Google+ is a social networking service from Google. The idea is pretty similar to other social networking services, but Google attempts to differentiate Google+ by allowing more transparency in who you share with and how you interact. It also integrates all Google services and displays a new Google+ menu bar on other Google services when you're logged into a Google account. A central feature to Google Plus, as the social destination, is the ability for content to be shared to individuals, circles, or public. When content is shared publicly you will often find it has the greatest ‘reach’, even leading to some content going viral as well.          

                          Google Plus Circles

You likely have many interests in life and finding people to fit those interests on Google Plus is easy and fun with a quick Google Plus search. With Circles, you can categorize people by your interests.

Find & add people to circles

Share the right things with the right people, just like in real life.

• • Share jokes and secrets with your Best friends circle

  • Put your most professional side forward when you post to your Work circle

  • Show your team spirit with posts to your Sports fanatics circle

Find people you know on Google+

• 1. Open Google+. Place your cursor in the top left corner for the Google+ main menu. Click People.

  2. Browse the suggestions and place your cursor over the Add button to add people to your circles (they won't know which circle you added them to).

  3. To find additional people, click Find coworkers or Find classmates.

A good feature with Google Plus Circles is the fact that you can use them to send topic-specific email notifications specifically to that circle group. If you’ve got a group of awesome locals in your area that you have in a Circle called “Locals,” you can send them a notification about a function going on in town.Create many circle groups around your interests and carefully place people in the right circle groups. 

Organize your circles

• 1. Open Google+. Place your cursor in the top left corner for the Google+ main menu.

  2. Click  People > Your circles tab. From here, you can:

• • To view who is in a circle, click that circle.

  • To add someone to a circle, drag their name tile to that circle

  • To remove someone from a circle, click the circle to open it > the X on the upper right corner of their name tile

                       Who can see your circles?

People in your circles (but not the name of the circle) will appear to others on your Google Profile, unless you choose not to display that information. You can manage the visibility of circles on your profile by selecting the Edit profile option. From there, edit the visibility of your circles by clicking on the icons in the upper right-hand corner of each section. For the In your circles option you can even choose certain circles to display - you don’t need to show them all.

Google has internal limits on how many people you can circle in a day. If you see a tiny red flag appear that you’ve reached your daily limit, don’t worry, just come back in 24 hours and add some more.

Format text for your Google Plus posts:

• 1. *Bold* – Using asterisks will bold the text.

  2. _Italics_ – Using underscores will make the text have italics.

  3. -Strikethrough- Using dash with cause a strike through effect

               Google Plus Community

Use communities to start conversations around specific hobbies, interests, particular groups, or organizations.

As you’re creating your community, think about how people will use it and what type of content will be shared. This will help you decide whether to make your community public or private, and whether people need to request to be a member.

You can create one of four types of communities:

- Public - Anyone can join.Meeting people on Google+ who share your interests.

- Public- Moderator approval needed to join. Sharing content publicly, but limiting who can create it.

- Private- Let people find through search and request to join. Creating closed communities for specific public organizations.

- Private- Hide community from searches. Small groups to have more private conversations.

Create a community

• • Click the  communities icon.

  • Click the Create community button at the top right.

  • Decide whether or not you want your community to be Public or Private and click the corresponding box.

  • Enter a name for your Community.

  • Pick a unique name that clearly communicates the purpose of your community. If you also have a Google+ page, try to avoid choosing the same name as your page so people aren’t confused which is which when searching.

  • Whether you choose Public or Private, there’s one more choice to make. See the table above to see which option is best for your community. If you want to change your community’s visibility type, you’ll have to delete the community and create a new one.

  • Click Create community.

  • Keep up with your community on the go with the Google+ mobile app.

  • On Google+, hover mouse over the top left to expand Google+ main navigation.

Once a community is created, an employee can share files, videos, photos, and events from Google Drive. Community owners can change settings, manage membership, or invite other team members to join.

Google has long touted that Google+ is an “ideal tool” for groups who want to have social conversations without broadcasting their thoughts to the world. Yet businesses require more security than just Google+’s Circle feature, and so Google is now delivering.Targeting businesses is an area where Google can seriously get ahead in the social network race.

The Difference Between Google Plus Communities and Circles

Google Plus Circles allows you to isolate and segment the people you follow on Google Plus. The big thing is that your followers have no idea which Google Plus Circles you’ve added them to. In a way, it is just your own personal (or corporate) way of arranging your followers into clean-cut categories. Google Plus Members can also choose to post to specific circles, which allows for target market segmentation for businesses.

Google Plus Communities Google Plus Communities resemble the traditional message boards used by the rest of the internet. They are usually built around a central theme, like “Affiliate Marketing”, or “nature”. In these communities, followers can interact with other like-minded individuals, and allows the community moderator to post personalized content to that specific Google Plus Community.

                          Google Hangouts

There are two types of Google Hangouts, Hangouts and Hangouts on Air. Hangouts are more of an engagement tool with friends, very much like Google chat and Skype. What we’re focussing on in this post is Google Hangouts on Air.

Google+ Hangouts is a free video chat service from Google that enables both one-on-one chats and group chats with up to ten people at a time.   While somewhat similar to Skype, FaceTime and Facebook Video Chat, Google Hangouts focuses more on "face-to-face-to-face" group interaction as opposed to one-on-one video chats, and utilizes sophisticated technology to seamlessly switch the focus to the person currently chatting.

That part is pretty exciting, but Google is also trying out a lot of experimental new features that really make Google Hangout compete with some pretty expensive Web conferencing tools. Better yet, Google+ is free.

A standard Google Hangout at the time of this writing consists of:

• 1. Up to ten simultaneous participants.

  2. Participants can be using any combination of video, voice, or text chat.

  3. Participants can be restricted among your Google Circles or open to the public. 

Plan and schedule. Then broadcast live at that later time.

Scheduling a hangout on air event is really a two step process:

• • first a notification to your audience that there will be a hangout on air and,

  • second the actual live broadcast itself.

Keep in mind when you send out an event notification, that’s all it is. A notification.

The event notification does not have any of the smarts embedded into it to make the actual hangout viewable on the actual event screen. You will need to modify the event a few minutes before show time so your audience can easily access to the event broadcast.

                  Google Plus One Button on your Website

Adding the Google Plus One button to your website is an important step in setting up your online Google Plus business presence. Thankfully, adding the Google Plus One button is a simple procedure that only requires you to have control of your website’s code.

You can add and customize the +1 button to meet the needs of your website, such as modifying the button size and load technique. By adding the +1 button to your website, you allow your users to recommend your content to their circles and drive traffic to your site. The +1 button can also improve the time spent on your site by providing recommendations for further reading.