I'm a writer writing a book, and this is my personal Google profile. My book is the most important thing to me now, so I wanted to make it clear what I'm about here.

I made sure the text from the cover is legible on my hovercard too. I hope people checking out my hovercard would see at a glance what I'm writing about, and that they'd circle me.

My hovercard also contains a short "about me" text that reads
"IT entrepreneur at logit.net. Writer. Blogger. Geek." which I entered under "Employment" in my Google+ "About" profile.

I believe my cover and my hovercard tell a good enough story about who I am.

#googleplustips  

This is a brief look at the psychology when new people initiate relations on Google+

As a writer with a psychological twist I have been analysing what happens when "someone new" comments for the first few times on threads.

Have you had this experience?
You are reading comments from familiar faces, and then, you come across someone new i.e. an "unfamiliar" name.
So often I find myself wanting to understand the intention behind a comment being made.
Does the person want to "play"?
Are their intentions [please insert Nineteenth Century London gentleman voice here]* honourable?
Are they looking to connect through engagement?
And so on...

I have recently found myself wanting to know the context of many comments on public threads. 
Some people put real effort into what they are saying and I enjoy understanding more about "where they are coming from".

So, here is an illustration of how we build up context:

1.Hoverover the name - this will give you an instant impression. 
The image they use on their profile pic - when it is a "face" we will interpet their expression, for instance. 
Someone smiling is more likely to be responded to positvely as we have position associates with that; business attire, however, will give a professional impression; someone with empty pizza boxes having been strewn everywhere and in a state of undress, you start building a picture.

Then you click to see more...
2. Profile and images- images are a way to give "snapshots" of someone's world, or more accurately on Google+, who they want to display themselves to be in the world. If there are no images, it is hard to make a first impression.

3. About me - what they say about themselves is illuminating. The way they use language can be interpreted as a reflection of their internal processing. Our thoughts create the words and the words are then displayed on the page, giving context to part of a person's life.

4. What they have posted really matters- stating the obvious, but the content itself will give you information about them. 
If they are just forwarding key people's posts then they are probably "reaching out" towards them.
If they are writing their own posts but no-one is +1ing, sharing, commenting, then you know that people are not engaging with them
Or if they are writing good content, creating images, sending on jokes etc and all of this is being received well it will give you another view of them.

5. Number of people circled (and them having circled) - this can give you an idea of where they are at with their Google+ journey. If they only have 20 people in their circles and 20 people circle them, then they are unlikely to understand the cultures into which they are entering. 

Whatever first impressions we make will be down to our own psychology. I notice the more information I can gather about the context of comments, the more likely it is that I will engage further with people.
Simple stuff but essential when building online relationships.
All the best with connecting further!

*This feature can be retro-fitted as a plug in at some future point in time :P
+Making Google Plus Work  #googleplus  

Connecting Hangouts on Air to YouTube Channels - a Visual Guide

This Step by Step visual guide shows all the required steps as Annotated Screen Shots. The process needed to properly connect YouTube channels, Google Plus Pages and Hangouts On Air such that they all work well together can be a bit confusing.

This visual guide will take you through the process step by step. Follow along and you can have your Branded +Page present a Branded HoA Broadcast and the resulting recorded video will end up safely in the Branded YouTube Channel... a dream come true for Business-Minded folks that care about (you guessed it)... Branding!

Add us here at +Making Google Plus Work to your circles for tips and posts on How People & Businesses are Making Google Plus Work.

There are a couple related blog posts that discuss the process as well, but this one is made for those who prefer to learn visually.

For those that want to see the written blog posts (they do include quite a few screen shots as well), we have 2 of them ready:

1) When you are able to start from scratch with a new +Page and a new YouTube Channel: http://www.videoleadsonline.com/google-plus-business-page-hangouts-on-air-and-youtube-integration (this is the post that goes into the most detail).

2) When you have an existing YouTube channel that you want to keep and send your HoA videos to that particular channel from a +Page: http://www.videoleadsonline.com/connecting-google-plus-hangouts-on-air-to-an-existing-youtube-channel

Enjoy the show... let us know in the comments how it helps you understand the process needed to make all these parts 'play nice together' - and how many Branded sets you think you'll be making.

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#hoa #hangouts #youtubetips #googleplustips #videomarketing
Tag: Connecting Hangouts on Air to YouTube Channels
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Google+ is...

There was a long debate today [http://goo.gl/knnFH] about Google+ usability as a publishing platoform. And +Angie Nikoleychuk "fail to see one single benefit of blogging on G+ instead of posting the content on a website and simply sharing it here.".?

We really do not wish for Angie or other amazing bloggers to see one single benefit. We wish her to see all the benefits. :) But to see them, it is important that we step out of Google+ box.

A social network?

For most of non-regular users, this box seems to be a closed down network where you share content. The difference between this and Twitter actually could be just the number of characters and a few buttons.

This is true. Google+ is a social network simmilar to Twitter with a lot of other features. As it is supposed to be in year 2012.

A content management system? (CMS) [http://goo.gl/BLcCO]

Next thing people do spot are quite some additional possibilities to the Facebook posts. You can actually make text bold, italic and strikethrough. That's still not a lot and we expect some sort of html editor from Google, but it's still much more than FB. And actually, more than enough for most posts.

But most of all, the content can be gathered through API. You can reuse it anywhere in any format. We did our english blog [http://goo.gl/ODah3], Ghost town news [http://goo.gl/nWyws] and even an employment portal with it (sorry, it's just slovenian, no link for now).

That is why we strongly belive this is a great content management system. Because you can reuse the content.

A Customer Relationship Management System? (CRM)

Some notice, others don't. Circles is partially a customer relationship system. It might not be connected to your invoices yet, but with some development in future (connecting to Google Apps and that marketplace) you might actually connect your customers with their previous orders. Oh, not to mention some possible Mailchimp integrations? It is already in your Gmail addressbook.

A project management system? [http://goo.gl/qw3CK]

This is one of the less obvious features, but using circles, you might actually have a great way of discussing things with your team. Open tasks, documents, designs and the rest of the stuff? Are your team members in the other side of the planet? When they wake up, you'll get comments, not emails. Makes business life handy. And new team members adding a simple thing. Not to mention Hangouts that strike out.

Educational system? [http://goo.gl/di6FA]

Before there was Moodle. Now it's Google+ with hangouts. Changing the scenery of teaching, seminars, educational workflow. Just check it out.

Still, is there any visible benefit over regular blog (like Wordpress)?

Well, not if you just wish to blog as you did last year. And certainly not, if you are trying to write an academic research with 200 pages.

But if you are looking for engagement, future CRM and project management system and if wish to educate your public - then the answer is simply yes. Because Google+ is not that little box you are trying to put on the shelf somewhere. It is a system that allows reusing of the data in your website (for non Google users to see it). You can do there whatever you wish with it. But within Google eco system, it allows much much more. And there are just no hidden server and development costs. :)

#english #googleplus #google #publishing #cms #change

Yes, Google+ is Google's answer to Facebook, but not in the directly competitive sense many journalists assume. Google+ is core to Google's mission "to organize the world's information", and that's a better frame for thinking about this service.

Here are 35 slides to help kickstart a different perspective on what Google+ really is - a "shared interest graph."

I tried to make this tour as easy as possible with some nice images along the way. Credits for all those nice images are on the last slide.

P.S. - I've had multiple requests to post these slides via Slideshare, so here they are via my blog:
http://www.alchemyofchange.net/what-is-google-plus-really/

#interestgraph #socialnetworks #facebook #twitter #influence #informationnetworker #socialgraph #influencegraph