Content Generation

Stream
Updating your stream is pretty simple, especially if you are familiar with Facebook’s interface. On your Google+ home page, there is a simple text box labeled “Share what’s new…” To post a simple text update, just click in there and start typing.

Once clicked, the Stream box expands to facilitate content entry:

You see it also grows a Share button and the option to include Circles and people to share with. More on that in a moment.
Of course, there’s much more to posting content than just status updates. You can also use Google+ to post photos, videos and links directly into your Stream, as well as tag your updates by location. To do this, just use the icons to the right of the text entry box.

We’ll get into each of these in more depth below.
After entering your post, you can share it with the world by clicking the green Share button.

Of course, you may not want to share everything with the entire world. That’s why you have Circles, right? To share certain content only with particular people or Circles, click the blue link just above that Share button, as indicated by the red arrow above. This opens up a drop down menu, where you can choose with whom to share your post. That way, you can tailor and target your content, or keep certain content restricted to a certain group, like your Friends or Family.

That’s really all there is to posting a simple Stream update. If you have used Facebook or Twitter at all, you will have no trouble catching on to this aspect of Google+. To be thorough, let’s look at how to include other types of media when posting content in your Stream.

Photos
To post a photo, start by clicking the picture icon in the Stream update box:

This will expand the text entry box as we saw above, as well as drop down a menu. From this menu, choose how you would like to add photos. You can either upload a photo(s) for this post, create a new album (along with corresponding Stream update to announce it) or upload photos from your mobile phone.

(Note: the mobile phone feature is only available for Android devices running the Google+ app.)
After adding photos via your preferred method, simply finish up the same way as above: choose people or circles to share with (if desired) and click Share.

Videos
The process for including video content is much the same as for photos, so I won’t flog a dead horse by going over it step by step again. Instead, this section will briefly cover the various ways you can include videos. Just as with photos, start by clicking the video icon, which is the next one to the right:

Just like with photos, there are three options for adding videos: uploading them from your computer, linking from YouTube or adding them from your mobile phone. Again, the last option is only available if you are also using the Android app.


Links
Links are extremely simple to post. Just as before, click the link icon (hint: it’s the next one to the right). The entry box grows as expected, giving you a space to paste or type in your link.

Google+ will translate links you enter to include an icon, thumbnail and preview:

If this looks familiar, it is because it is the same thing Facebook does when posting a link. See: if you know Facebook and Twitter, you can learn Google+ easily. Once your link is in there, just add an optional comment, select who you want to share with (or keep it public) and click Share!

What Kinds of Content Should You Post?
Now that you have learned the how of content, let’s briefly discuss the what. Look at the question above. What do you think the answer is?
To be frank, there isn’t one. By that I mean there is no one answer, but rather many. To illustrate this, let me share something I saw on Twitter recently. Someone asked Warren Whitlock, author of several books on Twitter and social media, if he had any tips for people who wanted to improve their social marketing. Whitlock tweeted back simply, “give more.”
He went on to explain that the only way to know what to give was to pay attention to your audience, whether it be on Twitter, Google+ or right there in front of you.
So, rather than trying to decide what kind of content to post to Google+, what you should do instead is engage with the people you are trying to reach and let them tell you what content to post. The key word here is engage
– it’s essential to all marketing, whether online or off. Google+ is no exception.

Commenting and Tagging

Your Home page is your base of operations for Google+, where you will probably spend most of your time. The main portion of this page, right there in the certain frame is dedicated to your Stream. Analogous to Twitter’s Timeline and Facebook’s News Feed, the Google+ Stream is where you will see updates, links, photos and videos that have been posted by your friends, colleagues and other members of your network.
For example, you may see several posts in your stream that look something like this:

(Ordinarily, the name and picture of the poster would be at the top left of this post, but for the purposes of this tutorial, they have been redacted.)
This is a link posted by someone from my network. You see the link itself, an icon, a thumbnail and a brief preview, just as you’d expect. But what else do you see? There are several important and useful elements in this screenshot, which we will talk about individually below.
Comments & Commenting


First, let’s talk about comments. The concept is nothing new, of course. The web has been full of comments for as long as any of us can remember. Facebook, blogs, forums, bulletin boards—they all make use of comments, providing a forum for users to pass on thoughts on the topics and media posted there in.
Google+ is no different. You can leave comments on other users’ posts, simply by clicking the Comment link below that post. Likewise, others can do the same with your posts. When a post has comments, they will appear below the post, as in the following:

You can respond to other users’ comments by putting them in the “Add a comment” text box at the bottom of the comment thread. A tip: just like blogging, it is good practice to respond to comments on your posts. That way, you connect with the community, which boosts your online presence.
Keep in mind, however, that no one wants to be constantly bombarded with sales and marketing talk in their social network feed. Don’t make overt sales pitches, make sure your comments have actual value and engage in both sides of question and answer sessions. Those three simple things will keep you in good standing in the community.
What the Heck is a +1?

After spending a little time on Google+ — or anywhere in the Googleverse, for that matter – you are bound to notice little rectangular icons all around that say “+1” on them. Are you wondering what those are?
Essentially, giving something a +1 is a way of endorsing it, saying that you agree with it or like it in some way, without making a specific comment. It is very similar in concept to the Facebook “Like” button, if you are familiar with that. Simply put, when someone +1’s your post, it means he likes it. The number of +1’s a post has received is displayed right below the post, above the comment thread:

In this example, four different users have found this post worthy of a +1. If you click on that little “+4” (or whatever the number happens to be), you can see who those users are.
The +1 is a great way for Google+ users to engage with one another. It is a tool you can use to communicate with the customers, associates and others in your network, but like any tool, it can also be overused. If you sit idly on Google+, arbitrarily clicking on every post that comes up in your Stream, then it loses meaning and no one will pay attention to your +1 in the future. It becomes like spam, and no one likes that.

Blocking & Muting
Now, not every post is worthy of a comment or +1. In fact, some are irrelevant, annoying or outright offensive. If you have spent any time on social networks, you are well aware of that.
Fortunately, you have options to avoid posts like these. In Google+, you have three simple ways of combating undesirable posts. To access them, simply click the tiny downward pointing arrow in the upper right corner of any post. This drops down a menu where you can select the three options:


In order to choose the right option for a particular post, let’s look at what each of these does:
Report abuse

This option allows you to flag posts that violate some rule or guideline of the Google+ community. This option is strictly for posts that abuse the other users in some way, such as those listed in the above screenshot. It should not be used just to get a post out of your feed because you don’t like it.

Mute this post
This option will remove the individual post, as well as associated comments, from your news feed. Note that this only removes the chosen post, not all posts for that user. Use this option for one-time minor annoyances.
Block this user
This option will remove all traces of the poster from your Stream. Use this when you simply do not want to read what that person has to say anymore, ever.
Those are the basics of commenting in Google+. Using these tools and features is a good first step to getting out into the Google+ pool and splashing around. I also recommend just going out there and playing around, fiddling to see what works and what doesn’t, what you like and what you don’t. The best way to learn is by doing.

Building Targeted Circles

One of the more powerful and useful features of Google+ is its use of Circles. With Circles, you can organize your Google+ contacts into different groups based on your relationship with them. This can have several advantages. For example:
You can filter what you see in your Stream by Circle, so you can see only the user content that is relevant to you at any one time.
Likewise, you can designate your content to be visible only one or more Circles, so you can tailor it to appeal to certain audiences.
Circles serve as a reminder of how you know or are connected to someone, lest you forget.
You can keep your whole network of contacts, colleagues, customers and prospects organized easily into their corresponding Circles.
This is just a short list of the uses for Circles, and as you can probably see, there are some great marketing and promotion implications hidden in there as well. To tap into the marketing potential of Google+, let’s talk about how to build targeted Circles.


Getting Started With Circles
In order to have targeted Circles, you must have Circles to begin with. So, let’s start by creating some Circles.
First, click on the Circles tab from your Google+ home page, or any Google+ page. It is the second button from the right in the collection of tabs, as indicated in red below.

Once you are at the Circles tab, click on the “Find people” section. This where you will go to – surprise! – find people to add to your circles. You will see a large pool of suggestions from Google+ of people you may know and/or want to add. Unfortunately, I’ve had to block out faces and names in the screenshot below in order to protect the innocent, but you get the idea. Each of those little rectangles will have a picture and name in it.

As you can see, there are four pre-fabricated Circles already: Friends, Family, Acquaintances and Following. Not a bad start. Let’s make a new one.
To make a new Circle, you just need to add at least one person to it. See how that one person is highlighted in blue above? We’re going to make him the first contact in our new circle. To do this, we simply drag him down to the empty Circle on the far left, the one that says “Drag contacts here to create a new circle.”

As you do that, the empty circle will expand and become highlighted in blue to indicate being selected.
After dragging one person to that Circle, you have the option to either add more people by dragging, or go ahead and create the Circle by clicking the corresponding link. Add as many people as you like before continuing.

That brings up this brief dialog box:

Here, you can name your Circle and confirm the people you want in it before finalizing its creation. At this point, you may be wondering just what adding someone to a Circle does. Good question. I’m going to let Google answer that one for me:

So, now we can share things with the guy we just added to our new “Prospects” Circle. He will receive notification that we have added him to a Circle, but he won’t know which Circle it is. So, if you wanted to have a Circle called “Poisonous Enemies” or “Ignore at all costs,” you could do it without hurting anyone’s feelings. Although, I don’t know why you would keep a connection to people like that, but that’s up to you.

Targeted Circles
Now that you know how to create Circles, you can go about setting up ones that are targeted. For example, we just created one called “Prospects,” which you can now use to keep track of prospective sales leads. You could also create one called “Current Customers,” containing everyone who has an open account with your business. Once our guy from up above makes a purchase, we move him over to that Circle. Depending on your business, you might want to have Circles like:

• Past Customers
• Advertisers
• Freelancers
• Editors
• Subscribers
• Buyers of Product X, Buyers of Product Y, etc.
• Priority List

By having each of these groups combined like that, you can more easily tailor content that will appeal to the various markets you serve. It also facilitates communication and allows you to more readily see the needs of your customers and clients.
Making use of Google+ Circles is a powerful way to step up your customer relations and marketing campaigns.

Action Plan Day 7 – Evaluate and Refine

Backup Your Google+ Data with Data Liberation – Once a week, backup everything on your profile with Data Liberation from your settings menu. This will allow you to keep all of your photos, posts, shares, and other data on your PC for future reference. It also ensures that if you delete your profile some day or Google (magically) goes under, you can access this information.
Install a G+ Badge or Button on Your Blog – Make sure you post a G+ badge or profile link on your blog and website so people can easily add you and interact with you from there. Show how many people have you in their circles and make a quick link of what they will gain by adding you to theirs.
Create Permalinks for Your Favorite Posts – If you’ve shared anything that really kicked butt or went viral, create a permalink for it in Google+ and share that link on your blog. Consider creating an archive of your favorite shares and posts on Google+ so people can quickly access a “best of” listing of your posts.
Install Chrome Extensions to Improve Performance – Review the list of Chrome Extensions in the eBook and add any that fit your needs. There are a lot of fun ways to upgrade and enhance your Google+ experience with Chrome – make sure to use them.
Review Interactions and ROI and Make Adjustments – See what you’re getting out of your posts by reviewing your Goo.gl or Bit.ly and Analytics data to see where your conversions are coming from. Did one post do better than another? Did you get a lot of traffic at a certain time of the day? Did people bounce like crazy from one particular link? Now’s the time to brainstorm why.
Consider New Ways to Improve Performance in Google+ - Never stop looking for ways to get more out of Google+. If you can think of something you wish it would do, there’s probably someone out there working on it.
Rinse and Repeat – This is just one week. You have months to come of growing your circles, building your reputation and showing the world that you’re worth following in Google+ as an early generation adopter. Use the tools I’ve given you to do just that, constantly add people to your lists and create a larger and longer list to work with as time passes.

Action Plan Day 6 – Run Your First Campaign

Post a Link to a Free Report or Website You’ve Developed – Today is the day you run your first true campaign to see how it performs. We’ve already posted some useful content, but today we want to post something new to Google+ and see how all those new followers will respond. Choose a free report, blog post or link you’ve just created and develop a really good share for it.

Supplement Your Post with a Hangout or Huddle – Consider supplementing your post with a Hangout or Huddle to discuss it. If you think your Circle will be interested in going over these details make it easy for them to reach you and ask questions or provide feedback. If you do a Hangout, make sure to record it for later. You can offer those conversations as bonuses to your lists.

Solicit Interest from People on Your Lists –Use all of your lists, including your Google+ Circles and email lists to draw people to your new posts. Solicit reshares and +1’s and askpeople to leave comments about the actual item you’ve posted. You can even incentivize this by bumping people into exclusive circles with more free content if they interact.

Move People Who Respond into New Circles –If someone downloads your report, buys your product, comments on your share, or otherwise interacts with you and your profile, move them into a corresponding circle. Proven buyers are much more powerful leads than plain old prospects, so they need a circle of their own. The same is true for brand evangelizers and anyone who shows an interest in what you develop.

Start Posting Publically to Encourage SERP Increases – Post anything valuable publically to encourage SERP increases. On the flip side, if you post anything that needs to remain private, lock the post. This will keep anyone from reposting it on their own Stream and therefore exposing your secrets to the world.

Check Your Google +1 Button Data in Webmaster Tools – If you installed your +1 button the other day, now is the time to start using the Webmaster Tools provided by Google to review your traffic and see what you gained from the installation. See the eBook for more details on how to do this.

Action Plan Day 5 – Start Interacting in New Ways

Schedule Your First Hangout – Get that first Hangout on the calendar. Today, brainstorm what you will discuss, select YouTube videos you want to watch and develop a good strategy for showing off your content or presentation to the people you invite. It might simply be a time to say hi to your affiliates once a week or it might be a presentation for a new product you have going up soon.

Promote Your Hangout on Huddle and Your Stream – Just scheduling a Hangout isn’t enough; you need to promote it to the people who will join in as soon as possible. Create new posts on your Stream and send them to the circles you want involved. Use Huddle to contact people directly and remind people on a daily basis that the Hangout is coming up.

Gather Information and Ask Questions About Your First Hangout – Ask people to submit questions and ideas for the Hangout so they can get used to the idea of being involved in these things. It’s not a webinar – it’s an interactive forum and you want people to ask questions and be as involved as possible throughout the entire process.

Analyze Your Posts to See How they Perform –Whenever you post a link on your G+ profile, make sure to use a URL shortener like Bit.ly or Goo.gl. These allow you to track the clicks you get and analyze the traffic it produces. You can then compare the number of clicks you get on any given day with the posts you wrote on that day and see where your traffic is coming from.

Review Your Circles and Add Another 100-200 People – This will be an ongoing task for weeks and possibly even months to come. Look through your circles and add another 100-200 people. This time around, make sure to start removing anyone from your circles that didn’t follow you back. There will be a list on your Circles menu of people who don’t return your follows – allowing you to easily remove them.

Further Split Your Lists and Build on What You’ve Developed – Again, back to list splitting. Circles are powerful if you keep them clean and segmented. If they get cluttered with people you don’t want to send the same message to, you may as well use Facebook for all it’s worth.

Action Plan Day 4 – Build Relationships and Create Value in Google+

Integrate the +1 Button into Your Website – If you haven’t yet, get a +1 button on your website ASAP. If you have a WordPress blog, this is very easy. If not, you should go to Google’s Webmaster Tools service and download the code needed to add it to your site. Don’t forget to customize the text submitted with each share.

Create Value on Google+ and Send People there from Your Other Sites – Make sure you use your existing web properties to drive people to Google+. You may not be able to sell directly on the social network, but you can sure use it to provide added value and stay in touch with people. Have badges on your sites, post permalinks of your recent shares and tell people what they can gain by joining you on the site.

Refine and Revise Posts with SERPs in Mind –Don’t forget that your posts can show up in SERPs if you do them just right. Keep your really good posts public and make sure they are as interesting and engaging as possible.

Start Tweaking Your Profile Using G+ Tips –Use the tips included the eBook to tweak your profile and add new content to it. You’ll be surprised by how many cool things you can do using the Chrome browser and a little ingenuity to customize your posts.

Reach Out to Your Affiliates and JVs – If you haven’t yet, start drawing in the people you do business with. Add your affiliates, your JVs and any business partners or contractors you work with on a regular basis to your G+ profile so you can keep in touch with them through you Circles.

Create Networks You Can Rely on in the Future – Circles will be a hugely successful and useful communication tool in the future, but they need to be used wisely to be effective, so don’t let them get cluttered or overloaded with content in a way that will drown out everything else you’ve worked so carefully to develop.

Experiment with Huddle on G+ Mobile –Now’s as good a time as any to start using theMobile app and playing with Huddle. Especially if you’ve added your business contacts, start having conversations with them on Huddle. This will allow you to develop instant contacts with people in an open environment, like a forum but in your G+ mobile app.