How To: Communities

So you've just made the switch to +Google+ and ready to dive in to the deep end? Great! Communities is a great way to discuss and share things based on your interests, and you'll meet some cool people along the way too! Follow this quick guide to get you started:

Accessing Communities

Just like the rest of the features in Google+, you can access Communities by clicking on the appropriate icon in the ribbon menu (the navigation bar to the left). If you can't find the button, it may be hidden away under "More", just roll your cursor over it and you should see it there.

The Communities Logo

Clicking on the Communities icon will take you to the Communities landing page, which is made up of two sections:

Your communities

When you start joining communities, they'll be populated here.

A list of communities joined

Discover communities

The discover communities section should be pre-populated with suggested communities based on the information filled out in your profile and the posts that you've published.

Ready to search? There is a handy search bar on the right-side of the "Discover communities" section.

Creating a Community

If you haven't been able to find a community based on an interest of yours, you can always create a community for others to join and participate in.

When creating a new community, the first thing you want to think about is if you'd like the community to be public or private:

Public

Public is a good choice if you would like anyone to join (or request to join) and share in your community.

Private

When creating a private community, only invited members can join the community and see what is posted. You can choose to hide a private community from searches, this means that people who aren't invited won't be able to see any information, so if you're running a small club or a community for your work force, this would be the more appropriate option.

Please note that you cannot change from private to public or vice versa once the community has been created, so choose wisely.

Editing Your Community

Once you've entered the name of your new community, click "save" and you'll be greeted with some tips and subtle reminders to make it "unique".

When setting up your new community, you should:

• Enter a tagline, why would someone want to join your community?
• Pick a suitable and relevant photo to front your community
• Complete your about section, write a few rules to keep things in order
• Add some discussion categories for better more focused discussion

Invitations

When you think you're ready to start letting people know about your community, go ahead and click the "Invite people" button, which will be located on the top-right of your community's stream.

Please use the invitations feature with consideration for others, you should generally only invite people who you think would be interested in the community. You don't want to look like a spammer, and if you are careless with invites you may end up being muted/blocked and even reported, be warned..

Good luck!

Communities on Your Phone and Tablet

Google+ Communities are not only available on the web, you can also catch-up with the conversation on your phone and tablet.

To access Communities, tap the Google+ icon in your app drawer, and select Communities.

You'll then be able to select from your communities, look through your community invitations and see ones suggested to you, just like on the desktop.

You can select a specific category by tapping "All communities" at the top, a drop-down menu will appear for selection.

Download

If you don't have Google+ installed on your devices yet, download links for both +Android and iOS are below.

Google+ for iOS

Google+ for +Android 

GPD's Community: Google+ Updates

We (+Google Plus Daily) have a community of our own, with over 23,000 members as of posting. If you'd like to join our family, click the button below to join our community and get stuck in!

Photo Credit: freshmancomp.com