Shannon Turlington

Note: This post is in the Archive, which means the information may be out-of-date or links may be dead. Just so you know.

Every time I play with Google+, I seem to discover another neat new feature. Here are some quick tips for improving your Google+ experience.

Notice the Share button in the upper right corner of some of your (not all) Google apps, like Reader and Gmail. This enables you to post a quick share from other Google windows. Pretty nice! It would be even nicer if it were integrated with Reader and Documents, i.e., if I could share what I was reading or writing right now.

There is also a Notifications button up there that turns red when you receive a new notification (someone comments on your post, tags you or adds you to a circle). Since this is so easy to track, you can turn off sending notifications to your email if you find that annoying (I did). Click the little wheel icon in the upper right corner and choose Google+ Settings to change your notifications-to-email settings.

When you see someone’s name in your stream, you can hover your mouse over the name to quickly see which of your circles they are in or to add them to a circle, and to see who else you have in common in your circles.

If you want to share with just one person, add their name in the post with @ or + in front. Then remove all circles. To make it completely private, disable resharing by clicking the arrow in the upper right.

Check the Incoming area. This shows you what people are saying if they have added you to their circles, but you haven’t added them. These posts don’t go into your main stream. This is a useful way of keeping up with your followers even if you don’t want to put them in your circles.

(I do wish we could exclude certain circles from posting to our main stream. Some circles definitely produce more noise than others. Seems like an easy enough feature to add.)

And remember:

•  +1 is the same thing as like.
• Someone adding you to a circle does not mean you’ve added them.
• When you post something, you control which circles see it.

I’m still having fun with Google+. I hope to see even more folks there.

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