William Fernandez :: Internet Entrepreneur

Using Google+ Circles

Online social platforms attempt to force us to map our ever-changing social graph. Google+ uses “circles”, which makes dragging and dropping our connections into animated buckets – dare I say – fun.

Here are some reasons why and how you should use Google+ Circles:

PRIVACY is a key use of putting people in custom circles with appropriate settings to avoid viewing by outsiders. If you are like me, you’re only comfortable with certain people seeing what you’re talking about and sharing. (Now if I can only get my connections to understand that sonograms of the unborn embryos inside them is a private, family topic)

 Similar to those thoughts on privacy, RELEVANCY is important if you want to maintain your online connections.  I’m sure that my mother doesn’t care to know that email open rates are dropping year over year, but my online marketing geek friends do. Consider what kind of content you put out and ensure that posts are visible to those circles.

Taking relevancy a step further, some communications require LOCAL CONTEXT and shouldn’t be pushed to the masses.  Consider a “Locals” circle for posts like “Has anyone tried the new restaurant on Main Street?”

An important thing to note is that these tips aren’t only for Google+ users. While it isn’t highly visible, Facebook also has a “lists” feature that does basically the same thing as circles. Unfortunately it is buried in your privacy settings and not many people use this valuable feature.

I’m just getting familiar with Google+ myself, so expect more observations and tips as I dig in.

How should my business use social media?

I recently responded to a broad question “how should businesses use social media” in a forum and thought it was worthwhile to repost my brief response here.

As a digital marketing consultant for many business types, I’ve seen a lot of attempts at incorporating social media into the marketing mix.

A common pitfall of “using social media” is that it is “free” and therefore non-specific tactics like “being on facebook” or “having a twitter account” become widespread.

I equate this to having a booth at a conference, but no one staffing it.

In order to effectively “use” social media, businesses need to start with two things, in my experience:

• resources to engage with others (most of this time this isn’t your VP of Marketing, who doesn’t have the time to get fully engaged with consumers)
• a plan for how to engage with the right people and be relevant to them, while focusing on an underlying business goal.

While this isn’t the only “use of social media”, many companies like RackSpace, a top web host provider, use platforms like Twitter to field customer questions that are both directly asked of them, as well as those taking place without them by using search tools. This level of pro-active customer service (Fanatical Support, as they call it) makes people feel like the company really cares (loyalty) and also nips negativity in the bud (reputation management).