21 Rules For successive Social Media Marketing

Like everything else, There are unwritten rules involved in social media marketing. Everyone is obliged to follow these rules, but those that are new to the game, may miss out on the basics. Here are 21 unwritten rules of social media marketing that are designe to create a solid foundation for any social media marketing campaign

1)      No shortcut- social media marketing involes investing time, energy and creativity. It’s a commitment that can’t be avoided, or overlooked.

2)      Contribute- if you can’t contribute something of value to the community, no one will listen. It’s tht simple

3)      Position yourself to be an Expert _ why would anyone take advice from someone who doesn’t know anything? If you need to learn more, then do do, but make sure that you can offer valuable advice to fans and followers

4)      Meaningful Vonversation – if you aren’t saying anything meaningful, you shouldn’t be saying anything at all. If you’re adding to the noise, you’re sure to be ignored

5)      Activity ≠ Productivity – just because you’re active doesn’t mean your accomplishing something. Be productive, not noisy.

6)      Quality > Quantity – keep it simle. Offer friendly consise morsels of advice instead of constant rambling conversation.

7)      Avoid Spamming – Constant self-promotion isn’t attractive. If you feel a need t constantly draw attention to yourself, you’re not accomplishing anything.

8)      Keep it Real – Be authentic. Draw crowds by drawing on your on experiences, knowledge and humor.

9)      Conversation is a Two-way Street – Give followers and fans an opportunity to sound off. If you’re monopolizing the conversation, it becomes a boring lecture instead of a successful marketing strategy.

10)  Connection Don’t imply permission – Just because you’re being followed doesn’t men people grant you permission to interrupt their lives. You have to take time to build relationships and trust

11)  Access Doesn’t Equal Entitlement – making connections may give you access, but it doesn’t mean fans and followers owe you anything. Don’t allow an enthusiasm for sharing lead to a drop in quality. Fans and followers aren’t required to listen to whatever you have to say..

12)  Adaptability – What’s hot today may not be hot tomorrow. Keep up with topic trends and stay adaptable

13)  Accomplishment – if social media marketing efforts aren’t leading to conversations or some sort of productivity, then your efforts are pointless. Measure your efforts and make adjustments as needed.

14)  Engagement & Enrichment – Engagement for engagement’s sake isn’t effective. Egagement efforts should lead to enrichmemnt, otherwise all efforts are wasted.

15)  Use Images & multimedia – A picture is worth a thousand words. Video is probably worth 10,000. Don’t just tell, use platforms for showing as well.

16)  Always follow up with connections – Don’t ignore fans and followers who make connections with you. Always follow up. It makes people feel special and more likely tolisten to you.

17)  Mind your manners – sometimes fns and followers may not be polite. They may disagree with your content or views. Allow them to speak up and respond in an appropriate manner.

18)  Patience is Crucial – Social media marketing rarely delivers instant results. Don’t give up after a short time. Patient marketers have more chance to reap rewards.

19)  Don’t be obsessive Joiner – Following too many groups can hamper your marketing efforts. Spreading yourself too thin can harm any campaign. Always limit group participation

20)  Better to be a blogger – Yes, successful social media marketers do maintain blogs. If you’re active on social media, you should blog regularly.

21)  Have fun – if you’re not enjoying yourself, you’re not doing it right. Social interactions should be fun and purposeful.

Social media marketing campaigns can lead to sales success if they’ve applied correctly. 

How to Attract your Readers!

Do you know that the most critical part of writing an article, material or content is the headline. The same thing applies to blog posts. Why? It’s because your readers’ eyeballs will always start at the title. So this is where your focus should be. Before you make a title, ask yourself this one question:

Would this make me want to read on?

If your answer is no then please delay publishing until you’re happy with your headline. Give yourself sufficient time to focus on coming up with an attention-grabbing title and do not settle for less.

Unfortunately, many people neglect the headlines or the titles. People think all headlines are the same and it’s the content that matters most. The truth is the title or headline gives readers an impression of how interesting a content might be so be sure to come up with a good headline.

1.Using numbers on your headline really works. 
This is the biggest reason copywriters use them in their headlines. It doesn’t matter what the business is about; lots of them will be using numerals to start off the headline.

Often people will remember about three to five points but there aren’t really any rules regarding which numbers work best.

2. Include interesting adjectives

Every headline should have interesting adjectives as these also help get your readers’ attention.

Examples:

Strange

Effortless

Painstaking

Essential

Absolute

3. For a list post, use unique descriptions

In case you need to do a list post, be original. Look at the following examples:

Ways

Secrets

Tricks

Reasons

Principles

Facts

Lessons

Ideas

or get creative, your ideas may work

4. Use what, why, how, or when

These are trigger words, “why” and “how” to persuade people. Typically, you’ll use either a trigger word or a number. Rarely does it sound good to do both.

5. Make an awesome promise

Promise to give your reader something important and valuable. Will you teach her how to learn a new skill? Will you convince her to do something she’s never done before? What you want to do is dare your reader to read the article. Without over-promising, be bold. Be seductive in the most innocuous way possible, of course. Be dangerous and then deliver what you promised.

Try this formula

Here’s a simple headline-writing formula: Number or Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Promise

Example:

: Take a bold promise like “selling your house in a day.”

When you use the formula, you get: “How You Could Easily Sell Your House in Less than 24 Hours”

No one wants to be fooled into reading something boring; they want to be drawn into something exciting. Make it worth their while. Take the time to consider what headline will grab people’s attention the most, and make sure that it describes your content in an attractive but genuine manner.

Reasons why people unfollow you on Twitter

Twitter is such a great platform to meet and interact with people online, and get feedback real time.  The beauty of Twitter is that people follow each other, converse and share information, 140 character at a time. When I was new on Twitter, people were more into sharing information and conversing. People followed other people because of the benefits of learning from them. However, over the past year, people seem to be so obsessed with the number of followers that they have and things have changed.  Some people treat Twitter as a popularity contest. Others treat twitter as an instant messaging service and they expect you to respond to everything at once. Others worry when people unfollow them.

Twitter followers are very important and keeping these followers is another important task that must not be overlooked. Followers hate irrelevant tweets, so in order not to make your audience hit their ‘Unfollow’ button you must make relevant and interesting tweets. Though tweeting of irrelevant content is not the only reason for audience to hit their ‘unfollow’ button, there are several reasons why people unfollow your Twitter account, such as: too much of self promotion, too much automation, spamming, repetition, too many begging tweets and etc.tc. 

10 reasons why you should NOT protect your Tweets:

     Out of curiosity, I recently tried an experiment.  protects tweet or not, good or bad. I’ve never had an opinion about protected Tweets However, I understand that some feel the need for privacy. So I decided to lock ‘er up and see what would happen if I made my personal Twitter account only available to select followers while there are some advantages, I fear that the disadvantages way outnumber the advantages and this is the reason

1.    Twitter isn’t Facebook/Following isn’t Friending. Facebook is for your friends. Twitter is for the friends you don’t know yet. On Facebook you can require that only your friends can view your profile. People have to ask permission to see more details which is entirely appropriate, because you probably have details that you likely want to keep private. On Twitter, your entire bio is 160 characters.

2.     Protecting your Tweets is a barrier to connections. If you are like me, looking to increase your visibility, you want people to find out about you and connect with you, which will lead to more engagement and interaction/More business. Protected tweets will keep others from finding you.

3.     You can block the bad actors. If an unsavory character starts following you on Twitter, and it really creeps you out, you can block him

4.     No retweets: Locked Tweets mean fewer retweets. And everyone knows that more retweet may bring more followers. If your tweets are protected the only way you’re likely to make new connections is by initiating “follows

5.     Protected tweets mean fewer followers. This makes sense, that if people have to ask permission to follow you, fewer will.

6.     Twitter is for Socializing The default for Twitter is to not protect, and if everyone else is interacting freely you are not going to be as fully connected, which will put you at a disadvantage.

7.     No Google love: Locked Tweets aren’t picked up by Google. Though for those wishing to lock their Tweets this is probably a non-issue. If you’re looking to receive traffic to links or get your name out there, this is worth a consideration.

8.     Outsiders are Outsiders: Have you ever jumped into a Twitter conversation with someone you don’t follow simply because it looked interesting? You can’t do that with a locked Tweet. There’s no responding to friends of friends with uninterested parties.

So if you are looking to increase your Visibility and expand your reach protecting your tweets is not the way, except you are looking for privacy

Attention! Pinterest Lovers!

Pinterest now has a new look, it has added “a few new things to the close-up view of pins to help you discover things you love that you might not have known about otherwise.” The new Pinterest design makes things simpler and cleaner and It easy to use and doesn’t require you to learn anything new

-Pins from the same board: You can explore the entire board without leaving the page you’re on. when you scroll through pins and click on something that interests you, the back button lands you right back where you were no matter how far you’ve gone.

-Pins from the same source: Here you’ll find other things pinned from the same website.

-People who pinned this also pinned

-Now you can simply drag your boards around to rearrange them – they'll save automatically! 

- bigger pins, so you see more of what you love.

-A new fun way to  edit your profile info and account settings

5 RULES TO EXPAND YOUR FAN BASE ON TWITTER

In today’s social media world, honesty weighs heavily on a brand’s success. Fans need to be able to trust the brand and since they can see and judge brands’ posts and interactions, brands need to pay attention to what message they are sending. Having a high number of fake followers in your fan base causes your brand to seem dishonest and therefore ultimately phony itself.

here are tips on how to grow your fan base without seeming "phony"

1.     Always have a good description of your product. Fans don’t want to guess what your product is, how it works and/or the services it provides. The clearer and more detailed you are about your product, the more likely the fan is to trust in it.

2.     Always put your face behind the handle. Fans tend to believe in the product when there is a human face connected to it. Therefore, you shouldn’t hide behind a logo, or sign off as admin. You should always sign off with your own name. For example, Vodafone UK has photos and names of their tweeters listed directly on their Twitter page, allowing fans to see which person has tweeted what.

3.     Always try to keep a conversation. When responding to fans, make sure that you are polite and honest. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to apologize for mistakes. The social media environment is very forgiving, but you have to make sure that you acknowledge where you have done something wrong

4.     Always check who follows you. When receiving a new follower, always click on their profile to see who they are, thank them for the follow and set up a relationship. Fans will appreciate the interaction. However, if the follower displays signs of ambiguity and seem to have a fake status, then block them because they will hurt your community in the long run.

5.     Be proactive with your posts. Don’t only syndicate out your news (a practice commonly used by media outlets), but try to create a dialogue and make sure to reply to fans. Also, look proactively for opportunities to engage your followers. This will help to genuinely grow your fan base

4 ways to build Trust for your Twitter Account

The mad Twitter rush, “Kindly follow back” or when we search for accounts to follow but worry about their authenticity. Also, we find that even when we tweet and have high expectations about the tweet, we hardly get any engagement. People are hesitant to retweet, mention or quote How do we then grow our twitter account?

Twitter users follow accounts that they can trust. And engage with them based on trust. So to increase your twitter engagement, you have to ensure your followers trust your account

Turn your brand into a reliable source of tweets, retweets and mentions for an even bigger audience. By doing this

Your Personal Signature

Twitter users prefer to follow brands that they can identify with so don’t hide behind cartoon or avatar images. You need a picture that will represent your company but at the same time won´t look too formal – try showing your logo from a different perspective. Also make sure you update your profile with relevant information on your brand and on the content you will be tweeting about.

Tweet Your Expertise

Try tweeting some of your company’s expertise or know-how. Your fans and followers will definitely appreciate the exclusive content you can offer on Twitter and it will make you stand out as a reliable expert and source of information.

 

Build A Strong Tweeting Fan Base

People tend to trust and engage more with tweets that have been retweeted or mentioned by friends, brands, organizations, media and by other accounts they follow. The more engagement your brand generates, the more you can get recognized and trusted by others.

Tweet Correctly

Please no “gbagaun”  Take your time to double check your posts for grammar mistakes and mistypes. These mistakes can undermine your credibility and give out the impression that you were in a hurry or didn’t care much about what you have been typing.

What is Pinterest?

HuH?! Pinterest? What is that?...is usually the expression I get from the so called social savvy youth, not to talk of the business brand who think “Social Media” means “facebook’. i have taken it upon myself break it down for you

The whole concept of Pinterest centers on what is called a “pin” which is a photo added to a user’s Pinterest feed. That feed is organized by the use of “pinboards”. A user may organize a set of pins with a common theme on a “pinboard”. So you say you are “pinning” something on Pinterest when you add a photo to your feed or to a specific “pinboard”. You, then, are called a “pinner”.

Like other social media sites operate, Pinterest lets you follow people on the site so you get updates on their latest pins. When you decide to add someone else’s pin to your own account, you are doing a “repin”. If you like something but do not want to add it to one of your “pinboards”, you click “like”. Unfortunately, like Facebook, the site doesn’t feature an “unlike” button. People can also “pin” from websites that integrate Pinterest.

Apart from clicking “like” or “repin” on a photo, users can also comment. Users can also share “pins” on other social networking accounts like Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest also enables users to embed “pins” on websites.

As Pinterest revolves around “pins” which are photos and sometimes videos, the site highlights its users’ lifestyles, preferences, and aspirations. The following feature of the site makes it easier for people who share the same lifestyles, preferences and aspirations to connect with each other and keep track of things they may be interested in.

I think pinterest is pretty amasing, get on the site and discover the goodies in the goody bag

Grow Your Social Followers Through Your Blogging

Do you want more Twitter followers, Facebook fans and Google+ followers? Blogging gives you a platform and provides opportunities where you can encourage readers to connect with you on social media.

Why do you want to build relevant followers through your blogging? These will be some of the best social followers for your business as they will be the ones most interested in your industry and in your content.

A relevant and targeted audience can ultimately turn into more leads and conversions for your business through social media. As you grow your targeted following on social media, you can also expect to receive more engagement when you share your content on your social profiles.

Here are some best practices to follow.

If you want to grow your Twitter following, be sure to use the official Twitter retweet button. This allows you to add your @username to the tweet and encourages people to follow your Twitter account after they tweet your posts.

Gain new Twitter followers when people tweet your content.

Include a call to action at the end of your posts to the effect of “If you enjoyed this post, please follow us on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.” This also helps increase your social following. But only promote your main social media accounts. Giving too many options may lead people to choose not to follow any of them.

Since your business blog’s design will likely feature a sidebar, include follow buttons so visitors can easily follow you on the top social networks.

Linkedin For Beginners

LinkedIn is a social network with over 53 million users that enables you to make better use of your Professional network and help the people you trust in return. It's no secret that LinkedIn is a great placen to network professionally, post and find jobs, and answer questions and build thought leadership. It isn probably the most obvious way to identify influential individuals at specific organizations. A search for your target business or title on LinkedIn will identify people you may already be connected with, either directly or through your connections. LinkedIn is a great tool to leverage your existing contacts to connect with people and find potential customers online.

Are you new to Linkedin and don’t know your head from tail. This first thing you need to do is

 SET UP YOUR PROFILE ON LINKEDIN

Setting up a LinkedIn Profile is free and quick. You will receive a confirmation email to activate

Your profile and then you are set to expand your network

Complete your profile. Your profile should be 100% complete. Add work experience,

schools, and other relevant information about yourself. People searching for contacts

will make a decision to connect or not to connect based on the information you provide

in your profile. A complete profile will increase your visibility and help you get found by

employers, recruiters, and prospects.

 Upload a profile photo. People are more likely to connect with you if they recognize

your face and they feel like they are connecting with a real person.

Get recommended. Ask for recommendations from friends, colleagues, partners, and

clients. This will speak to your experience and add to your credibility in your industry

Promote Your Company. Include a link to your company’s website. LinkedIn allows you

to list up to three websites so you can also link to your blog and social media accounts

Promote Your Company. Include a link to your company’s website. LinkedIn allows you

to list up to three websites so you can also link to your blog and social media accounts.

Verify Your Twitter Account Without a Badge!

If you’ve already had some experience using Twitter, you’ve also probably noticed a blue checkmark badge next to a particular user’s name when you click through to view their Twitter profile. With the increase in the amount of blue twitter badges came curiosity, what do they mean, how to they help me account/brand, does it reduce impersonation  Can I verify my account? Also came loads and loads of fake accounts, most times, I cant even tell whether basketmouth is @baskettmouth or @basket_mouth and each of these accounts look very real so you really don’t know who exactly is speaking.

Before I go on, if you have 20 followers, please visit the post on “how to grow your twitter account”

The blue verification badge is displayed to inform other users that the identity of the Twitter user is real and authentic. Verified accounts help distinguish between the real identity of the account and fake accounts that have been set up by users who are not at all affiliated with the person or business. Hence, if you look closely, you should be able to tell which is the real account

Twitter will not verify your account if you simply ask for one. Their goal is to verify as few accounts as possible, so only the biggest brands and public figures tend to get verified. Twitter has admitted that they proactively verify accounts according to the tweets, personality behind the account, number of followers they attract and how many other users may try to impersonate the account by setting up fake accounts.

In other words, Twitter doesn’t necessarily require you to be a big celebrity or corporation. If you have enough followers that your brand, image ore reputation could be impacted negatively by others trying to impersonate, Twitter may make the decision to verify your account without you even asking for it first.

However there are other ways to authenticate your twitter account without the blue badge  

embedding a Twitter "Follow" button on your official website as the best alternative to verification.

Twitter also recommends including a link to an official website as an alternative to verification.

Also, post all the other platforms at which you can be found, e.g your facebook address e.t.c

.

7 Ways to Become a Twitter King!

Twitter, a social media tool that gives everyone equality and freedom has become a kingdom where everyone want to be king and the qualification for the post is highly dependent upon the amount followers you have or in recent times the your follower:following ratio (the ratio of your followers to the people you are following). In which case, people have begun to unfollow most of their “tweeps” just to claim “boss” but that’s a talk for another day.

I haven’t met a Twitter user who isn’t concerned about having a large follower base. Some argue that numbers aren’t important, but the “quality” of followers, However, I noticed that most of the “quality” searchers have very very few followers and really aren’t making lee way…what’s the point in having 10,000 followers if they aren’t your direct consumers? It’s because through those 10,000, you can reach 5,000 more who would be potential consumers.

I think growing your twitter followers should be a goal, because more followers provide social authority. The higher your follower count, regardless of your knowledge, the more people assume you are an expert or at least someone interesting, even if you wake up and talk about the size of your pillow. Also, the larger your follower count, the faster your ideas spread.

Growing your twitter followers is almost easy, I view it as “karma” “do unto others what you want others to do to you”, so, if you want to be mentioned, mention people!, if you want to be retweeted, retweet other people, quote them also! Get active!.

 Considering the first commandment of Twitter is “Thou shalt follow all who follow thee”, follow people and ask them to follow back. I will to add the second commandment “Unfollow those who refuse follow” don’t let them use you to mop their “twitter” floor  except you are really star struck. If you are confused and don’t know heads from tail on twitter, I’ll simplify it for you.

To use twitter, you normally would have to sign up, you can’t expect to run a magic/imaginary account. And follow thses steps

Profile Photo: Make sure that you have uploaded a photo to your Twitter profile. Why? Because the absence of a photo may be viewed as a spam account or a confused absentee. I don’t mean that as a “food” brand you should use a car as profile photo. Get creative! Photos speak louder than words!

Interesting Bio. Don’t leave this blank. It is one of the first things potential followers review. Explain who you are and what you do.  Fill up your Bio, show people where to find you, location, links to your website/blog, full name and so on. Think of it as your complimentary card, so get busy!

Sniff out your targets and follow. You’ve signed up, updated your information, you don’t want to just talk yourself, or quote your own tweet. You have to search your target-people relevant to your industry, who would be interested in what you have to say. This will increase your chances of engagement. For instance, you sell baby product, search for women, wives, fathers etc all these will be included in their bio, or you can try to discern from their profile picture. Another way around this is to search similar brands, you might find your audience there. Also keep in mind that the younger ones will eventually become mothers so don’t cut them out completely

Share Relevant Content; Please don’t tweet too much about teddy Bears if your twitter Handle is @Naijapolitics. Create contents that your followers want to hear, remember, they probably read your bio before hitting the follow button. You want to be a thought leader so you can be king someday

Post frequently; but don’t flood your followers: you know how you would want to tell people “SHUT UP!” when they talk too much, regardless of how sensible what they say is? It’s the same with twitter, don’t overwhelm your followers, it’s a timeline not a trash can.

Time your Tweets; why on earth will you be talking about the government at 3:00a.m? Or expect someone to click on the link to your new post when they are sleeping? As you grow, you will begin to notice when you have higher engagement. Leverage on this. It will give you better opportunity to be heard

Keep your posts short enough to retweet; Retweets get noticed by people who don’t follow you. Therefore, you must make it easy for your followers to retweet you, also, make it a point to reply people immediately and publicly

Slow and steady wins the race, don’t expect to wake up with 50,000 followers if you arent dbanj. You have to work at it. Goodluck!

Facebook: FanPage or Profile?

Are you a brand or an individual? Facebook has made it clear that there is a demarcation between these two, hence, there are different types of account serve different purposes to the different types of users and thee accounts are more advantageous when used rightly.  Since personal accounts are meant for individual people, they aren't suited to meet your business needs and vice versa.  While profile pages have their advantage as they bring closer and personal relationship with your friends, there are a lot of reasons why a Facebook fan page is better for you as a brand

1.       Facebook Insights: As a business on a personal Facebook profile, you have no access to Facebook Insights. You are unable to export and digest the thousands of rows and columns of information that can help you understand your customer, what they like and don’t like, where they are from and when they are online which should serve as your measure of success/failure

2.       Facebook Tabs and Contests: With Facebook tabs, you can use apps to explain more about whom you are, provide a video introduction, feature your products, provide a newsletter opt-in form, highlight the history of your company, run games and contests and so on.

3.       Facebook Offers: It’s an official way to promote a deal you have to your Facebook audience. And when your fans and non-fans claim these offers, their friends see it.

4.       Facebook Ads: If you use a Facebook Page, you can reach more of your Fans and you can reach friends of those Fans with Promoted Posts. You can create ads that target people with relevant interests and attract new fans and new customers.

5.       Facebook Places: When you set up your business properly, you can also connect your Page to a Place and your customers can also check in, alerting their friends that they are at your store or restaurant. This is a great way to allow your customers to naturally promote your business.

6.       Friendship limit: Perhaps the most important is that Fan Pages can have an unlimited number of fans. Profiles can only have 5,000 friends. If you’re trying to build your business, why limit yourself?

More importantly, Facebook is taking more aggressive steps to remove misclassified personal profiles used for business purposes. As a result, millions of business owners who are incorrectly using personal Facebook profiles to market their businesses are confronted with two choices:

1) Convert your personal profile to a business Page, or

2) Risk getting deleted.

 are you currently using a Facebook profile for your brand, Do you already have 4500 friends on your profile and are afraid to losing them by creating a fan page?  Are you wondering how unfair it is for Facebook to require you to start from scratch?  Cast your worries aside as it is now possible to convert your 4998 profile friends to fans on your page, that’s right! And the best part is that almost all your contents and friends info move too! All you have to do is continue from where you left off.

Let's Cut To The Chase

Olusola Adewumi, CEO of Contagious Group, JCI certified trainer, Lifecoach and public speaker will at 3pm, Sunday the 10th of March, host the much anticipated self development training event tagged “Let’s Cut to the Chase”

This event in conjunction with Dabira Magazine and Lydia Hearts initiative (organisers of this year’s Dabira Conference for women) will feature international speakers Joshua Rozario, Principal consultant, JR company India, a personal branding expert and sought after speaker on consultative selling / career development and Pastor Genette Howard, of The Restoration Church, USA; a dynamic minister gifted with a message of women empowerment regardless of racial, generational and social factors. She will be speaking on the act of managing stress at work and home. The host, Olusola Adewumi, who specialises in entrepreneurship, leadership and management concerns, completes the faculty for the event.

Topics

• Genette Howard - THRIVE! (managing stress at work & home)

• Joshua Rosario - Personal Branding (to accelerate your career and business growth)

• Olusola Adewumi - Procrastinators WANTED! (cause & effects; why & how to curb it)  .

Olusola Adewumi, alongside the 2 speakers, as a fallout of the Dabira Conference 2013 have chosen to positively impact the participants, and by extension, their circle of influence, by sharing new ideas, methods and insights.

Apply for a FREE seat NOW at

www.olusolaadewumi.com/lets-cut-2-the-chase

Google+ is for Everyone!

There is Yahoo, there’s facebook, and there’s twitter…what on earth is google+?

There’s been a lot of confusion about Google+ and how to manage your Circles…  How are they different from the other social platforms…I mean, why should I leave tweeting to come open a google+ account?  What are ‘circles’?

Calm your worries friends, I will simplify it for you

Google+ is different from Twitter and Facebook in the way you obtain and distribute information. In Twitter, you can follow people to see their updates, they don’t have to follow you back. It makes for an easy one way street, for people who are interested in the updates of others. In Facebook, it’s a completely mutual relationship. If you want to see someone’s updates, you need to request their friendship, and the other person has to accept it. You will then be mutually sharing...

Google+ handles this in a completely new way. You have circles, which are basically categories of people. People can be in more than one circle, but they have to be in at least one circle to be a part of your contacts. When you go to post an update, you get to choose what people will see that update in their stream.

What are Circles?

You create Circles to categorize and organize your contacts on Google+, and you can create any that you want. The default ones are actually a great start. You drag contacts into your circles to categorize them. (note: when you add someone to a circle they will be notified that you added them to your circles, but not WHAT circles… for instance if you name a circle “crazy” they won’t ever know… well unless you tell them)

These Circles control not only who sees your updates but also whose updates you see in your stream. When you go to your stream you can see the full stream or you can click to see just a certain circle.

You can also click to see posts from people who you haven’t added to YOUR circles but who have shared something with a circle that they have included you in, these are in the “Incoming” stream. It may sound complicated but in practice it isn’t.

When you share something on Google+ you get to choose who sees it. That doesn’t guarantee they WILL see it, it just means that it will be available in their stream if they look at it, and you are in a circle that they include in that stream.

With Google + instead of the assumption that everyone is your friend, you put everyone in appropriate groups called ‘circles.’ People can be in more than one circle (just like in real life) and you can easily share something to some people or with everyone. With over 1 billion daily users of Google products, Google+ also enables you to reach the right people at the right time. Google searches deliver relevant results from your Google+ page, including recent posts, photos, and videos, right when they matter the most to your customers.