• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

• Comment as often as you can on other people’s posts.

• Comment as often as you can on people’s comments on your posts.

* * *

If you stop reading now, you’d know what I know about growing an audience. Only, I owe lots of words and I have to give you something to chew on, so here goes. There’s a bit more to it, obviously, but that formula is actually what I do.

Quality over Quantity

Whenever I talk about audience in an open forum such as Google+, at least two people per post say, “But it’s quality and not quantity.” These people are almost invariably graphic designers or customer service representatives. They are never from sales, marketing, or finance because those organizations understand the simple math of sample size versus response versus committed sale.

Yes, it’s not that useful to build a huge audience if the majority of them aren’t responsive and don’t interact with your posts. For reading and interacting, it’s much better to be prudent with your choices about whom you follow. Connect only with those people who add value and enrich your online experience. If you want to sell something, that is rarely a luxury you have.

You need to have an audience of some size so that you can continue telling the story, spreading the word, seeking relationships, and ultimately influence sales. Cold and simple—having a larger audience helps this effort.

Measuring the Size of Your Audience

The number you’re looking for resides on your Circles page, up at the top, and it looks like Figure 9-1.

Figure 9-1 The size of your audience.

At the time of writing this book, 41,504 people added me to their circles, meaning that they opted in to receive my posts. I’ve circled 1,455 people. This is partially because I’m selective about who I follow on this social network and because Google+ has a 5,000-person following limit. I’d like to hold on to those slots for as long as I can.

Who puts you in a circle is the number you’re looking at to determine your audience. In addition, you can track how many shares and +1s your comments get. These are “in-system” metrics, meaning that they mean something while you’re inside Google+, but they don’t translate directly to typical marketing metrics. The number of people who have you in circles on Google+ is not the same as the number of people in your email prospects list.

* * *

People can choose to circle you and then choose to ignore your posts. This is worth knowing, but it’s not worth worrying much about. You’ll know by your level of engagement whether people pay any attention to you after they comment on a post of yours or share it.

* * *

Google+ makes it even more interesting to consider the size of your audience with its Extended Circles, which are the circles of the people you’ve added to your circles. Please don’t close the book. I’ll explain.

If you are Dave and you have circled Shashi, when you select to share information with your Extended Circles, what you’re saying is, “Share this piece of information with anyone in Shashi’s circles, too.” However, this ends up showing up in Shashi’s friends’ “Incoming” stream, which isn’t a widely read part of Google+.

Trying to measure the true reach and audience behind your posts and efforts on Google+ is difficult. If you want to keep an eye on a number for tracking purposes, track the following:

• People who have you in circles

• Number of comments per post

• Number of +1’s per post

• Number of shares per post

For out-of-system metrics, you must determine whether calls to action are part of your posting strategy (talked about in previous chapters) and then specifically track from that. If you use Google+ for community management, consider tracking call volume, call handling time, time to resolution, and any other non-Google+ stats. The numbers that matter to you most should be out-of-system, but you can keep an eye on a few metrics while looking to grow your audience.

Value Your Audience

The asset most companies