Do you have too many interests? Is your blog all over the place?
Mine is. It’s hard to promote my spudart blog when I cover such a wide random range of topics. Same thing with Google Plus. I use Google Plus to share articles. But those articles are so random.
But now I’m started to understand how Google Plus can work. I’m putting all my posts into certain circles, which before, seemed like a waste of time. But at some point when I get enough posts put into each circle, I’m gonna start following a ton of people that are related to each of those circles. So i’m making posts into my art circle, and then i’ll follow a bunch of art people. The art people will see my Google Plus and think, “oh this guy posts about art. Cool. I’ll follow him.”
Now since i use Google Plus for posting all my comments about articles I read, i’m making more and more circles. Urban planning, chicago sports, beverages, social media. Eventually I’ll follow all sorts of people according to those topic areas. The urban planning people will only see my urban planning posts. The Chicago sports people will only see my posts on Chicago sports.
People won’t see me as some big mixed-up, unfocused person. They’ll see specific niche content for what they are interested in. For 200 people who do know and like me as an unfocused person, they can still see all my posts, because whenever I make a post, I make it to two circles: “all untargeted” (my 200 friends) and whichever circle fits the focus.
It would be nice if people could subscribe to specific circles. But for now, that isn’t possible with anything. I’m still waiting for the day for the service to arrive to be a “pinterest for articles.” For now you can add me to your Google+ circles.
A couple problems with posting only to circles (and not to the public):
1) Your posts only show up in Google’s results if that person is in your circle.
2) If someone is looking for people on Google Plus, they won’t see any of your posts if they aren’t public. They’ll only be able to see the depth of your content, once you add them to a circle. Therefore the discovery of new people is completely on your part. Your profile won’t look that inviting to a stranger not in your circles.