As someone who tries really hard to go with the flow, I’ve gone ahead and signed up on Google+ (Google’s foray into Facebook-style social media.) I’m Elizabeth S Craig there.
I know…we’ve all got social media fatigue. At first it just exhausted me even thinking about building up a brand on another platform. And I wondered how well I could keep up with it. And I wondered if I was getting overexposed.
The good news is that Google+ is a good application for those of us who are tired of doing this. It’s fairly intuitive. Friends are easy to find and make and group together. It’s a friendly place. There seem to be a lot of publishing professionals there. If you’ve ever been on Facebook, this will seem like a piece of cake.
It’s easy to start there, because half of us already have a Google profile, anyway. I have one from Blogger and my Gmail account. All I had to do was brush up my profile and I was set to go.
So far, I also haven’t seen the gotcha mentality that has frustrated me with Facebook. I felt Facebook was run by little kids who were determined to make me interact in ways that didn’t make me comfortable. In the past, Facebook has—to me, personally—shared my cell phone number on my info page when I’d hidden it, turned on chat when I’d disabled it, changed all my privacy settings several times when they automatically updated my account…the list goes on. I haven’t yet seen these types of shenanigans at Google+. So far, it seems like Facebook for grownups.
One thing I like about Google+ is the way that I can share updates with certain types of people. As y’all know, I share writing links to help connect writers with resources. Writers love this! My readers and librarian friends aren’t so enthused. On Google+, I have my friends divided into different groups (or circles)—I have one for writers, one for readers, one for librarians. When I have a writing link to share, I can easily choose to only share it to writers. That makes me feel like I’m not getting on everyone’s nerves.
Google will make sure that our Google+ page ranks pretty high in their search engine for searches of our name….another reason I jumped onboard.
If you’re new to Google+, feel free to go to my profile and raid my friend list. It’s mostly writers. And check out Debbie Ohi’s list of literary types on Google +. Fill out your profile and make an update of some kind, or comment on someone else’s. It’s easy to start out…and, actually, it’s new to everybody. Still a couple of bugs for Google to work out (I think their mobile app is a little clumsy), but the community there seems solid. Here are some how-to links for Google+: How to Use Google Plus , Google Plus for Writers, and Debbie Ohi’s great post on Google Plus.
Have you gotten on Google+? If you like, share your profile link and we can be friends there. :) If you’re on it, what do you think?
Hope you'll come back tomorrow when I host my mystery writing friend Dorte Jakobsen. She'll be answering the question, "Do I still want an agent?"