Monday 3 August 2015

Google+ for Romance Writing/Reading: Set Up to Circles

with Dee Scully

What Is Google+
Google+ is a social network. I know. I know. I hear your groans. “Not another social network. I’m already on Facebook.” Before you scroll to the comments and leave me a ‘thanks, but no thanks’, hear me out.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DeeScullyRomanceAuthor/posts/p/pub 

Google+ Is Not Facebook 
Google+ is not Facebook. It does connects you to people, but with Google+ Circles you can more easily customize your ‘friends’. You can assemble them into various groups such as ‘family’, or since we are talking about writing/reading romance…‘writing colleagues’, ‘editors and publishers’, ‘agents’, ‘historical romance authors’, ‘Harlequin authors’, etc… Circles help you target who sees your content and what content you see.

Privacy or Piracy 
One other thing that sets Google+ apart is its security. Google+ does not distribute your personal information and it allows you to assign a privacy setting for each piece of content that you share instead of a single setting for everything. This may seem tedious but it’s actually quite protective for those of us who don’t want our private information hijacked and sold to marketing companies.

Getting Started
To get started you’ll need to set up a Google+ account. Once you set up your account, I suggest visiting Google’s Get Started page. It’s a simple five-minute walk through of how to connect and create Circles.

Suggestions for Writers
  1. Your profile page acts as a business card, so when setting it up choose a cover picture that reflects your writing and use your ‘writing as’ name (if different from your given name) to best promote your writing persona.
  2. Use the space under your name for either a tagline such as Historical Romance Author or your web/blog address to make it easier for people to connect with you and your writing.
  3. You can further detail your profile page with your unique bragging rights (e.g. “I survived contest judging and lived to talk about it”), your occupation, skills, education, contact information, etc.

HOW TO CONNECT
Contacts
When you’ve set up your account and profile page, you need to add contacts. You can import contacts when setting up your account and Google will automatically add anyone with a Google+ account. Or you can add contacts one by one via your home page or your profile page. Simply go to the ‘Search for people, pages, or posts’ bar at the top of your screen. Type in a name and hit the blue and white magnifying glass button or enter.


Alternatively, you can scroll over Home and a dropdown box appears. Click into People and Google will suggest contacts, add your Gmail contacts, or ‘search for new contacts.’

Circles
To create Circles, click into People (see above). From there scroll over and click into More and then into Your Circles.

Hover your cursor over the grey dot with the big plus in the middle.

Do as the prompt directs and “Drop or click to create circle”. Create as many circles as you want/need. Add your contacts to one or many Circles.

Once you’ve created a few Circles and added your contacts, send a message to a single contact then to one of your Circles. Make sure you add Dee Scully Romance Author to your contacts and Circles!  Play around with the Google+ tools and get to know it a bit better.

Let us know in the comments below about any Google+ Community or contact that is of interest to romance readers and writers.  Let's get a list going!!

In the next instalment of Google for Romance Writing/Reading Part II we’ll learn how to use Google+ Circles to target readers and writers.

I love to love…the Top Positive Quotes community on Google+.

Top Positive Quotes-Fathima Afra

I love to laugh…at what I used to think was important.

I love to learn…as much as I can about Google+.

16 comments:

  1. Dee, I love this! Google+ 101, for dummies like me! 😉 I love browsing around the writing and bookstore sites there (no surprise). There's also a page by Susannah Fullerton which is very interesting and touches on all sorts of classics

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    1. Awesome! Thank you Malvina! I'll have a look at Susannah Fullerton's page!

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  2. Gooooood Monday morning to everyone in the Southern Hemisphere! Happy Sunday to those in the Northern Hemi!!

    I hope this blog is of use to many, but...I'm thinking that most of us already know how to do these things, so it's my hope that anyone reading the blog will pass the link on to those not currently on Google+ or that may be struggling a bit! Let's get everyone up and running so we can all stay connected!!

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  3. A really helpful post, Dee! I do have a Google+ account but I haven't spent enough time learning the things I need to make the most of it. Hopefully, this post and the next couple of parts to it will assist me with that. Thank you!

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    1. It's like that sometimes...we have a specific social media but we don't always know how to use all the bells and whistles. Let's get the basics covered then we'll get into the nitty gritty on how to build your following.

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  4. Thanks, Dee. I do have a Google+ account but haven't really got to know it yet. Now that I know about the better levels of security it offers I'll definitely spend time learning more.

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    1. Yes, Google+ does offer a more distinct protection plan, so to speak...with it's multiple security options. Google truly does seem to be trying at least to adhere to their 'do no harm' motto. And I really like their explanatory pages...they explain what each security option is and how it works in the real world. For more on security check out http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/online-safety/security-tools/ or https://myaccount.google.com/security.

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  5. Dee this is great, especially for those who were a little hesitant to dip their toes into Google+. Can't wait for part two.

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    1. Thank you Cassandra Samuels! Hopefully this post will gather some newcomers and the further posts will show us all how we can better use the tools and stay connected. Have you found any Google+ Communities or do you follow anyone of interest that you can share with us? As a published author of The Scandalous Wager (Escape Publishing) I'd love to know who you follow!

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    2. I follow a lot of other authors, always good to know how they are going and when their next book is coming out. I am also a member of several Google+ groups related to writing and reading. eg. Google+ bookclub, Writer's corner, Readers and writers, book reviewers and Booklovers unite.

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    3. Ooo! Thanks for that Cassandra Samuels! I'll have to check out those groups. Some of the authors I follow on Google+ are of course you, Cassandra, and Cathryn Hein, Michelle Somers. I also follow the publishing houses...they often Google+ new releases and give you snippets that you can't find elsewhere!

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  6. For those just coming on to the Breathless in the Bush blog and/or Google+, remember to follow the Breathless in the Bushers...Cassandra Samuels, Dee Scully, Enisa Haines, Karen M Davis, and Marilyn Forsyth. Try your hand at Circles and create a Breathless in the Bush Circle!!

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  7. Hi Dee Scully, thanks for a great and very informative post. I look forward to more lessons in everything Google and I will now attempt to make a circle... this could take a while...

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    1. Add me! Add me!
      Seriously, add me to a circle (maybe a circle you label Breathless in the Bush) and then send me a message to see if/how it worked.

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  8. Another great post, Dee!
    I really like G+. I like its ease of use, the way my feed looks, how easy it is to connect, the better privacy, and that hashtags are used and work. The problem for me is that readers don't tend to hang there. Maybe that will change with time, I don't know. I hope it does because, as I said, I like the platform. In the meantime I'll just keep feeding it the same as what goes on my Facebook page.

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    1. Excellent points! It is a great platform but I think it's still a bit new. Other platforms have about five years on G+ and many people are a bit tentative about trying something new, especially new technology. They've either been burnt by another social media's security lapse or they are so tied into the other platform that they don't bother to explore a new/better one. But...G+ is growing! And quickly! As people discover the tools you mentioned above Cathryn Hein, more people join!

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