Google+ vs. Everyone Else

To date, the social network is described as the world’s largest ghost town. With over 170 million users, some are wondering if people are actually staying engaged with the network. To bring this home, just think of when your last Google Plus login was. Can’t remember, can you? You’re not the only one, and that’s a problem Google needs to fix quickly if it plans on being a real contender in the social media space.

Fortunately, for Google+ this isn’t the whole story. The fact of the matter is that it is still among the fastest growing social networks in history. With over 170 million users and counting, Google+ is a prime target for Web marketers. Its attractiveness is directly related to how it stands out from the likes of Facebook and Twitter. In order for Web marketing professionals and businesses to really hone in on the Google+ market, they must understand three key elements of the social network.

1. Google+ Speaks a Different Language – The types of messages used between Twitter and Facebook are actually pretty interchangeable. The tone is often fun, whimsical and even snarky at times. When considering content for Google Plus, it’s important to consider the roots of Google. At the core of Google’s business model is information. Google+ is more about useful information than about entertainment.

2. Deep Google Search Integration – A controversial element of the Google+ social network is its deep integration with Google search. With the new feature called “Search Plus Your World” search can be customized to fit the specific interests of a specific Google+ user. The real controversy comes with the fact that the +1 button – Google’s equivalent of the Facebook’s “like” button – serves a similar function to a backlink. That is, increased Google+ activity on certain content pages could boost the content’s ranking on the Google search engine. No matter how you slice it, this is potentially great news for businesses and marketers alike.

3. The Users Are Different – The Google+ demographic isn’t necessarily as wide as other social networks. To date, the bulk of Google+ users are male professionals. In fact, many professionals use their profiles as a means to network with other professionals within their field.

Google+ For Business & How to Use It

One of the latest developments over at Google+ is the unveiling of their business page platform. Setting up a page is easy enough. The folks over at Rackspace put together a neat little video on their Google Plus page to demonstrate just how easy it is. Spoiler alert: you can set up your page in a matter of minutes. Many businesses are eagerly anticipating an influx in user engagement. Here are three major ways businesses can prepare:

· Optimizing Circles – Using circles isn’t only about properly segmenting potential fans of your business. Properly using keywords in your circles segments can also boost your search ranking in Google. Using the circles feature also gives you power to create compelling content for specific groups of users. Theoretically, this will translate to more effective marketing messages for businesses.

· Optimizing Your Business Profile – The worst Google+ profiles are overly complicated. The key to optimizing your profile is to keep it simple. Also, it’s important to use targeted keywords in the About section of your profile.

· Creating Compelling Content – This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many companies fail to realize how important good content is to a marketing strategy. In the case of Google+ – and just about any other social network for that matter – users respond to visually compelling messages.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that Google+ was built for users. It wasn’t necessarily built for businesses and marketers. The big idea is that as Google+ evolves, relevant search will improve, and Google will have a deeper connection with users. Any business or marketer should approach marketing within this same framework.

The post Social Networking Tools for Businesses appeared first on Tech Tips.

Using Facebook on the job is sometimes allowed to a certain extent, one which employees should never take advantage of. Here are the top social media risks that one can encounter when using any social media that can be accessed by employers.

1. Too much information

It’s the disease of those who are bound to technology and social media. It’s one thing to share to the world that you attended a wedding of a friend—some of your old friends might want to know about that. But it’s another thing to twit or post about going to the grocery to buy some milk—no one wants to know that.

Many people are ridden with the need to inform the world of the smallest things that they do when there should be a filter that sifts through what information should be shared.The same goes with posting pictures. Yes, party pictures are fun, but your employer may not appreciate pictures of you drunk or passed out.

Always remember: think before you post, lest the consequences haunt you when you recover from the hangover.

2. Lack of control over corporate data

Employees come and go in companies, and sometimes, employers cannot control the feedback and comments that they may post about a company.

Employees have to be vigilant in keeping work separate from their personal lives, especially when it comes to social media. If you have any grudges about a poorly-executed project or if you feel negative vibes for your coworker, it is best to settle this privately.

For employers and company owners, the biggest danger here is that your company’s reputation and brand name will always be at risk for potential negative attention.

3. Risk of identity theft

Identity theft has always been a lingering risk whenever one opens an online account. Whether it’s in a social media website, an online bank, or any shady website where you would need to register your full details, the risk is always there.

The bad news here is that for some people, the threat never seems to happen, which is why posting personal information is still rampant.

In fact, according to Consumer Reports in 2010, it was reported that almost 42% of Facebook users post full birth dates, a whopping 63% post photos of themselves mostly in public albums, and even 7% reveal complete home addresses.

4. Excessive use of social media by employees during work hours

This particular problem is oftentimes reported by employers who catch their subordinates playing Farmville or surfing through the Facebook newsfeed when they should be finishing a report.

Employees should be aware of how much time they spend on social media networks as this can affect their daily work output. What’s more, you might not know it, but there are ways by which your boss can know if you are doing your job or surfing away in Facebook.

Remember the cases of people getting fired over excessive Facebook use? Some may have done extreme cases, but there are also those who just mismanaged their office hours and got caught not dillydallying from their jobs.

5. Virus and malware attacks

In a survey by Consumer Reports, 9% of 2,000 Americans have reported to experience trouble in the form of scams, malware or spyware infections, and identity theft while in a social network.

It does not help that some hackers can easily get into your account and send virus emails and other malware to your contacts list. The possibilities become endless for hackers, especially if you are one of those who post virtually everything about them on their social media accounts.

The post Five Social Media Risks Every Employee Should Know About appeared first on Tech Tips.

Below we look at five methods (all of which are free) and relatively easy to implement to incorporate Google Plus on any blog. This is for Google Plus – the social network.

1. Google Plus Badge – this is the official badge provided by Google. To add the badge to your site grab the code snippet provided and place wherever you wish the badge to appear. Be it your blogs sidebar, below a post, above a post, homepage, etc.

2. WordPress Plugin – if your blog is powered by WordPress then there are several plugins that will make it super duper easy to add a Google Plus button or badge to your blog. We found the following through the WordPress.org plugin directory that are simple and come from established WordPress plugin developers.

A. Google Plus Button One Widget – for those who simply want the + one button added to their blog posts, this is the plugin for you. Simple and easy to add.

B. Google Plus WordPress Widget – this is a super cool widget  that shows your updates lvery similar to the Facebook  box. You can place it on your blogs sidebar  and those wish to follow you can via this widget.

C. Google Plus – look for the one by Agitae, this plugin allows you to showcase your “Circles” in a widget on your blogs sidebar as well as your Google Plus stream.

3. Blogger Plugin – if your blog is powered by Blogger then try an add-on in your admin dashboard to quickly and easily Google Plus to your site. Since Blogger.com is a Google company we expect them to have made it quite easy to use their new social network. And they have.

4. HTML – this is where you go in behind the scenes of your blog and manually add the HTML code for the Google + badge or button and place it where you wish it to appearon your site. This is for advanced users who know how to manipulate the code in the backend of their sites. If this does not describe you, better to try one of the other methods we mention.

5. Hire Someone On Fiverr – as with any technical aspect of blogging, one can simply outsource the task. We recommend (and use) Fiverr for small and quick tasks such as this. Search on Fiverr for “add google plus button” or “install google plus badge” etc and as usual check the feedback and history of service provider. If they stack up give them a try and place an order. The cost for anything on Fiverr is five bucks hence the name.

The post 5 Ways To Incorporate Google Plus On Your Blog appeared first on Tech Tips.

With GTools+, users can have a unified Google bar i.e. all your personalized menus appear on all the Google services. GTools+ lets you make the Google+ bar appear always at the top while scrolling on Google Plus.

GTools+ offers a lot of other features as well. You can prevent opening a link in the Google+ bar on another tab or another window. Besides that, you can also change the color of the notification bubble on the Google Bar or change the position of chat on Google+. You can also add a translation link in the right click menu that will translate any update in another language to your language. Besides that, it also lets you have notifications for Gmail and Google Reader right in the Google Bar.

GTools+ can be very handy for users who want to use Google Plus more efficiently.

The post An all in one Chrome extension for Google+ appeared first on Tech Tips.

Facebook applications like RSS Graffiti, Sendible etc. let you push updates from your blog to Facebook pages or your profile page via the RSS feeds of your blog. Plusfeed is a tool that gives you the RSS feeds for any Google Plus profile. We had covered Plusfeed on Techattitude recently. Your feed URL will look like this: “http://plusfeed.appspot.com/1072221639248386151157”. To post  updates to Facebook, go to RSS Graffitti application on Facebook and authorize it to publish updates to your profile. You will see the pages you admin on the left hand menu; select the page you want to post updates to. After authorizing, click on the Add Feed button and add the RSS feed URL of your Google Plus profile onto it. Preview the Feed and finally save it. You can change the settings for the feed like its source name, source URL, Feed style, post type etc. You can also add filters to the feed, schedule it and more.

To post Google Plus updates to Twitter, you can use the famous Twitterfeed application. Twitterfeed lets you post updates to Twitter through a feed URL. Sign up for an account on Twitterfeed. Go to the Twitterfeed dashboard and click on the “Create New Feed” button at the top right corner.  Now give a name for your Feed(Google Plus for instance) and enter the Google plus feed URL into the RSS feed URL box. Click on the Advanced Settings button to configure options for update frequency, post content and more. Now go to Step 2 and select Twitter(You can use Twitterfeed to post updates to Facebook as well but it has lesser options and doesn’t post images either). You will need to authenticate your Twitter account. Once your account is authenticated, click on the Create Service Button. Now whenever you post anything to Google Plus, it will automatically be posted to your Twitter account as well.

Thus, using RSS Graffitti and Twitterfeed, you can easily post Google Plus updates to Twitter or Facebook.

The post How to automatically post Google+ updates to Facebook or Twitter appeared first on Tech Tips.

Subscribing to RSS feeds of any Google Plus user is very easy. The Google Plus Feed URL will look something like this “http://plusfeed.appspot.com/1072221639248386151156”. The number at the end is the Google+ Profile ID. Just replace the number with the profile ID of any user you want to subscribe to and you’ll instantly get his updates in RSS form. You can then subscribe to the feed using your favorite RSS reader like Google Reader.

Thus with this tool from appsoft, you can easily get RSS feeds to subscribe to a Google+ user.

The post How to get the Feed of any Google+ user appeared first on Tech Tips.

Quick View for Google Plus adds a quick view functionality to Google+. For example, if a friend of yours shared a news item on Google+, you can read it without opening the page in another tab. Just install the Chrome Extension for Google Plus and next time you see any link shared on Google+, you should be able to view it right from there. After installing the Quick View for Google Plus extension refresh Google+ and select any update that has a link. Now hit the space bar. The content from the shared link will then be loaded in a popup window on top of Google Plus. To close the popup, press Space Bar again and you will be back on Google+.

Google Plus already has some keyboard shortcuts like the “J” and “K” button for scrolling the page. With extensions like Quick View for Google Plus, using Google+ can be a better experience.

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