About The Author: Diana is a blogger by profession. She loves writing, travelling and reading books.
Google Plus is no more a new kid in the social media world. Since past one and half years, it has armed itself with so many features and tools, thus embarking as the most amazing platform in the social media arena. But when it comes to using Google +, you need to invest some time and efforts to make most out of it. If you are among the novices, you should know different ways of using Google Plus. Let’s check out the top seven ways of using this platform.
1). Dealing with Circles
Once you sign up at Google Plus, you would be prompted to circle people, which simply mean that Circles is the first place to begin at this platform. This is among the major functionality of Google +, all though it is similar to Facebook friends, yet it differs in one vital area- categorization. Circles are basically the method to categorize your Google Plus contacts into several groups. For instance, you could create circles called SEO Peeps wherein you can add people with SEO background, further, you could even separate this circle one step ahead by creating a circles called “your city or state SEO’s”. At the same time, you could have separate circles for your family or friends. This feature in Google Plus makes the social networking simple, which allows the content sharing effective by doing it only to the relevant people. The best part of the categorization found at Google Plus is that it is very simple to do, wherein you could add any number of people at different circles.
2). Working with Photos
Another important functionality of Google Plus is uploading different photos over your profile. It is very much similar to Facebook; however, it is more likely to get an edge with added features and tools in the coming future. With this feature, you also get good SEO benefit, and your posts would be seen ranking good over Google search results. Once you start uploading photos, Google Plus will ask you to add these pictures over your existing album or create a new one for these. Once you have uploaded different pictures over your Google Plus account, you could tag each and every photograph unlike the way you do in Facebook. Though most of the features resemble to Facebook, however, there are many additional functionalities like edit text, picture and add comments, which are unique at this place that could be found at the right side of the photos like a speech bubble.
3). Hangouts
It is also one of the important features, which make Google Plus a better choice as compared to the other social networking sites. With Hangouts, you can simply hang out with your friends and people whom you have come across over this platform or even some other people new in your Hangouts. It is pretty similar to the feature of video chat module, which allows you have a video calling with your hangout friends. Also, there are other features, like you can play games over it, draw anything or also network with other using hangout applications.
4). Sparks
It is primarily a personalized content feed, which is found over your stream that helps you in getting relevant content to your niche area in various forms (video, and text). Though this feature adds up a number of scrap, which you may not want to read, however, for the people in the mainstream, this feature could be called as the most useful one. You could use Google Desktop and RSS to carry out similar stuff; however, using Sparks can give you some additional features with it.
5). Huddle
It is primarily a group chat, which helps you to chat with different people at one time using your smartphone. Since it happens to be a texting application, hence you could only access Huddle by downloading the relevant Google + Android app over your Android based smartphone. The best feature of Huddle is the Instant Upload Photos, which help you in uploading different photos over the Google + account with a new magic.
6). Stream
If you want to share some ideas with your friends or colleagues, Stream is the best feature of Google Plus to do that. All you need to do is to add the notes to your videos, photos or the web pages links followed by sharing with your circle of people. You can share things only to the people who are in your Circle. Stream is another great way to trigger informal discussion over any issue.
7). Gmail Integration
If you use Gmail, you could certainly link it with Google Plus without any hassle. In this way, you could read all your emails coming at Gmail over Google Plus. Also, you could see the action of the mail sender who uses Gmail over the right side of your Google Plus web page. This simply helps you in adding up people like your friends or customers in your Circles, thus updating your contact lists as well.
Final word
Despite new in the social media world, Google Plus is gearing up its popularity among users all across the world. So, when it comes to using it, you could try the above seven ways and enjoy the world of social networking over this social networking site.
