I was teaching my class this week about Google+, and I started to realize something. I like G+. It’s grown on me.
This wasn’t always the case. Back when they launched G+ in June of 2011, I must admit to being pretty skeptical, despite the hoopla (10 Million accounts in 16 days!!!) and the fact that it was first launched as being an exclusive network you had to be invited to get into.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve gone through periods where I pretty much ignored it all together. Between 6 months and year ago, I decided I was going to make an effort, and really try to make G+ work for me.
I think everyone should have an account on G+ if for no other reason that the fact that Google owns the search engine market. You want to be found on a google search? You should probably be on G+. In addition, I love (and use every day) pretty much all of Google’s products: from gmail to docs to photos to YouTube.
I find the demographic is much more “nerds and early adopters” than it is anywhere else. And honestly, there’s a lot less “noise” than on Facebook. People actually post interesting and useful information here. After two years, I feel like G+ is finally coming into its own.
So, my new strategy for G+?
- Join and interact with some interesting communities.
- Post every single blog post I write to G+, tagging people if appropriate.
- Scan my feed once a day to see if I find any interesting info I want to +1 or share with my followers though G+ or any of my other social networks.
The time investment is about 5-10 minutes a day. I figure I can handle that.
One of my main pet peeves about G+ is that they never had vanity URLS. So, in my G+ URL looks like: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116856795438972954662. Eeeewww. Ugly, right?
Not any more. My new G+ URL is plus.google.com/+RebeccaColeman. Sweet.
This has just become available for everyone. If you already have a Google+ account, you should have already received an email from the powers that be inviting you to claim your user name.
If you haven’t, here’s a couple of tutorials:
How to Set Up Your Custom Google+ URL
Now, quick! Grab your name before someone else does!!
Sadly no option for me to get my vanity url just yet… I don’t know why… But I tried using your tutorial and nothing to click or add…
Try the two links at the bottom of the post. They have directions that might help…
Also! Check your promotions tab, or do a search in your email for “google+.” I didn’t think I had one, until I did that. It didn’t come to my main inbox.
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you for the video tutorial on how to add my vanity url in Google+. I have a question: Once you changed to the vanity url, did you have to back-track to all your other social media profiles to update the link? Of course, there’s the direct link from your blog, however, I have my G+ link on other community sites too. Just wondering if Google, does the carry-through, or if I have to manually change them.
Thanks in advance!
Karen
I’m pretty sure google does all that for you.