Your Weekly Google Plus Tips for June 21st

Your Google Plus Tips

1. Google Circles Basics

2. Google Circle Management with Circloscope

3. Google+ Hangouts Filmstrip Update & presentation tips

Manage Contacts

 ( From How to Use Google Plus to Generate Massive Exposure by Rebekah Radice. )

I highly recommend you read the full article as Rebekah covers the basics for getting noticed on Google+.

I’ve featured her “Circle Management” section here because I often that people start out ok, but as their circle numbers grow, they feel they’re herding cats instead of managing circles.

It's a good idea to prioritize your first three circles as they always appear at the top of your stream.

You can arrange your circles at anytime by going to the "people" icon on the side menu and sliding the circles where you want them to appear.

(from Rebekah's post)

Use Google+ Circles to manage the conversations happening within Google+.

Not familiar with Circles? The explanation is simple and they’re even easier to use.

Circles, similar to Facebook and Twitter lists, let you categorize people based on related topic, industry, hobby or skill.

Once categorized, you can use Circles to keep up with posts from your favorite people. It makes commenting and sharing a breeze!

HOW TO USE CIRCLES:

• Share posts with a select group of people to target your specific message

• Post to “public” to allow anyone to view and comment on your content

• Create notification circles to update certain followers e.g. when your latest blog post goes live

• Add people to specific Circles or lists as you follow them to keep things tidy

THE NEW CIRCLOSCOPE IS LIVE

Automatically discover the engagers you need to follow to make your Google+ experience explode in a fraction of the time of doing it manually.

Circloscope is Circles on Steroids   
If you're serious about optimizing your time on Google+ by engaging with the people you want to, then Circloscope is definitely worth the time investment.

The team headed by Ehsan Ahmadi Gharacheh has done an incredible job upgrading the app. 
I used it sporadically last year but found the interface confusing. This new version is easy on the eyes and brain.

If you host HOA events, you can even create a circle of people who responded yes. How cool is that?  
Here are some of the new features:

• Find people that engage with your latest posts

• Find people that engage with other people's posts

• Find people that are in other people's circles or that have them circled

• Find people that engage with events (hangouts on air)

• Filter people that do not have a profile photo

• View the people you have blocked or muted

• Create black lists to prevent re-circling people you have uncircled

• Create white lists to prevent accidental removing from your circles

• Create and save queries/filters to re-use later

• and much more!

Links to Bookmark:  (website) (help desk) (video tutorials)

Check out this short video overview:

Hangouts Filmstrip Update & Tips

Google+ likes to keep Ronnie Bincer busy sending out news of Hangout updates. 

Remember "blue boxing"?
This is when you clicked on someone on a Hangout filmstrip to pin them to the main viewing area. A blue frame appeared around the person's thumbnail.

Two things have changed:

1. "White" has become the new blue. The frame around your filmstrip thumbnail is now white. So we no longer can refer to it as “blue boxing”. I'm choosing to use the term “pinning” as opposed to “white boxing”. (in case they change the colour again.)

2. When you pin yourself on the filmstrip, your thumbnail will expand full width to show you what you look like when you're featured in the main viewing area.  

Note that these are interior features meaning no one watching the HOA from the outside will notice any difference.

As far as updates go, this isn't revolutionary.
It's a small change that gives you a preview of what you'll look like on the main screen.

It's good for checking your lower third graphic and to see if you're centred within the frame properly.

For example, towards the end of our GPlusLunchBunch show, I switch my "overlay" from my show's lower third to my Newsletter promo.

I do this while someone else is "pinned" so it's difficult to see If I switched to the correct one. 
Now with this full width thumbnail, I'll be able to see my full screen and verify that I have the right graphic.   

Here's what you're filmstrip will now look like:

• wider self-view
• white pin box instead of blue
• no gaps between video feeds (thumbnails)
• no rounded corners on the feeds (thumbnails)

As far as for what happens above the filmstrip, Ronnie posted this handy checklist for helping you look your best:

Technically -  You'll need:

• A Good Camera (webcam that can support HD quality 720p)

• Good Sound (yes this will impact how you 'appear') so isolate the speakers from the microphone whenever possible

• Wired not WiFi connection to the Internet if possible

• Good lighting (more light on your face than from behind)

• Good upload speed (1.5mbps is a good starting point)

• Computer capability (4 cores in the CPU is needed for HD quality)

• CPU happiness (shut down non-essential programs and restart)

    
Personally - You'll need to know how to:

• Look at the camera (not the filmstrip)

• Smile!

• 'See the audience'

• Be engaging

• Embrace the concept that the camera is your friend

• Become comfortable on camera

• Realize that you may be featured at any time

For more information, view his HOA: Learn How to Improve Your Video Presence in Hangouts where he interviews renown Business Coach and Motivational Speaker, Kellan Fluckiger 


That's it for this week. Now go outside and enjoy this much awaited for summer!

Thank you for sharing your time with me.

Please share with your friends if you find the information helpful.


Be sure to drop by your Google+ Tips & Topics Community and say hi.

You can catch up on past LunchBunch shows by visiting my YouTube Channel or my G+ NewRayCom Page.

Google Plus Tips of the Week

Shakespeare's "content" still resonates after 450 years.

Your Google+ Tips for April 26

1. What Triggers the New Large Image Link Shares on Google Plus?

2. How to make a Notify Me Circle

3. 100 Google Drive Tips & Hacks

How to trigger full column width Post Thumbnails

h/t Eric Enge, MaAnna Stephenson

Last Month Google+ caught up with Facebook and Twitter and offered full column wide blog post images on embedded links

ts.

This is when you share your own blog post or someone else’s but inserting a link in the “link” field or inside the text body of a Google+ post.

This is an example of typical shared post with small thumbnail along with title, linked to G+ icon and name of site.

The above post is a share from my website that rendered full column wide and includes title, connected to G+ Page icon with name of website and the meta description.

I’ve noticed a lot of small thumbnails still appearing in my stream still and wondered why more sites weren’t optimizing their images to display larger on Google+ shares. From what I can determine, the originating web page that you’re sharing to Google+ should have at least one image that is a minimum 506 px wide.

It should have the og (Open Graph) tag on it. ( <meta property="og:type" content="article"> )

I’m using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast which supplies this. Under “social” then Facebook, check to have the plugin supply all the necessary og tags including image, title of post and the excerpt.

If you're using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast, under Social > Facebook, there is a checkbox to have this plugin supply all of the necessary og tags, including for the image, the title of the post, and the excerpt.

Check out this post by Kristi Hines: 6 WordPress Plugins That Ensure Your Posts Look Good When Shared on Social Media

How to Make Sure You Never Miss the Best Stuff on Google+

Dustn.tv

Managing circles and controlling the what you see and who you see in your Google+ stream is challenging. There are so many variables; your own setting, the people in your circle’s settings, Communities and Events.

It’s important, especially if you’re trying to establish relationships with people that you see and interact with as much as their content as you can.

I place my priority circles in the first four, that way they appear at the top of my home stream and I don’t forget to check them out. 
However, I still miss important posts because:

1. I have too many people in those circles and/or

2. Posts stream by as I check other circles.

The best way to not miss a post is to receive a notification each time that person publishes.

As Dustin points below, you have to be careful to not have too many people in your “subscriber” circles as you'll be inundated with notifications.

Dustin shows us how to create a "subscription circle". This is a circle into which you put people whose posts you don't want to miss. So when they publish a post, you either get a notification in your email (depending on your settings) and through Mr. Jingles", the bell notification icon on the upper right of your screen.

As you can see in the attached image, it's pretty easy:

1. Hover your pointer over the person's name. Their hovercard will pop up.

2. Hover over the circle button on their hovercard and add them to the circle 

that you want to be your Subscription circle.

3. Click on that circle's stream and make sure you have the little bell in the top right corner clicked to "On" (it should be colored red).

100 Important Google Drive Tips for Teachers and Students

h/t Jaana Nystrom

Google Drive is increasingly becoming the collaborative tool for work, school and organizations.

While not as robust in features included in proprietary software like Microsoft Office, it packs a lot of features at a very low price. The first 15GB of storage is free.

I’ve yet to discover all of the tricks and hacks to be found in Drive, but if you’re adventurous, here’s 100 of them brought to you by Educators Technology

I won’t list them all here, but here’s a list of categories with a few links to a few I want to check out: 

Keyboard Shortcuts - Productivity Hacks - Features and Tools - Collaboration - Files, Folders and Filters - Organization - Edits - Synchronization - Search - Presentations - Spreadsheets - Tasks

Check out the full list here: 100 Important Google Drive Tips

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Please share if you think it might be helpful to someone.

Check out our past #GPlusLunchBunch shows on my YouTube channel or Google+ Page.