Google Plus is Not Your Blog

When I visit New York City, I stay at the Roger Smith Hotel. They make me feel like it’s my home. They’re very inviting. They smile a lot. They treat me like I matter. I love it there.

But it’s not my home.

Google+ Is NOT Your Blog

There’s been some stink (again) about whether Google+ will serve as a replacement for one’s blog. Kevin Rose (once famous for Digg), redirected KevinRose.com to point to his Google+ account, citing that sharing and participation there has been better than it ever was on his site. Perfectly good response for Kevin to have, but I’m going to beg to differ with how MOST people intend to use their blogs and how building it on a third party platform is rarely going to be a good idea for you.

Your blog, especially if you pay to have it hosted and with its own shiny URL is YOUR real estate. There are still some things you can do to violate your terms of service with your hosting company, but otherwise, it’s yours to do with as you wish, kind of like when you own a home or a building. You can change the design of your blog. You can store all the data you want to house. You can add and subtract things. You can customize the look and the feel. You can drive people where you want them to go. You can incentivize them to take an action you’d like them to take.

Google+ is an Outpost

No matter what, no matter how much more engagement you get on a place like Google+, it is not your “home base.” It’s your “outpost.” That means, it’s a place where you can go to have interactions with people, on “neutral ground,” and that in the course of those interactions, should someone want to know more about you, learn more about what you do, understand how you might interact further, that’s when they will move from your outpost property on Google+ over to your home base on your website or blog.

The Quick Strategy

Put the most VALUE at your home base (blog) and spend the most TIME at the outposts (networks like Google+).

Easy as that.

And Also

Jake Luddington and I had similar reactions, it seems. He beat me to it, so it’s worth reading Jake’s post, too. Well, besides the fact he’s a great blogger.

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