10 Things to Do After Joining Google+

You've made the switch; welcome to the wonderful word of Google Plus, the most vibrant, exciting and rapidly growing social community around.

Now that you're in this brave new world, you're probably wondering what exactly to do next? We've all been there: the anticipation of discovery, curiosity about the unknown and perhaps a little confusion!

In this simple guide, you'll find ten easy things that you can do to help you better understand and utilize Google Plus.

Look Around, Set Up Your Profile & Follow Others

1. Familiarize yourself with the interface

Google Plus features a relatively simple interface, which has several main areas.Although it might be a bit overwhelming to begin with, using Google Plus will quickly become second nature. It's definitely worth taking some time to get used to the interface and I've provided a quick overview below.

Overview of the Google Plus Interface

For more detail on what the various parts of the interface do, here's a great guide to getting around Google Plus, providing an overview of many of the key features. You can find further information on the interface and key concepts here.

2. Setup your profile and upload a profile picture

Google Plus has a comprehensive profile page where you can share as much or as little information as you want. Before you start connecting and creating your circles, it's useful to setup your profile so that others can get an idea of your interests.

One of the most important parts of creating a great profile is picking the right image to represent yourself. This image will appear on your Google Plus posts and comments, and also in search results where you have 'claimed authorship' (more on that in point 8 below).

Ultimately, it's up to you what you would like to share and there's a handy guide to setting up your Google+ profile here.

3. Setup your circles

Circles are at the center of how Google Plus works. They are how you, your followers and the people following you interact with each other. You can read and share content with exactly who you want to through the circles system. Some things to remember:

• There is no limit to how many (or how few) circles you have, you might have 3, 30 or 300
• You can call circles whatever you want; no one else can see what you have called a circle(!)
• You can name, rename, delete and move people between circles as you want to; people can also belong to more than once circle at a time
• You can setup circles based on your interests, how you want to interact with others or any other criteria you wish (for example, you might set them up as: 'I am a fan of', 'People that post great photos', 'Friends and Family', 'People I have worked with' etc.)
• It's up to you what you share with which circle
• You can only follow a total of 5,000 people

For more information on circles, check out this article.

Discovering What to Do, Joining Communities & Sharing 

 

4. Learn about notifications

The Notifications Box

Notifications are the little red numbers that appear in the box next to your name and picture in the top right of Google Plus pages. Although notifications come from Google Plus, you can actually see them across multiple Google properties (YouTube, Gmail, Reader etc.) when you're signed into your account.

So, why might you receive a notification? Well, there are many reasons:

• If you are added to someone else's circle (whether you previously added them or they are adding you for the first time)
• A person interacting on a post that you've made (e.g. by sharing it, plussing it or making a comment)
• Follow up comments if you've already commented on a post
• People might share posts with you directly, in which case you will be notified
• Several other reasons

Notifications are a useful way to stay up to date with what's happening across Google+. If you don't want to receive notifications for a particular post, you can choose to 'Mute' it when you next get a notification from it.

5. Discover new and exciting things

Google Plus isn't just about interacting with people you already know (although it is ideal for that.) Part of the joy of Google Plus is discovering new and interesting things.

There are several ways to do this:

1. Search using the search box; once you've searched for a particular topic, you can filter the results in a variety of ways
2. Check out the 'Explore' tab in Google Plus; you can see what's hot and trending across Google Plus and also click on the #hashtags to see what else is out there
3. Take a look at communities...

6. Explore communities

Communities were introduced to Google Plus in December of 2012 and are interactive, constantly updating forums where people can share, post content and talk about the topics that are most important to them.

There are communities on almost everything, from classic cars to canoeing and art to zoology. You can make some great connections through communities, ask questions and get involved in the conversation. One community you'll definitely want to check out is Google+ Updates, the community run by +Google Plus Daily. You can find out more about communities in general here and there's also this guide to getting the most out of Google Plus communities.

Sharing & the Wonders of Authorship

 

7. Share some content

Sharing content is quick, easy and painless on Google Plus, and you can decide exactly who gets to see what you share. The share box allows you to share text, links, pictures, videos and meeting invites.

Like any other social community, sharing on Google Plus is most successful when you share content that's up to date, interesting and relevant to the people you're sharing it with.

The different types of sharing in Google Plus

8. Setup authorship

Example of Google Authorship in action

Google Authorship is rapidly becoming a very important part of being online. In Google's quest to always provide more relevant results to searchers, the emphasis is shifting from 'what the content is' to 'who wrote this content'.

This means that if Google considers you to be an 'authority' or 'expert' in a particular searcher's topic, it will be more likely to display your results to that person, with your picture next to it.

Setting up authorship is a fairly simple process and you'll need to make a few HTML changes to wherever you're creating content and link to the relevant places from your profile.

This guide takes you through the whole Google Authorship process, step by step.

Remembering What It's All About

9. Subscribe to Google Plus Daily

The previous steps have just started to scratch the surface of the power and flexibility of Google Plus. It's already the second biggest social network out there (after Facebook) and it's only going to become more popular.

The engineers at Google are making daily improvements, and it can be hard to keep up with all of the enhancements. You don't need to worry though, because we're here to do it for you!

If you want to stay up to date with all of the latest news, get some excellent hints, tips and advice and read opinions from guest bloggers, subscribe to Google Plus Daily. (blog feed, Chrome app). We're glad to have you.

10. Have fun

Most importantly, go out there, explore and have fun. Google Plus is a great place to connect, discuss and share the things that are most important to you and we very much hope you enjoy your stay, and tell others to Make The Switch!

Good luck!

Do you have other tips for amateur users on what to do when they first join Google+? Let us know in the comments below!