Top 5 Ways You Can Improve Your Google Plus Experience

A lot has been said (and written) in recent months about how Google Plus users (or Plusketeers as they’re commonly referred to nowadays) can get more people to circle them. I have even written a piece about this myself. In it, you may remember, I explained how I went from 0 to 5.000 followers in a few months time and I told you what you could learn from my experience.

Although it’s great to be followed by a lot of people (let’s face it, those of us who write for a living do it to be read, on blogs, in newspapers and magazines, or on social networks such as G+), I now believe that we, as a community, are focusing too much on quantity and not enough on quality. Hence this article.

In this piece, entitled “Top 5 Ways You Can Improve Your Google Plus Experience,” I don’t want to tell you how you can get as many others to ‘circle’ you. No, my goal now is to give you tips on how you can get more satisfaction out of Google’s social baby. I don’t care whether you’re followed by 500 people or by 50,000. The fact of the matter is that you’re using G+ because you love communicating with other people. That’s what this new network is (supposed) to be all about, and that’s what I believe we should emphasize.

So, without further ado, here are the top five ways you can improve your Google Plus experience.

1. Circle the right people

I know what you’re thinking: my God, there he goes again talking about circlers. Well, yes. But make no mistake about it: I’m not urging you to follow as many people as possible or to get as many people as possible to follow you (back). No, what I want you to do is to go to G+, do a search for subjects that interest you (say your hobbies, your favorite NFL team, your favorite political party or candidate, your favorite photographer, etc.) and to add those who share them. If they follow you back: great. If not: no problem. As long as they share their posts ‘publicly’ you’ll get to read them. And that, of course, is what it’s all about.

2. Interact with those who share your interests

Once you’ve added these people to your circles, it’s time to start communicating with them. Now, I don’t mean you should start harassing them; just leaving a comment when they post something you find inspiring / appealing / interesting will do. Let them know you appreciate their posts and, especially why you do. Do not just leave a comment saying “Thanks, great!” Explain why the update appealed to you. And if you really don’t have a lot of time to spend commenting, just +1 it. Trust me, there’s not one G+ user out there who doesn’t like it when his posts receive a few +1′s.

3. Use Google Hangouts to ‘meet’ people you’ll probably never meet in real life

Honestly, I don’t use this feature nearly enough myself. I always think to myself “I should do a hangout with some random followers,” but I never seem to get to it. And that is quite a big mistake on my part indeed. You see, the hangouts I did participate in were all – without exception – great fun. It’s never easy to start talking to stranger – or it didn’t use to be easy, that is. On G+ it is. Why? I’ve got no idea. Perhaps it’s because G+ is still quite small (well, compared to Facebook anyway), and we early adopters feel like we’ve all got something in common because we were on G+ when it was still rather quiet.

Whatever the reason may be, fact is that Hangouts are a fantastic way to meet new people and to really get to know your followers (and the people you follow). What’s more, Facebook and Twitter do not offer the same service; yeah, you can meet one-on-one on FB (thank you Skype), but you can’t meet with an entire group of friends. On G+ you can.

4. Reshare other people’s posts

Why will this improve your experience of G+? Well, two reasons:

a) The person whose post you reshared will be grateful (we all like to be reshared, it proves that our posts are of value to at least some of our followers) and will be more inclined to communicate with you directly and,

b) It allows you to post updates when you don’t have much time to surf on the Net in an attempt to find something worth linking to. Fellow G+’ers are often the best news source out there. If they share your passions, they’ll know what to read… and what to ignore.

5. Step out of your comfort zone

This is my final advice, my last strategy for you to optimize your G+experience: step out of your comfort zone. I’ve done this myself, and I continue to do so, by purposefully reading posts from people who know far more about a particular subject than I do. For instance: I know nothing about photography. Zero. Zilch. However, ever since joining G+, I’ve learned a lot about this art nonetheless. How? I simply started following photographers, yes, a whole bunch of them. I wasn’t into photography (and I’m still not actually making photographs), but I’ve learned a lot about it nonetheless. What’s more, I’ve learned to appreciate this art form in a way I thought I never would. How? Just by trying to learn something new; by talking to people who have other hobbies (or careers) than me.

You can do the same. Don’t know much about painting but find it interesting nonetheless? Follow people who write about it. Or take politics. Can’t care less about it? Great. Add some passionate politicos to your circles and see what you can learn about this subject. Even if you don’t learn to share their interest, this exercise may at least enable you to meet new people and new ideas.

So, that’s it. These are the five strategies I believe that will boost your G+experience. I wish you a happy Plussing and… as always, please share your thoughts about this article with me.