5 Awesome Google+ Tricks You Might Not Know About
Google is slowly but surely improving Google+ and trying to bring the social network to the masses. Yet some of Google+’s best features are less than obvious for both avid Google Plussers and those who are still wondering what the point of it is. Here are some of the more interesting or at least useful tips for getting the most out of Google+.
1. Control who sees your posts
While this isn’t an advanced feature, it’s arguably one of the best things about Google+: You can easily have a private conversation with one or more people, share posts publicly or to certain groups, and even share them with people who aren’t on Google+ (no need for them to sign up just to see your update, unlike Facebook). It’s also a feature that seems to be the most confusing to newbies. The short of it is:
- To share a post privately, delete everything in the To: box and add the name of one or more people. You can also enter an email address.
- To share a post with your circles (groups of your connections on Google+) or everyone, enter the name(s) of the circles or Public.
- To mention a person in your post, regardless of your sharing settings—and also send them a notification to get the person’s attention—write their name with a + or @ sign in front of it in the “Share what’s new” box.
2. Format your posts
Another nice thing about Google+ is you can write as little or as much as you like in your post. For long rants, especially, Google+’s unique formatting capabilities make your post more readable:
- Bold a word or phrase with astericks: *bold*
- Italicize with underscores: _italics_
Strikethroughsomething with hypens: -correction-
This cheatsheet could help you remember these and a few other handy tips.
3. Use keyboard shortcuts
As with other Google products, Google+ is friendly to keyboard ninjas. Type a question mark (?) to see a list of all available keyboard shortcuts, which Google updated not too long ago.
4. See who’s shared your posts
Data/analytics nerds might loves this: Google+ Ripples shows you how many public shares any particular post has gotten, how it’s been reshared over time, and other statistics about your posts. To see the visualization and details, click on the drop-down box on the top right of any post and select “View Ripples.”
5. Create a poll
Via Web Designer Depot, this is a pretty smart—and easy—way to do a poll in Google+: Ask people to vote with a +1. You write the options in the comments, then choose “Disable comments” from the post dropdown menu so your post is solely a poll. There’s no way to disable voting for multiple options here, but it’s still a nice way to get feedback and encourage interactivity.
Click here to Get GooglePlus Reshare
Click here to Get GooglePlus Followers
Click here to Get GooglePlus Ones Website
