Selecting the Right Target
It's sad but true that few people bother with the Google+ hashtags, either relying on an automatic selection of leaving their posts with none. However, it also seems few people use their Circles effectively, either, and one culprit is the ability to post to Public, meaning anyone who has them in their Circles. This annoys me greatly as I mostly have people in my Circles for a given reason (e.g. genealogy), and so receiving posts about cooking, religious messages, etc., is inappropriate. Those posters could have shared with a specific Circle, or the customisable 'Your Circles' target, but no thought was really given to their audience.
Is this a problem with the Google+ concept, or a lack of education?
#circlesharing
Hi Tony,
ReplyDeleteI personally believe it to be a real lack of education. I rarely post to the 'Public", or, for that matter, even to circles. Most of my postings are done within specific communities to avoid the problems you mention.
Even now, though, I'm not certain of who-gets-what-when, and what the difference is, say, between Public and 'Your-Circles'. Google has to take some of the blame.
ReplyDeleteTony Proctor I agree. In this regard Google reminds me of Ancestry teaches people to use their search engine...both leave a great deal to be desired!
ReplyDeleteI believe it's a lack of education also! I've spent a lot of money and time learning how to maximise #google+
ReplyDeleteI try not to use public...however it appears to be a default!
Agree, I would say lack of education. I am fairly new to Google plus still and I am learning new techniques all the time but you do have to search a fair bit sometimes to point you in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteI think communities is what you need for common interest groups.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I questioned whether it was a problem with the Google+ concept. The 'Circles' concept sounds good on paper (better than FB anyway) but there are problems in practice. If you consider the visibility of posts from a publisher/subscriber point of view (i.e. someone sharing and other people listening) then there may be no correspondence between the publisher's circles and the subscribers' circles. If they share their post with all their Circles then it just breaks the concept.
ReplyDeleteTony Proctor You have to be quite advanced with circles to do that I would think. The average person just has a few friends and the general public. I guess you're right though.
ReplyDeleteSocial networking may not last because the concept is not followed much.
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe 'Public' makes a post visible to everyone. This sounds like a reasonable default, but in practice it means that everyone who has you in their Circles will see your post in their stream, whether the content is relevant or not to the Circle that they have you in. I'm not even sure whether you can restrict a post to a limited set of relevant people without making it 'Private' or 'Limited'. What most people would like is to ensure only relevant people see it in their stream, but still allowing the post to be found by anyone in a Google search. Is that even possible?
ReplyDelete+Tony Proctor Informative discussion. Managing circles usefully takes some know-how and effort. When G+ first launched there was no guidance on this (at least not that I found). I made some mistakes with this initially and now am updating and correcting as I have time. I don't mind doing it (just have to find the necessary time). But my bet is many people can't or don't want to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nancy Seibel . Are you saying that the functionality I posed, above, can be achieved?
ReplyDeleteTony Proctor I am not sure enough of myself to say that. I can say I've seen posts about managing circles more effectively and selecting which circles you wish post to.
ReplyDelete