Google+ for Business Part 7

Below the area where you put your post information is the sharing options for each post. You have several options to how you choose to share this information. The first of these, the kind of wide-open option, is to share with Public. This means that anyone can see this post. (Most of what I share is to the Public group.) You can choose to share with Your Circles, which means that anyone you put into a circle can see the post. You can also add Extended Circles, which means that you've not only shared that information with people in your circles, but also made it visible to other people who have those people in their circles. (If that's a bit confusing, it's okay-it makes sense after checking things out).

You can share with one specific individual by typing @username or +username and then making sure you haven't added any other sharing options. This is as close as Google+ comes to a private message.

Similar to this last option, if you mention someone in a post with the + or @ method (such that their name shows up in blue with a + before it), then that person will receive access to that post, whether or not they're in the circle (or circles) you've chosen to share that information with.

For example, a.s.sume you have a circle called Chris Brogan Haters, and you use it to share all kinds of mean and nasty information about me (hey, people might!). If you type into your box a bunch of information about how I don't floss my teeth enough, but you just say, "Chris has bad flossing habits," your secret evil club is safe. However, if you put in "+Chris Brogan has really bad flossing habits," and my name shows up with a + and is blue, I'm going to have access to see that post, even if I'm not in your "Chris Brogan Haters" circle. Make sense?

Interestingly, you can also share a post with someone not on Google+ by including that person's email address in the sharing area below. Simply click Add More People, and start typing in the email address. When it's all typed in, press your Tab key, and poof: You've emailed someone a copy of the post you're about to share.

Sharing Something with a Limited Audience.

When you share something with a limited audience, the people who have received that post can see any mutual connections you've shared it with, plus get a count of how many other people had access to see the post. So, if you share with your Managers circle, and that's 24 people, any colleague who has a mutual connection in common with you will show up when one clicks the "limited" explanation that shows up to the right of the date stamp on the post (see Figure 6-3).

Figure 6-3 A limited post.

Formatting Posted Text.

As noted, to post text, simply follow the preceding step of going to the Stream page (your little house) and clicking in the white area of the box that says, Share What's New. Type your text in and press Share.

You can also add bold, italic, and strikethrough text to format your text. Following are the methods for doing this: * To bold text, put two asterisks (*) around the word or words you want to bold.

* To make your text italic, put two underscores around the word or words you want italic.

* To apply strikethrough to your text, place a dash (--) around the word or words you want to apply it to.

You can also post a link without having to do anything fancy. However, posting links into the text box makes the post become a "link" post; if you don't select something such as a photo, a video, or location data first. In other words, because a post can be either a photo post, a video post, or a link post, but not more than one of these types of posts, typing a link to a website into your "text" post turns it into a "link" post.

If you make a different type of post, such as a photo post, a video post, or a location data post, you can then add a link (or links) into the text part that accompanies that type of post. For example, if you post a photo, Google+ enables you to add text to that post. If you post a photo, and then mention that you took it in front of http://dell.com headquarters, that shows up as a link in the text part of that post, even though it's a photo post.

Likewise, you can add location data and not need to choose between types of posts.

Experiment a bit, and you'll get it.

Posting Photos.

Photos are actually quite powerful in Google+. I've noticed (through testing) that if I post straight text, I get one level of reaction. If I post a photo and that same text, I'll get a lot more interaction. Why? I think it's just because we can use the photo to draw people into the story.

You choose three options to post a photo on Google+. You can simply add a photo, you can create a new alb.u.m (or collection of photos), or you can post a photo from your phone (if you've taken photos and selected auto-post via the Google+ mobile app for Android or iPhone). Don't worry about the details of those last two options yet. Just think about posting a photo from the web app at first.

When you click Add Photos, the web application asks you to locate the photo you'd like to add. After you find and select that photo, Google+ uploads a copy of it and puts it on your post. Photos show up below the text you enter (should you choose to add text to the post) no matter what. So, you can't choose the location of where the photo is placed inside the post. It'll always be at the bottom (as will video, links, and placed data).

On the mobile application, you can set up Instant Upload as an option for photo sharing. This enables you to automatically upload photos (and videos, should you choose) to a private web alb.u.m. You can do two things with this: Immediately select photos to post to your stream via the web application, or save the photos for later use when you decide to post via your web application (where the most recent photos that have auto-uploaded from your mobile device wait for you, should you decide to use them in a post).

Photos taken and uploaded via the Instant Upload don't immediately post into your stream. They simply go into a holding area until you choose to use them (if you want) for inclusion with a post. However, posting a photo via your mobile device does put that photo right into the stream, after you press share. Be aware of the difference.

Thus, if the boss says, "Take some photos of the event," simply taking photos and having them shoot up to Google+ via Instant Upload leaves them in a kind of limbo. So, you'll have to go in and publish those photos before they show in your stream. If you do it the other way around, and you're posting photos thinking that you're just lobbing them into Instant Upload to sort out later, and you include those photos of your boss drunk and falling out of the duck boat, that might not go well either. See the difference?

Posting Video.

You can post video by uploading directly to Google+ via the web application, by posting something originally uploaded via your mobile device (see the above notes on how photos get sent to Google+ via mobile), and by pointing to a video already posted on YouTube.

Of these options, I've had the best success with posting via YouTube. When I've attempted to post directly from the web application, the quality of the video decreases, and the time it takes to upload is longer (even on my high-speed connection in the office). Instead, if you want to post a video of your own creation, it is probably easier to upload it to YouTube and then post it to Google+ by referencing the YouTube link.

If you're sharing videos from your own YouTube channel, and that channel is a.s.sociated with the same Google account that you use for Google+, simply click the Video icon, select YouTube, and then select Your YouTube Videos from the next option.

Sharing other people's videos from YouTube is relatively easy. You can search for the video by name, or if you have the URL link specifically to that video, you can post into the appropriate spot after selecting Video, and then select YouTube. Either way, it usually comes right up. When you find what you want, select Add Video; then you'll be dropped back into your post so that you can add text, and adjust the sharing options.

Posting Place and Location Data.

You can post data into Google+ via your mobile device and sometimes via the web application. To test this latter effort, I told Google+ to post my location from my Macbook Air, and it knew exactly which coffee shop I was sitting in (The Wired Monk, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the time of this writing, should you be the curious type).

Some people share place or location data so that they can encourage serendipitous meetings. You can have your sales team check in via location data to give your team a sense of their comings and goings, if that is of value to your organization. You can use location check-ins to mark potential prospects, for instance, if you were looking for places to sell your retail products. There are lots of ways to consider using place data as part of the value of Google+.

Other Post Options.

You can go back and edit a post or delete a post after you've added it to the stream. Maybe you've accidentally sent out a link to all the public that shares your upcoming ad campaign's main website address. No worries. You can pull it down relatively fast. You can also link to the post by clicking the arrow in the upper-right corner of the post and selecting Link to This Post.

Here's a valuable option: You can report and remove offensive or spam-like comments. Thus, if you're posting about an inspiring speech your CEO gave, and someone comes along and decides your post is the perfect place to sell Christian Louboutin shoes, you have the power to report the comment as spam (and please do so), and then remove the comment from your post.

Be very clear about what you decide to remove from your comments. If you are Sony Electronics and someone from Kodak comes onto your post and talks about a competing camera, that's probably a moment worth discussing with your team before you make your next move. My professional advice would be to leave the comment as long as it's respectful. Your company policy might be different.

In a similar vein, say you represent the Alabama Power Company, and someone comes on to complain that his power bill is higher than ever before and that the power company stinks. This comment should be permitted to stay. It's an opinion, and it's not slanderous or otherwise. Instead, what should come soon after that comment is a response from someone at Alabama Power offering a phone call to review the customer's bill and seek an understanding of what might have happened or changed.

Deleting negative impressions of your company or organization has a negative impact, actually. In a survey I've long since forgotten the source of, I read that 70% of customers facing a web page that shows only positive impressions and reviews reported that something was "wrong," even though they couldn't always put their finger on the cause of this. This should be at the top of your priorities when deciding how to moderate comments on your posts.

Disabling Comments and Reshare.

Now consider two more posting options. The first is whether you want to disable comments for a post. I've seen this used successfully when someone chooses to reshare someone else's post but wants the comments to fall into that original post and not end up on the shared post. Walk through an example.

Shilpa, the director of Consumer Experience, posts a video asking potential customers what they think of a new feature. Anil, the vice president of Research and Development, reshares Shilpa's post to his audience by pushing Share under the post after it comes up in his stream. Upon publishing that share, Anil rushes to the upper-right corner of the post and selects Disable Comments. He then puts text above the share of Shilpa's video that says, "Please comment on Shilpa's original post." People aren't obligated to click through and comment, obviously, but this encourages that outcome, at least.

The other option you can enable is to Lock This Post. This comes in handy, for instance, if you're sharing something with a select circle, such as your Community Managers circle, and you don't want the information going out into the general Google+ stream. Other times you might not want to share a post beyond the initial target circle because it's something you'd like to keep under wraps to some extent.

The Importance of Sharing.

The next chapter talks about how all this stuff in this chapter can be used, and that includes building a practice of sharing other people's information. In Google+, similar to how Twitter used to work, sharing is an important part of the strategy.

For this chapter, the how of sharing is simple. Go to your home page-the little house with the b.u.t.tons and lines below it-and pick which stream you'd like to read from. Or if you want to see everything, click the word Stream below your avatar on the left side. Then, when you find a post worth sharing, enabled to be shared, simply click the blue Share b.u.t.ton beneath the post, and decide which of your circles you'd like to share it with. You can also share a post with the Public overall. Remember: If the original post was shared with a limited audience, then you can share it only with your circles, extended circles, and a limited audience, as well.

Why sharing is important is that people need to see more than your original posts. They need to understand that you're interested in sharing other people's information if it's germane to the story as well. For instance, if you're someone from Ford (oh, like Scott Monty), you have to share other people's posts about cars in general because the kinds of people who want to read about Ford probably also want to be kept up on industry news.

The coolest (and by "coolest," I mean the way that bosses will twitch, but it goes a long way in showing how human your company can be) way to share is to occasionally share the other company's information. For instance, if you're a publisher at Marvel Comics, it'd be nice to give DC a nod for winning an award for some Batman story or the like. For whatever reason, that Macy's vs Gimbels trick really goes a long way in showing people that you're not just in it to pitch your product.

This is covered more in the next chapter, but realize that sharing ranks almost as important as posting, and that it's part of your content creation and curation strategies. Now move onto that next, which will be an interesting way to make the most of what you covered here.

7. A Simple Content Strategy.

No matter what your primary business is, you are a publishing company in the new world of social media and social networks. You might be the owner of a small (but growing) restaurant chain in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but if you aren't posting pictures of your delicious custom burgers to your Facebook group, your Twitter feed, and your Google+ stream, you're spending far too much money on advertising-or you have plenty of empty tables.

From the largest companies to the smallest, people realize the importance of creating interesting content that engages specific audiences via these social channels. Attend BlogHer even once, and you can see that the "mommy blogger" universe is being courted by the biggest companies out there. Companies such as Disney do spectacular work integrating bloggers and podcasters into their events as press. (I attended the inaugural voyage of the Disney Dream cruise ship.) *

But creating compelling content is difficult, takes time, and requires some consideration for this new world. Simply blasting the same message to Facebook, LinkedIn, your email list, and everywhere else won't cut it. Furthermore, if all you do is post about your business, people will tune out quickly, especially if that sharing comes from the individual accounts. Finally, if you are going to invest all this time in creating and also sharing content, it better be with the intent to build some kind of lasting business result. So, what should you do? This chapter helps you answer this question.

How Others Approach Content Sharing.

Before going into how to create content, check out some samplings of how business people use Google+. This ill.u.s.trates a few important points, suggests a few reasons why you might emulate something these people do, and shows you more than one way to look at it. None of the commentary provided here has been vetted by these people. These are my opinions and insights into their choices and postings.

Jennifer Cisney (Kodak).

I visited the stream of Jennifer Cisney, Kodak's Chief Blogger. On the day that I took a peek, she had created four posts: * She shared another person's post about giving away dog books and cookies.

* She shared an article about a genetic portrait series.

* She shared an article about a photo project showing different living situations for children.

* She shared a poster she designed for an event she planned to attend.

Jennifer's posts ask nothing of the person reading them. She's not asking people to rush to Kodak and buy a Playsport camera. Several days of posts reveal that she rarely mentions Kodak projects or products directly on Google+. However, she shares lots of great posts about photography, interesting photography projects, and other things she's pa.s.sionate about. Her work made me want to grab my own camera to try some of these projects.

That's the magic. Jennifer isn't paid to sell directly. She's paid to inspire the community, to keep a warm brand sentiment around Kodak and its involvement in pictures and memories, and to just be a good digital citizen.

You can't read Jennifer's stream and not know she's a dog lover. You can't read what she shares and not realize that she's into photography. You never get the feeling that she's there to pitch you something. I think that's a great way to approach content sharing, if you're looking for a strong, warm brand sentiment.

Michael Dell (CEO, Dell).

On the day I visited Michael Dell's stream, he shared the following: * He shared another person's post that talked about a great Hangout they shared (and thanked the person).

* He hung out with 21 people. (I don't know the subject matter of this.) * He shared reactions to HP's exit from the PC market.

* He wished HP goodbye in the PC world.