The language of social media has moved beyond 'friends' and 'posts' and 'like' to a time-wasting mess resembling a dorm room during Finals week.
There must be a better way. With Google’s move into social media with Google+ I think we finaly have a way to manage the mess.
Here's a look at The Complete Idiot's Guide to Google+ by Michael Miller. We now can sort, manage, and grow our social media presence with Circles, Streams, and Hangouts in Google+. Add in video conferencing, a layout you can tweak, and ability to publish across all social media, and Google+ starts to look like the answer. And, its free.
You're probably thinking if Google+ was completely intuitive we wouldn't need an Idiot's Guide, but it is the quickest way to see the logic of Google+ so you can get started.
Not quite a year old, Google+ is differentiated by the ability to segregate friends into “circles” where you can follow messages, posts, photos, video sharing, even email and instant messaging. But what goes on in a circle stays in a circle. So when you’re at work, looking for the photo of a product concept, you don’t have to scroll through hundreds of friend’s photos to find it. The integration of Gmail and Google search is also a time-saver.
Unlike Facebook, which is stuffed with updates on kids, pets, and coworkers all mixed together, in this CIG Google+ book, you'll see the ability to post to circles is well explained by Miller. You’ll see that when you create a post you can choose to send it to specific circles, such as ‘family’ or extended circles that includes friends of friends. Go further and make a post public and it will appear on your Google+ profile, to any visitor, even if they are not in your circles.Or, you can choose to post to 'specific contacts’ to quickly communicate the same information to people in different circles.
Read the rest of this review and feel free to comment at http://open.salon.com/blog/helen_gallagher/2012/02/19/book_review_the_complete_idiots_guide_to_google
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