Google_ for Business_ How Google's Social Network Changes Everything - Chris Brogan [25]
Figure 4-4 Nick Bilton.
Rick Klau makes good use of links, both in his introduction and in the sidebar of his profile (see Figure 4-5). He leads with his CV, giving one the sense of his capabilities, plus a hint of what you could do with him professionally. Rick also uses the “scrapbook” photos above his profile to good effect, leading you in to want to learn more.
Figure 4-5 Rick Klau.
Scott McCloud’s scrapbook photos to the right of his profile are the best part (see Figure 4-6). His clever use of an eye plus time equals a comic’s progression is the perfect shorthand for his most well-known work, the book Understanding Comics. Scott’s also done a lot to use appropriate anchor text (the text that shows up in blue to indicate a link), so that he can use Google+ to try to boost his ranking for the terms “online comics” and “public speaking and teaching.”
Figure 4-6 Scott McCloud. Top right graphic copyright Chris Ware.
Your About Page: The Basics
The elements of your profile page are a photo avatar, your name, a small “summary line” below your name, a spot for your introduction, “bragging rights,” your occupation, your employment, your education, places where you’ve lived, relationship status, a sense of what you’re looking for, your birthday, your gender, other names (in case of a maiden name or a common spelling error), a nickname, and whether your information should be visible in a search (see Figure 4-7). Besides this, in the right column, there is a spot for links, where you can insert links to other social networks plus point people to important URLs that matter to you and your business.
Figure 4-7 My profile page.
You can also choose whether to let people send you email via your profile page. They can’t see your actual Gmail account address, but they can click a button (if you expose it) that lets them fill out a form and send it to you.
Via this About page, you can also control whether you want people to view who you’ve added to your circles. You can choose to hide that, and then people see only who has added you to their circles via your About page. (I’m not sure of the value to show or hide that data, but I currently have mine hidden, so as not to upset or offend anyone that I haven’t chosen to add to a circle yet.)
The other tabs on your profile include the following:
• Posts, which shows what you’ve posted
• Photos, which shows people photos that you’ve uploaded where you and others have been tagged in the same photo, and photos that others have chosen to share of you
• Videos, which shows videos that you’ve uploaded to Google+ (and not your YouTube account specifically)
• +1s that you’ve shared via the +1 function OFFSITE (versus the +1s you give things on Google+)
• Buzz, which is a link to those things you’ve connected to your Google Buzz account
Start at the Top
This feels like a lot of stuff to cover. When you get to your About page, click the Edit Profile button in the upper right, and now, when you hover over various sections of the page, you see that you can click them to edit them.
For instance, if you click the little blue Change Photo link below your profile photo (or avatar, as it is often called), the system enables you to upload a photo or pick one from your existing albums, pictures people have posted of you, mobile uploads, and so on.
Your Profile Photo
Your profile photo tells people a lot about you. If you choose something too formal (those photos that look like they’re the grown-up equivalent of a school photo, complete with a cloud-like background), people will get one sort of impression.
The opposite can happen when you choose a red-eyed (from flash) snap of you where someone else was in the photo, but you’ve cut them out because it was a good smile. That never comes off as especially professional or inviting, either. There’s a kind of happy medium you should aim for in these matters.