• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Now do that with Google+ by creating a few potential recipes for how professionals might use it for different businesses.

3. A Day in the Life

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I’m writing this book in the early days of the launch of Google+, so my interviews with business professionals on how this platform integrates into their day is based on a scant few weeks of experience and effort. Even so, kernels of possibility are wrapped up in what I discovered in their answers and their current methods. Further, in all cases, the people interviewed blended the answer to what they do with Google+ into the overall sense of what they do with all the other social software platforms they currently employ for business purposes.

What follows are a bunch of recipes. Starting with myself, but then going immediately into interviews with people from all levels of business and in a variety of industries, I have put together some “serving suggestions” for you to consider in deciding how you want to use Google+ for your own business value. You see that many ways exist to use the platform, and some people prefer to use it one way, whereas others have a different perspective on the value of the platform. This was done intentionally.

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There’s no one right way to use this tool. Some people post a lot of original material but don’t choose to curate or share much. Others are hubs for sharing but don’t create a lot of original material. Still others spend a lot of time reading and posting in the comments section and some people use Google+ as just another source of information to read and consider.

To call any one use of the platform wrong (barring outright spamming and bullying) is to limit the possibilities that you might find in using Google+ in ways that provide value for your needs. Why should I (or anyone) tell you that you’re doing it wrong, if you’re getting something useful out of your method? To that end, read through some of the ways people use Google+ with an open mind, and think about whether you can borrow from several of their experiences to form your own.

My Personal Day in the Life of Google+

I should preface this part by saying that my business is quite varied. I consult and speak for large companies, and I create products and services for small businesses. That juxtaposition makes it hard to nail down how I use Google+ for my business pursuits, but I’m game to explain it, just the same. Following is a summary of how I use it:

Time Used per Day: 2 hours (This is part of my primary job.)

Primary Goals of Usage: Build an audience, convert to community, and drive awareness for projects or topics of interest

Number of Original Posts per Day: 6 (average)

Number of Shared Posts per Day: 8 or more (average)

Number of Comments per Day: This varies. If I’m traveling, there are fewer. If I’m not traveling, 20–30 comments on average.

Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 2 (average)

Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: 3 (I added this to show that there’s value in writing about things that aren’t pertinent to your main business. The mileage varies for this stat, especially because my business is a little more diverse than most.)

Typical Strategy: Because my goals are to build an audience, convert them to a community, and then drive awareness to my projects or other topics of interest, I read bits of the streams from my various circles, posting what I think are interesting links, and then commenting back and forth with people on various posts (theirs and my own). And I spend some time promoting my own projects or things that interest me that aren’t mine.

I admit that when I have a little free time, or if I’m procrastinating, I tend to read posts for a while to catch up on other interesting (but not necessarily important to my business) posts shared by others. Sometimes, this serendipitous consumption permits me to build new relationships because I might follow someone’s shared post and then learn more about the creator