I think Google+ rocks for all kinds of communication and social interactions. There is not one way to use Google+. But here is my post to people I'd love to get to know on Google+, if they'd just resist being completely silent, posting press releases, or "tweets" instead of being themselves. In all honesty I just want everyone to feel at home; pounce trolls on the head when they pop-up, and enjoy the rest of us, as we do you.
tl;dr Just be yourself, be polite and be active with the G+ community.
So What Is This Place?
This is not the social network where you shout clever philosophical sayings or witty observations into the ether. That is twitter. This is not the place where you "Love Your Peeps in Philly!!!". That is, well I'm not sure what that is, but it isn't here either.
This is also not the place where you generically plug your product or service in a carefully coordinated marketing campaign already in progress in print, media and the rest of the interwebs. That is just annoying.
You do not friend strangers here or have people subscribe to your amazing updates. That is facebook.
Google+ is a public and private collaborative and communication platform with amazing content and enabling tools. What you can do here is be yourself and let the platform carry your virtual voice.
Be Yourself
So don't give the keys of your account to one of your lackey's or worse a full time social media team member, you will catch flack for it here. Let me give you an example, I've got a celeb circle, as many probably do. Most of us are curious people and fascinated with celebrity and fame. But I've seen Celeb accounts where people post content in the 3rd person, clearly not by the celeb and the reaction is a little violent. Honest mistakes are one thing, but be careful; here be dragons. No matter who you are if you post in the third person, what do you think the rest of us are going to think?
If you are a later adopter you might have missed a rather large firestorm early on with pseudonyms. As it turned out Google was advancing a foundational principle for Google+ where it primarily was going to be an identify service that also enabled social interaction, games, and in the future commerce. What this meant was that for Google the integrity of the individual was paramount. That users were real people, with real identifies, doing real things was where they wanted to start.
People jumped onto Google+ quickly and started doing business pages and accounts with pseudonyms because that is what they did inother social networks. Google initially rejected that, knowing, as it turns out, that both business identities and pseudonyms have to be carefully implemented in the technology and with consistent platform policies so as to protect privacy, business identify, and to not disenfranchise other users. Today both business identities and pseudonyms are not allowed in Google+, (except for a few small limited test groups) but there are public announcements those capabilities are on the way.
All of that being said the culture of a "real identify" was an early battle here on Google+. And when you have a lackey post content for you or you post someone else's content as your own, you cheapen that battle and the culture that glew out of it. Google was built to be and has become a place where real people interact with other real people. So be yourself. If you don't you might catch some flak, or worse get ignored.
So What is the Google+ Culture?
Of course it is many things to many people. But for me it is a genuine place of collaboration and interaction. Which basically means you should just be yourself and you should interact with others on the platform. I've seen politicians join Google+ and not actually interact in any way after they post a little PR clip and they are completely missing the boat. I know there are good reasons for people to want to be careful with what you post online, especially for public figures, if either addressing fans or constituents. But this platform is primarily about interacting with real people. It easily facilitates reaching out from your sphere of influence into new spheres. But we in those spheres far away from you are only really interested in the real you. A real you that is revealed to us through your posts, hangouts and comments.
We don't want to know what the talking points are or what your publicist wrote. Likewise we don't want to know what your spouse thinks or your siblings think; at least through your posts. We want to know what you think. When +Wil Wheaton talks about his life and hobbies he is connecting with us. When he mentions an upcoming show it comes from a genuine place because he has a relationship with the wider community in which he interacts and we in the community are consequently interested in what he's working on.
But the principle that worked for him works for everyone. Spend time publishing content to your circles in private, comment and +1 the content of others, and when you do publish things publicly it will be as a valued community member; which people will respect. You can't buy your way into Google+. You have to earn it by being real with those that are here. Not everyone will agree with you, but they will recognize you for being willing to be out there with your voice. Ultimately most people will find you through your public posts, but you will be shared, both your content and in circles, by the relationships you make.
But be warned, as this participative culture has developed I've been effected as much as anyone else and have started uncircling people if they only post brief snippets and never actually interact with others in the comments or on other people's posts. For me just posting "tweets" here doesn't fly and I don't have time for that.
Why Not Risk It?
Joining into the Google+ culture will be a little risky. If you post things here you might misspeak, post when angry, or otherwise be a human being. The danger there is someone could grab that post and use it against you. But here on Google+ you can edit your posts or delete them altogether if you change your mind. You can be yourself, correct yourself later if you want, and you don't have to be so concerned about making things absolutely perfect before you even start to speak.
I'll tell you now, you will get some trolls. And some people who you probably should "watch out for", but hey, this is the Internet, that comes with the territory. As it is, during the limited field trials and now with open beta the quality of user interactions here on Google+ is as high or higher than anything I've seen. That means some of your noise should be lower here than other places; at least when it comes to the nonsense.
But what you will find is as you be yourself, others with similar interests will become genuinely interested in what you say. You will have people interact with you and share their views and parts of their life with you. You will see and discover things you won't have been exposed to in any other venue as you open yourself up to those in the world around you.
I hope you do risk it and post content you create and that is important to you. I hope you post comments on other's posts, and make new friends and colleagues along the way. I hope you too begin to have an amazing experience here on Google+ as I and many others have alongside you.
Image created by Elvire. R http://www.flickr.com/photos/elvire-r/2451784799/ released CC Generic 2.0.
No comments:
Post a Comment