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Jenny points out one of the facets I am most excited about when thinking of Google+ in a business setting: customer support. Imagine you’ve just purchased a digital picture frame with Wi-Fi from Kodak, and you can’t figure out how your family can email pictures to the frame. In Jenny’s view, you could just connect with someone from Kodak on Google+ and explain your issue. Then, the representative from Kodak might invite you into a video Hangout to talk you through the process. It’s exciting, for sure.

Interview with Darren Rowse, Problogger

Darren and I have been friends for a few years, even though he lives on nearly the exact opposite side of the planet from me. We connect on most every social network that exists, and we cofounded a membership site, Third Tribe Marketing, with Brian Clark (Copyblogger) and Sonia Simone (Remarkable Blogging) in 2010.

I saw the first published photo of his newest son on Google+, and I’ve subsequently had several conversations with Darren that I never had with him in person, nor on any other social network, including our own private network. Why? Because the platform opened Darren up to being a more rounded individual and not just a professional blogger and digital photographer.

Time Used per Day: 20–60 minutes a day

Primary Goals of Usage: Engagement with readers, testing ideas, building brand, and driving traffic

Number of Original Posts per Day: 3–4

Number of Shared Posts per Day: 3–4

Number of Comments per Day: 20–30

Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 1–2

Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: 3–4

Typical Strategy: At this stage I’m experimenting with a variety of types of posts to see what is resonating with readers and to explore what kind of posts work in this new medium. So far I’m trying to mix in a few types of posts each weekday (weekends I tend to go off topic a little more) including the following:

• Original long-form content: These posts are either posts from my blog archives from a couple of years back (which I’m refreshing) or they are new posts on things that I’m pondering (which I then often turn into new posts for my blog).

• Questions: Asking questions of followers around the topics that I write about either just to generate some discussion or to help me research posts I’m then going to write about.

• Personal updates: What I’m doing. Photos from my day, family updates, and so on.

• Sharing links: Sharing links to what other people are doing or sharing a link to new posts on my blog. (Although to this point, I’m not sharing links to every new post on my blog—just 1 to 2 per day at a maximum.)

Darren, through his sharing of photos of his family and what he’s doing, has kept a personal tone with his community, some of who connect with his Problogger site and others who are members of his Digital Photography School. And yet, he’s testing different engagement methods, refreshing old content for a new audience (which is brilliant), and meeting his business goals. This embodies the best way to use Google+ for your business: Drive some awareness and engagement with your primary business focus while showing a personal, humanistic side to your experience.

Interview with Jacqueline Carly, Fitness Professional

Jacqueline Carly is a business partner on a Bossfit.net project, an online fitness and nutrition resource for web entrepreneurs. I think her usage of Google+, starting from the early days, is interesting. For one thing, she shares photos of herself before and after heading to yoga. These weren’t especially glamorous photos, mind you, and the “after” photo was also marked by her hair being a bit frazzled and her skin coated in a fine glow of her efforts, but what I got from them (as did several commenters) was motivation to do my own fitness efforts each day, and that’s why I thought it would be interesting to see her perspective on a day-in-the-life for using Google+.

Time Used per Day: 30–60 minutes (done