If
you haven't been on G+ too long, or if you haven't engaged with a lot
of users yet, then you may not have seen what Google+ Ripples can now
show us and what a useful tool it is to get a good understanding of how
your content is spreading and who is spreading it.
As I've been saying all along, the best way to get the most out of G+ is to engage the Shakers & Engagers.
There's not much point wasting your time in G+ commenting to and social
networking with people that don't comment back, don't share others'
content and generally don't engage with other users much. I have seen
many users here doing exactly that and wondering why their sphere of
influence has stalled, or is not rapidly growing like many others are.
Right
at the top of my Shakers & Engagers are the people that share
content and I find those in my Google+ Ripples, as you can too. When
any post (picture, or content) gets shared you'll see a small arrow
with a number at the right corner of that post, showing it's immediate
shares. But did you know, that if you then click on the drown down menu
of any post in the Right top corner, you'll see an option View Ripples.
This will show you a detailed diagram of all the users publicly sharing
that content and the detailed ripples of who is sharing it from them
& so on.
Just about everyone you see in these Ripples are
the people you want to add to your Shakers & Engagers list, they are
in mine. Some of what G+ calls the "influencers" (of that
particular post) will have bigger circles, with a lot of shares
emanating from within those circles. A lot more sharers will be in small
circles & at times there circles will be bigger as well, just
depending on who happened to re-share their content that particular day.
Either way, you know all of these users are content sharers and helping
you to spread your networking efforts farther than your immediate
range.
I've attached a picture of the Ripples from a popular
video yesterday of Matt Cutts playing dinosaur, so you can see how just a
modestly busy ripple can get.
Of course you can also watch yourself in the Ripples of this post, by clicking on the Share This Post arrow at the bottom left & sharing it with Public.
Now
you might be wondering why so many of the circles are not connected to
each other, but appear here together. Well G+ has become quite good at
recognizing the timing of the content whether it is re-posted, or
"shared" and when it is passed on. So that now if you've just viewed a
post & then end up copy and pasting that same content, or video, but
not using the Share This Post button, G+ will still understand that it
is a related ripple to the original post you viewed and will display you
along side it.
So welcome to Share This Post and watch your name appear either in, or alongside all of the other Ripples in this post,
by coming back to it and clicking on View Ripples at a later time &
as it progresses. And another very cool thing indeed, hit the Play
button under the circles and watch an animation of the circles spreading
in the exact order and time as they really happened.
A successful community post results in exchange (discussion), this is not safe sex.
In fact, if someone does not comment on this original post, then I
promise to sell my computer tomorrow & go work on a farm. LOL...
seriously.
Your highest priority when posting to a G+ Community
should be encouraging other community members into a discussion. That's
why we call it a "community" and NOT a bulletin board, or a newspaper.
As a community moderator I am too often asked,
- "Well is it ok to post this?"
- "Is it acceptable if I post links to my...?
- "Do you think this might be useful to your readers?"
- "I hope this is not spam, but I..."
- "Can I post links to my blog here, or post the whole article?"
- "Will it be spam if I post news links with my promotion?* WAIT... STOP!!! These are all the wrong questions.
If
your posts fail not just once, but repeatedly to engage the communities
you're posting in, then - I hate to break it to you but - you are not
social networking. It's now time to start asking yourself the tough
questions, "if thousands of people are viewing this post, then why
aren't any of them commenting on it?" Next I would suggest you make a
point of reading all the ones that people are, that's where you'll learn
successful social networking.
Then ask yourself, are you just posting & not commenting, or engaging other users on their posts? Chances are that's the next biggest problem, users engage back with users who engage with them.
Here's what I consider some key posting questions you should ask yourself before posting, that are sure to result in success:
① Will this encourage discussion & be of interest to the community?
② Is this post just news that everyone has probably already read?
③ Have I written this post/intro in a way that encourages discussion?
④ Is this just a link to an uninteresting article no one will discuss?
⑤ Have I explained why this is interesting to me & may also be to you?
⑥ Have I read & understood the Communities Guidelines?
⑦ Have I chosen the appropriate community & category for this post?
1. Find out why you should "ignore the blonde" to get the most out of G+.
2. Watch her rather revealing video that has financial lessons to be learned.
3. I've also written detailed instructions on cool tools I talked about earlier.
4. Find out what you get out of blank profiles & zero engagement in G+.
5. How to find the types of users you can actively engage with.
6. My point by point instructions on using to find your Shakers.
7. The problem with using G+'s Find People tool to find the wrong people.
8. Using specific and related circles to find your networks.
9. More on #Circloscope plugin for Chrome.
My last article told you how to "Shake up your G+..." with this one we're going to Turbo Charge it! These Google Plus tips and more comprehensive advice will surely help you get more out of G+ and spend less time doing it.
And if it is really helpful to you, be sure to comeback and comment below.
Will ignoring "individual ambition" get you more in Google+?
A common reaction I receive from real estate professionals when I've
offered marketing advice, or mentoring services is a suspicious, "Well,
why would you help me? I'm the competition." I get a similar feeling
from newer people to the social networking scene, when I suggest we
share posts, friend lists, or networking methods.
To answer this I'd like to go to a classic scene that's stuck with me
from A Beautiful Mind. Thanks to the convenience of You Tube, I've
located it for you right here.
After several friends challenge each other to compete for a
voluptuous blonde. A suave looking gentleman with a twinkle in his eye
(and obviously feeling rather clever) states, "Have you remembered
nothing?... Individual ambition serves the common good."
That is when John Nash
has his epiphany that will go onto form the basis for worldwide
marketing strategies and economic theories. "The best result would come
from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself, and the group."
Wiki explains it like this, "The simple insight underlying John Nash's (Nash Equilibrium) idea is that ...we must ask what each player would do, taking into account the decision-making of the others."
Ignoring your own perfection to get what you came for.
What I like best about this line, "Ignore the blonde", is that she
can be rather difficult to ignore--for me anyway. I'm not sure exactly
what it is (says with a wink).
I think we can also have such feelings about ourselves, or our own
interests, maybe even more so for our "virtual self" if you will. Isn't
that what we've created online with our profiles, pictures, "clever"
quotes and idioms?
My point is that there's somewhat of a natural tendency to not want
to share other people's content on your own pages, especially as I was
saying, for people who are newer to the concept of social networking.
Add to that the concerns of whether you're giving away more promotions
than you're getting, are they your competition, or could they become it.
Is Google subtracting from your authorship score based on other user's
content you've shared on your page, against the amount of your content
that's been shared on other pages, etc.
I think such assumptions came from Google's former back linking for
Page Rank policies, where links you share on your own site would
subtract link juice from your own backlinks shared on others. As to
whether G+ is already, or is going to institute such algorithms on users
Author Rank is anyone's guess (as AR is not yet public), but it seems
that would be illogical as it'd be counterproductive to the concept of
social networking and discourage it.
Spread the word, social networking is about sharing and engaging.
People who have been successfully social networking for a while
understand that it's about sharing and engaging. That's why I suggest
getting out this message more to all the users in your own networks,
whether it's from sharing this message on your own page, or just from
writing something in your own words explaining this concept.
Blank pages + zero engaging = zero benefits.
I'm still seeing a large amount of users who've signed up to Google+
putting little if any content up, sharing little if any from other
users, or engaging any other users. Some users created G+ profiles, or
pages, with the idea that it was going to benefit their own website SEO
in someway. Well this is definitely a false myth, if your pages are just
blank and not actively sharing content for other users, engaging users,
adding followers and the like, it's not doing anything for your SEO at
all.
Back to my tips on turbo charging your G Plus.
I actually started this post to expound on the Google+ tips I've
suggested previously, namely getting more out of G+ by finding your
Shakers & Engagers, but my admittedly distracted mind sort of
wandered off into the story above. So now I'm going to literally "ignore
the blonde" and talk about some useful tools.
I previously wrote the following about how you can get a lot more out
of G+ by finding following and engaging with more of the active users.
*The following small portion of this article is a repeat of an earlier post,
I'm including to help make this article more comprehensive. Below is an
explanation about how to use the NO D3x which I did not previously
discuss.
There seems to be several kinds of users we commonly see on G+:
Users who post pictures all day & don't seem to care if anyone sees them.
Users who write a lot of content, but don't seem to have anyone reading it.
Users with a fascination for just getting in on & collecting circles.
Some very good writers who don't care for comments & even turn them off.
Then there's the useful content writers and engagers, who not only respond to comments, but actively engage other users, commenting on their posts and giving back to others.
Finding, following and engaging with these users, is likely to be
time well spent as you will actually feel like you are "social
networking" as well as helping each other to accomplish what you came to
G+ for.
Setting up your Google+ feed to follow the Shakers & Engagers.
Now I'm gonna talk about setting up your G+ feed to engage more with
the engagers and yes, for many of you clever Googlers this is a little
basic, so you can skip down a few lines.
One of the problems you may be experiencing when reading the Google
feeds, is that there are many people putting up content one way. They're
probably hoping to get lucky with that special picture, or post that
goes viral and or, just get as many +1's or, shares that they can. If
you're here in G+ like many of us, for the purpose of actively
networking, improving your brand, reputation, or author rank then the
people who's content you need to be following is the people who will
also engage you back.
What I have done to accomplish this is setup a circle called Shakers
& Engagers and then regularly add all of the following people into
it...
Popular content writers, who engage other users.
Users who have a good reputation here and actively engage other users.
Up and coming users, who may not have all the greatest content,
or many followers, but they know what social networking is, they read
your content, they share it, they + it and or, they regularly comment on
it.
These and a few others I may have missed are the kind of people you
will want to add to your Shakers & Engagers circle. Then you want to
put this circle first in line on your circles page. Going back to the
Home page of G+ at the top right above "Share what's new...", you'll
want to click on your Shakers & Engagers button. That way it'll be
right there for you to follow their feeds, read, comment on, share and
engage with them whenever you start your G+.
With these people you'll quickly find that it's a two way street, as
you engage with them through a lot of their posts, they will engage back
and I guarantee that you will quickly find that G+ is not as lonely as
you may have once thought it was.
Another tool I want to suggest you can use to find the more active
users within your vicinity is #NO D3x. You can put your profile number
in there and you will see a clever graph of nodes bouncing around. As
you move your mouse over the different points connected to yours, you
can see who are the most active users in your immediate vicinity (as in a
matrix, not a place). You'll want to put a lot of the busiest people
you find there into your engagers circle, because these are likely
people who will actively engage.
End of repeated portion from earlier G+ post.
Using NO D3x to find your Shakers and Engagers.
This tool provides a visual analysis of your social networks in a graph format. You'll also want to follow NOD3x on Google+
to keep tabs, on their updates, as I am not personally associated with
their product. The NO D3x is an online application that does analysis of
data from social networks. It provides formatted and easily
understandable data analysis in graphical form.
NOD3x is a cool tool you can use to analyze your social networks.
Specific instructions for finding some of your current Shakers and Engagers.
Although this tool has quite a number of analytical uses, the idea I
am suggesting here is that we can use it quite narrowly to locate
specific types of users within your network.
He goes on to explain that, "For those that don't know, SNA is
measuring and mapping of relationships and the flow between groups,
people, organisations, computers, UR Ls and other entities that process
information or knowledge. The perspective of social network covers
models, applications and theories, which are usually expressed as
relational processes or concepts. A unit of network analysis is always
an entity, which consists of a collection of individuals with many links
between them e.g. from a G+ perspective those links (relationships) are
+1s, comments and re-shares on your posts. In NO D3x, the results of a
search looking for G+ users or Pages, are represented as nodes, and the
links in the analysis show the relationship between these nodes e.g. who
+1d, shared or commented on your content."
If the NOD3x tool doesn't work for you.
This tool may not work well for you if any of the following...
If you have not been interacting for a while, or are new to G+, so you don't have enough statistics to analyze.
If you've been busy circling all the wrong kinds of people, especially with Google+'s Find People tool.
In this case you may want to start uncircling all of the irrelevant
people you've been busy collecting and use the tool to study some of the
profiles who are more closely related to your field.
The problem with the Google+ Find People tool.
This is purely from personal observation here, but in my opinion you
do not want to use the G+ Find People tool if you're looking for
specific kinds of people in fields closely related to your own, or
within specific vicinities. The tool makes it very easy for you to
select a sizable group of people and add them all to a circle, you can
do like a hundred every day. I am of the opinion and it appears to me,
as though this tool focuses primarily on connecting the least active
people with the most active & that this takes precedence on
suggestions over connecting you with more relevant and related users.
If that is the case, I can certainly understand the logic. G+ can be
pretty empty and lonely for the millions of people coming in and not
knowing who the active people are to connect with. But personally I'd
rather connect with 5 active and engaging users, than 500 inactives that
do not yet seem to understand the concept of social networking.
Find and add business circles related to your own.
If you want to find people more closely related to your particular
field of expertise, I suggest you search and find circles closely
related to what you're looking for. Using the "#" hashtag may help you
accomplish this, by searching more specifically for circles such as
#Realestatecircle 's, or other fields of interest. I have also been
working on relevant business circles to share and from time to time
you'll see these on my profile. I will also be sharing my Shakers &
Engagers circles as well as updating it from time, to time. The only
circle I'll be following more than that is my Sharers circle, so you'll
want to get in on that.
Here's another cool tool Circloscope.
Lastly, if you have managed to collect a lot of users who don't seem
to ever show up in G+ and haven't even circled you back, there's a nifty
plugin for Chrome called Circloscope,
that you can use to trim your circles down to the more useful users.
But I'll warn you, be careful how you use it and make sure your choosing
the right boxes, or you could end up uncircling everyone you ever knew
with just a couple clicks. Now that wouldn't be very social, would it?!
Reputation - build your reputation Experience - improve user experience Authority - become an authority Leadership - be original and lead Social - engage with others & go viral Media - use social media platforms Optimization - improve optimization
☆ Specializes SEO, Social Media, Internet marketing. ☆ 20+ yrs computer industry, IT & computer science. ☆ Geek interested in all things science & technology. ☆ 10+ yrs realty investor, rehabber, Realtor & mentor. ☆ International business, travel & trade consulting.
Written comprehensively about brands and businesses maximizing online visibility through social media (SMO) and search engine
optimization (SEO), and now with a special focus on Google Plus.
Doing business on the Internet for over 20 years & worked
extensively with every generation of computers since the first personal
computers, the Apple II & IBM PC's.
Specializing in business consulting on Internet marketing, Online Identity Management, Social Media and Search Optimization.