When I decided to write about Google+ for my next Social Media Awareness post, I thought I’d be in and out fairly quickly. I’ve been on Google+ since it began in 2011, and I thought I knew what it was. It’s got the circle thing and the connection to everything Google and well…that was about it, right? Evidently, I’ve been way under-utilizing Google+.
And so I have to strike through the part in this post where I say it’s like the kid sister to Facebook. That would be a poor estimation of what’s going on over there. If you want a family analogy to describe it, you might want to think of Google+ as the grown up, snappy, cool uncle, and Facebook as the pimple-faced, geeky nephew. (Sorry Facebook) Twitter can be the fast-talking cousin who doesn’t have time for either one of them.
I’m pretty sure I’ve totally missed the point of Google+. I thought it was just a social media platform where you could sort out and compartmentalize your friends, family, acquaintances, etc. And I wasn’t so crazy about that idea. I mean I like to know that I’m not grouped in someone’s “Loser Friend” circle, and I don’t really think of people in terms of circles. They’re all friends to me.
But those circles do have their upsides. I mean if you wanted to just post something to your college buddies or to your family, then Google+ makes it easy. That’s not so bad, especially if your college friends don’t need to worry about your great aunt Bernice’s gall bladder surgery.
There’s a lot more to Google+ than the circles, though.
There’s this whole, huge media thing. Photos, video, sound. Their photo options are more advanced than Facebook, unless you can create your own meme on FB, but I don’t think you can without knowing some special code. And Google+ has taken video chatting to an entirely new level.
I can’t really give you a lot of details, though. Details would take many hours of research, and I’ve got a novel to write, so if you want to know more about Google+, check out this Google+ aficionado. I watched a few of his videos and yowzer.
Don’t worry though, I’m not jumping the Facebook ship. Facebook is easy, and I know it, but I think I’ll definitely be trying to make better use of my Google+ account.
Here are your pros and cons (from my limited knowledge)
I appreciate your being my “cliff notes” to things like Google+, Instagram, hashtags…. That way I don’t have to ask my girls and get “the look”:)