test.ical.ly | getting the web by the balls

Jul/11

22

Not Twitter nor Facebook – Struggling using Google+ circles both privately and professionally

13 Comments · Posted by Christian in Social Media

Many of you will know that I use to tweet about my daily articles early in the morning. Twitter has been an important tool for me to get the word out and get some readers.

As almost all people I know from the world of tweets are active on Google+ I started to advertise my blog posts there as well.

But what feels weird for me is this..

The Google+ circles could be called Twitter on steroids. The concept takes the information stream and the ability to utter anything to your followers who might be unknown to you and combines it with the ability to turn any utterance into a full blown discussion using comments.

However when you post something in Twitter you know that the people interested in your tweets will read it. When you post something in Google+ you can not be entirely sure.

This is because on Twitter I decided early on that I am only using it for “professional” reasons like promoting my blog posts and giving opinions about related topics. On Facebook on the other hand I was talking to friends and colleagues in a private context. Of course there were intersections sometimes but at the bottom Twitter was about what mattered to me professionally and Facebook about what mattered privately.

Now on Google+ my two audiences mix.

I thought long about a clever way how to organize my circles and ended up to use topic circles like technology or social media which I use to promote/discuss related stuff with the people I know share the interest. Now here lies the problem.

You can only target people you added to those circles while people you added you to their circles would not be reached. On Twitter I reached people I never heard of. You could say tweeting is a single circle communication.

To reach people that might be interested in my words and in whose circles I am but who are not in my circles I have to make public posts.

Public posts about technology or social media or other interests of mine however will seriously annoy personal friends who don’t share the particular interest.

Imagine the following scenario.

  • Tom is a friend of mine and put me in his friends circle and so did I
  • Joe is someone I met at a conference he put me in his technology circle and so did I
  • Nick is someone who knows my blog and put me in his internet circle though I have no idea about him

No if I want to share one of my blog posts I want to spare Tom as he is a chef and does not care about my utterings so I post to my technology circle – missing Nick.

Or I post publicly so Nick can read me but now Tom is slightly annoyed by some stuff he doesn’t care about.

How can I reach people I don’t know without annoying people I do know but that are not interested?

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  • http://christof.damian.net/ Christof

    I see g+ as a replacement for facebook and not for twitter and neither for linkedin. Twitter works good for what you are using it for, why change?

  • http://test.ical.ly Christian

    @Christof I’d rather use both actually as on Google+ there is a different audience in parts that isn’t present on Twitter.

  • Bernhard

    I feel the same. I think Google+ needs something like public circles where people can enter without my permission. I can then just post to that circle (e.g. “Tech”) and everyone who signed up for it will be able to read it.

  • http://test.ical.ly Christian

    @Bernhard I see two solutions: an automatic circle called “those who follow you” or the ability to exclude circles from your posts. I’d prefer the first though..

  • http://www.mifrie.de Michael

    Christian, thx for this interesting post!

    About the intersection between private and business contacts – this is exactly what I experienced on Xing AND Facebook:

    - On XING because apparently there was no other platform available.
    - On facebook because my colleagues were the nucleus of my facebook friends and the real-life friends were lagging behind.

    Meanwhile my private contacts have been closing the gap…

    Twitter I see mainly as a platform for IT nerds, web entrepreneurs, journalists and spammers. In random order! :) Let’s say I use it, but I don’t like it that much.

    My Google+ experience started as all the other platforms, with people I know mainly from business, my friends and family still being reluctant. That might change in the future, but the question is how quickly.

    An interesting difference between facebook on the one hand and Twitter and Google+ on the other is definitely the concept of “friendships” or asynchronous connections. Herein lie both an opportunity and a threat for Google+: Will the concept of asynchronous connections apply to users. Will they just ignore it by adding people to circles who added themselves? Or will they not notice (as you did with Nick in your example) or even not care?

    After a week of testing Google+ I am glad to see that Google made a promising attempt to join the social conversation. It’s gonna be interesting how that area develops and – how mass media is affected.

  • MIchael H.

    I’m with you Bernhard. I also think there have to be a possibility to create circles, like “Tech”, where interessted people can join themselves.

    Maybe we should talk with Google+ about this idea? :)

  • http://giorgiosironi.blogspot.com Giorgio Sironi

    I heard (unreliable rumors on Google+) that the next updates will probably include the “all but this circle” feature. Hey, that’s set theory :)

  • http://test.ical.ly Christian

    @Giorgio that would be nice. Actually I can not see “free to join” circles anywhere near. I mean conceptually these would be quite tricky and would only make things complicated for users. Or at least I wouldn’t want to maintain my circles that way.

  • Eckhard Supp

    @MIchael H. I would prefer people to be able to ask me to join them to a specific circle. That would also allow me to subscribe only to specific content (circles) posted by them and not force me into reading everything they write.

  • http://test.ical.ly Christian

    @Eckhard sounds good enough to me.

  • Pingback: • Are Google+ Sparks an underrated feature? | test.ical.ly

  • https://twitter.com/pomeh pomeh

    I use Twitter & Facebook exactly the same way as you, and I’ve reach the same problem with Google+ :/
    I’m curious to see how Google will respond to that situation :)

  • http://test.ical.ly Christian

    @pomeh good to know I’m not the only one! :)

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