How Google+ is Changing the Way I Use the Social Networks

by Deb Ng on July 12, 2011

A couple of weeks into Google+ and I’m still pretty sure it won’ t put Facebook out of business any time soon, but I can definitely see Twitter taking a hit. While it may not be a game changer in the social networking space, at least not for now, I can tell you it’s a game changer for me.

I’ve been wanting to streamline my Facebook page for some time now. I post a lot of updates and images of my family and I’m not really comfortable with all the people who don’t know them viewing my personal stuff. Plus, I’ve been sharing blog posts and social media stuff, and I’m not sure my family and friends are into all that.  So I’ve been thinking about a way to make Facebook more private.  I thought that by creating Facebook pages for Kommein and Online Community Management for Dummies, I could sort of move professional folks that way, but there aren’t many takers.

Enter Google+.

All my fellow social media enthusiasts are sharing via Google+ and though it’s early in the game, I’m loving it. I find the circles easier to use and more intuitive than Facebook’s lists and I can tailor the conversation to appeal to different groups of people.  I can make public updates or muse to a more intimate crowed and I don’t have to  I can even gather my friends around for a spontaneous video chat.

And, so the streamlining of my Facebook account begins.

Thanks to Google+ I can now move my professional relationships away from my Facebook page. I can post pictures of my son and talk about my family without involving people who have no business being involved. And I can share business stuff on a variety of channels without family and friends wanting to unfriend me. A total win-win.

But, Deb, what about Twitter?

So. Twitter.

I love Twitter.

I still use it the same way,  and I still visit each day to interact. But I admit, Google+ has me distracted.  Still, you can’t have a Twitter chat on Facebook or Google+ and the variety of my friends are on Twitter.  So while I do see it taking a hit from Google+, I’m also sticking around.

Has Google+ changed the way you’re interacting?  What do you love or hate about it?

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  • http://www.freelancewriter.co/ Harleena Singh

    Thanks for sharing a great post Deb! 
    Each one of us are undergoing a change while using Google+, though somehow can’t let go on Twitter or Facebook! I guess things take time- though this is surely going to take over the other social networking sites!

  • http://tiffanymonhollon.com/blog Tiffany Monhollon

    I’ve always leaned toward using Facebook for friends and family, the more IRL people in my life, so I’m excited to have a place I can segment the professional side to as well.

    It’s hard to say 100%, at this point, since most of my connections there right now are in the social/web space since that’s where the user base has grown the most, but I actually don’t see myself using it for personal socialization as much as all the Google+ promotional materials are aimed around. I also think there’s more motivation to use Google+ for professional use since you can choose whether posts are “in the garden walls” or not. In other words, if I want things to be visible on search, those tend to be the professional topics anyway, so my “share publicly” (ie, with all my circles) content on Google+ will most certainly be all professional. I think this will also reinforce the more business/professional use of the site. The big question here is what they will do with business pages. If they can really nail that down, I think the trend could angle more personal branding/professional use of the site overall. 

  • http://kidsfunreviewed.com Linetteg

    So far I’m loving Google+, but I’m like you most of my circles so far are centered around my online business, and I don’t have any family or friends on there yet.  It’s way too early to tell for the long run, but I’ve also been weeding out a few of my Facebook contacts that I don’t know very well. 

  • http://twitter.com/chrisdowsett Chris

    I don’t know where I’m at with Google+. I like the look of it, I can see myself getting addicted but I’m already deleting some of the over-over-sharers who only take about themselves. Mind you … I did add them to my circles in the first place so totally my fault. 
    But I honestly think it’ll work really, really well WITH Twitter and not against it. 

  • Anonymous

    So far, I’ve found G+ taking time from Twitter, not Facebook, and it’s all professional for me. More of a listening post for social media wonks – and I love it for that. They feel more human to me somehow – the sharing is more personal and energetic.

  • http://www.online-business-virtual-assistant.com/ Virtual Business Assistant

    There is no doubt that the internet has forever changed the world in which we live. So Google will go on changing and  it can only be expected that it would change the way we see the internet world.

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