Getting Started With Google Plus

Some folks were asking me what to do once they got into Google+, and so I shot this quick screencast. If you can’t see it, click HERE.

Getting Started at Google+

The VERY first thing I’d do at Google+ is go to the settings gear in the upper right hand corner and work out my privacy settings. Here’s a quick screencast about that:

I recorded this AFTER the screencast below, because I forgot to talk about privacy. Whoops!

Start Connecting

First off, when you start, you won’t have any people in your Circles (which is how Google Plus organizes people), but some people might have already added you. You can click on the “Circles” Tab and that will show you which Circles are prebuilt for you. I renamed all of mine. You can do the same by double-clicking them, then selecting Rename. I did this so that people wouldn’t be put off by terms like “Acquaintance.” Mine have all kinds of weird names like “Keepers” and “Bacon Filchers” and “Attention Getters.” Name them however you want. Your Circles are yours. It’s how you view people’s info coming into you.

The first way I found people to follow was to find who interesting people were following. You can surf around that way, plus you can search for names of people you find interesting. Once you have a few interesting people to follow, Circles grow rather organically.

Add To the Stream

The Stream is the main message section of Google+ and you can add text, pictures, video, links, and place information there. You can choose who you share your information with, which is really cool. For instance, if we were all at SXSW in Austin Texas, instead of annoying all the people who weren’t there, we could just add people to circles for that event, and then only blast to those circles while we’re at that place. (Make sense?) So you can do location-specific and event-specific circle-making (though it takes some effort).

People add all kinds of things. I see lots more photos on here. I see more animated Gifs, which can be interesting or annoying, but they certainly do feel different than the stream of text in Twitter.

Have Conversations

Commenting is really popular here. It’s great to have conversations inside Hangout, the live video system, as well as in the comments section of various posts. That’s something I think is much better served here than on most other platforms. Yes, you can do it in Facebook, and maybe it’s just the newness of the place, but I think the value of the conversations is much better in Google+ right now than elsewhere.

Any Questions?

Did I miss covering something you’re curious about?

Oh, and if you want to connect with me on Google Plus, I’m right here.

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