a problem), or who never post anything vaguely related to writing. Every now and then I browse the public stream and make comments on interesting things, but I put most of my energy into writing to those who converse. Everything I share with one I share with the other, so the only person these two circles affect is me.
The one issue I've had with them is how they interact with communities. Everything shared in a community shows up in the home stream, but I can't share to both a stream and a community at the same time, so I have to make two posts. That means people who have me on both stream and community get a repeat post. edit: They have introduced a feature that stops posts made in a community from showing on the main stream, so the only inconvenience is having to post twice if I want to share something in both places.
Overall, they're a useful feature of the site, and I find them handy for both targeting the people I want to talk to, and filtering the posts I see.
How do you use circles? Do you like them? Do you have any gripes about them?
The point of circles is to separate your contacts so you can choose what to share with whom. This means that funny story, the one about going on a date with a guy who spent the whole time trying to get into your pants until you told him you were an alien from Mars on your second reincarnation and had to eat at least 700 jars of spicy pickles before your ship could fly again, doesn't go to your overprotective older brother.
Useful.
I've seen circles used by people who post about a wide variety of topics. A Doctor Who circle, for example, would get all the Doctor Who posts, while a quilting circle would get posts talking about an awesome place to buy good quality quilting needles. Building a target audience, and giving them posts relevant to them, is a great marketing tool--and it's a better social tool. You don't have to make every post immediately relevant: general status updates can be amusing to everyone. But making sure at least half the material you give any particular circle is relevant will keep people reading.
It's also good for managing your feed. Your home stream, the posts that show up on the first page you look at, might not be the best place for all posts. Say, for example, you know someone in your field who does burlesque on the side. You might not want burlesque to show up on your home stream, but the business information is useful. You can move that person over to a "NASFW" (not always safe for work) circle, set that stream to show 0% on your home stream, and check that circle's stream when you're safe at home.
I have two writing circles myself: "Public Writing" and "Interactive Writers." Anyone who circles me who has "writer" in their description or profile goes into the public circle, which shows 0% on my home stream. When they make a good comment on a post, I move them into the interactive circle, which shows 100%. This means that I don't get writers who use Google+ as a spam-promo dumping ground showing up in my feed (yeah, it can be a problem), or who never post anything vaguely related to writing. Every now and then I browse the public stream and make comments on interesting things, but I put most of my energy into writing to those who converse. Everything I share with one I share with the other, so the only person these two circles affect is me.
The one issue I've had with them is how they interact with communities. Everything shared in a community shows up in the home stream, but I can't share to both a stream and a community at the same time, so I have to make two posts. That means people who have me on both stream and community get a repeat post. edit: They have introduced a feature that stops posts made in a community from showing on the main stream, so the only inconvenience is having to post twice if I want to share something in both places.
Overall, they're a useful feature of the site, and I find them handy for both targeting the people I want to talk to, and filtering the posts I see.
How do you use circles? Do you like them? Do you have any gripes about them?
Wow, this does sound great. I just haven't gotten my feet wet yet because I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the social media I'm already trying to manage.
ReplyDeleteThat's the most frequent reason I've heard from people for not trying Google+. You're not the only one! Me, I've sacrificed Pinterest for the same reason.
DeleteI use circles to organize peeps by location and interest. I have a writers circle, a locals circle, a marketing circle, a photography circle and a politics circle. Of course, some people are in more than 1! I find it useful. I went to a Google+ session at the New Media Expo. My notes on it can be found here if you are interested - http://raleighonlinemedia.com/2013/01/14/nmx-google/
ReplyDeleteYou know, I keep meaning to check out the local deals from your blog, but then never get around to going in person. Sometime I'll actually head out and visit one of the places! Sounds like you're really getting the most from your circles. :)
DeleteI'd never even heard of Google Authorship! I need to look more into that... Sounds like it was a fascinating session.
I've had the same problem with the communities thing. The communities feature has such awesome potential, but little things like that annoy me.
ReplyDeleteTwo writing circles is a great idea! It can definitely get tough to cut through all of the spam and people who do nothing but reshare things to get to the good stuff. I think it's one of the reasons my use of Google+ has declined over the last few months. I might steal your idea one day when I have the time to reorganize my circles.
It's always the little things that make or break something. Feel free to steal away! I know I'd collected a bunch of people in the public circle from shared circles, and it would have taken forever to sort them. Instead of massively reorganizing all at once, I started small and did it over time--made a new circle and added people to it over the course of a few months as they interacted. Once I had my most active posters plucked out, I decreased the visibility of the old circle. Otherwise I would have never found the time to sit down and do it all at once.
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