Google plus?

[peekyboo]

I'm trying to get to grips with Google plus. I've been slowly adding people over the months but just lately discovered the groups on there (Yes, very slow!).
Has anyone found Google plus to be really useful for growing their readership, or even connecting with people? I'm already on Facebook and Twitter, though most of my readers contact me on Facebook.

Amanda

I've not found it at all useful yet, but I'm regularly updating it as I create new posts and also trying to create some unique content. Once I've built it up a bit, I'll be encouraging existing users to go there for extra content, kind of like ITV2 for my blog

But I still get the feeling that people really struggle with Google+, ref. trying to find 'new' people and things to follow. So I'm not convinced I'll get more traffic from it.

I'll update as I go along then, in case it's useful for others. I have gained new followers from it but I don't know if followers equal readers, if you know what I mean? I'll wait to see what interactions I get, whether it seems to grow from there and so on.

I don't really find it useful. I maintain G+ pages for both my sites, simply because it's another (allegedly) popular social network. It helps boost my social media impact. (There's a nice analyser here: Cool Social.) But most of my social interaction is on Twitter. I don't really use Facebook much (for my sites). x

It's only been a few days, but what I've noticed is that Google + readers are more likely to interact with a post, rather than just 'plus' it (the Google + version of the Facebook Like).

So, if I post a blog update on Facebook, I do get readers linking from there and I often get comments on my FB page, mainly from the same people. I've noticed that people who follow the link from various Google groups are more likely to comment than the FB readers. This means that the much smaller numbers of Google + readers are more likely to comment, or interact.

So far I'm feeling this means that although you might not attract lots of readers through Google +, the ones who do read your blog might be more connected with you. It could simply be there's less competition on Google + as it isn't that popular yet, or it might just be a different kind of person gets involved in it?

Anyway, I'm pleased to have done it as I've interacted with people I wouldn't have come across otherwise.

Amanda