some thoughts about Google+

There were a lot of posts about Google+ back in the spring when they took Google Friend Connect (GFC) away for non-Blogger blogs and started encouraging people to move everything Google+.  Like many people, I was skeptical about yet another social media account and reluctant to jump on board.  However, now that I've been using it for a few months, I have some genuine positive aspects to share as well as some other thoughts.

The Google+ feed is full of quality content.

I have really tried to keep up with Twitter, but I just haven't ever found the energy to sort through that huge feed every day.  The past year I have lost almost all patience with the Facebook feed.  I love being able to keep in touch with people through the site, but the newsfeed makes me want to scream.  Nope, I don't want to see all 500 of your engagement photos.  Nope, your 20th 30 second video this week of your baby crawling is not any different than the first one (or second...or third...).  And no one cares that you checked in to a restaurant that you eat lunch at 3 times a week for the 12th time this month.  Most of the time, I just head straight to a specific group or person's page and skip all of the self-indulgent updates.

Thus far, that hasn't been the case with Google+.  Most people only post 1-2 articles or blog posts every day.  Either it's their own content or it's something that thought was worth sharing with others.  It's not too overwhelming to browse through a single page or two of quality content that I may actually want to read and share.

Google+ has allowed my online worlds to cross a little.

I have a lot of Google+ friends from Etsy and from HubPages.  Having all of my content from both sites on Google+ allows the friends from one to see the content from the other.  As you can see from the above screen shots, I frequently get comments from HubPages friends about Etsy content and vice versa.  It's really great to see that happen.  This can happen on Facebook and Twitter, but it's been happening much more frequently on Google+ than anywhere else thus far.

Google+ makes it really easy to share content.

I'm glad that Google jumped right on board with Facebook and Twitter (and now Pinterest) to create an easy share button.  It's great to be able to +1 blog posts, articles, and other content throughout the day without having to jump over to the site.  Now if they just join up with Hootsuite or one of the other streaming programs, my world will be complete.

One thing to consider about Google+.

Most likely this will not be an issue for most people, but it was something that came up in a HubPages group this month.  For people who write 2-3 blog posts or long-term earning articles (like HubPages articles) a day, you have to be careful about how often you share your own content.  If you post your own content too often, Google may consider it spam and start ranking it lower in their search results.  This doesn't mean that you should quit using Google+ altogether, but you'll need to pick and choose what you post.

What have your experiences been with Google+ the past few months?  Feel free to share the pros and cons.