Thursday Review—Google Plus Part Two—Circles are the Key Difference in This Social Network

The Advantages of Circles

Google+ has given us more control over how we classify our networks through circles. We don’t simply have to “friend" someone or “follow” them. With this network we can decide when, where and how we interact with them.

For me this difference is key and it’s intuitive. At least for me, I already group the people I interact with into categories. True, some fit in multiple categories, but even that is possible with Google+ Circles.

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, Google+ comes with some default categories for circles. I started with those, but almost immediately began branching out. Now I have fun with it. I have a circle for besties (a complete girl term), buds and even terminally boring. And the greatest part is no one knows the category I’ve put them in.

So let’s back up and I’ll tell you how to operate your circles.

Go to your Google+ page and click on the Circle Icon.

You’ll see several clickable links under the standard icons:

• People in Your Circles.
• People Who've Added You.
• Find People.

Click on Find People and the list of names below these will increase. You can also include people from other address books.

To add someone to a named circle, just drag and drop them inside the circle. If you want to start a new circle, add them to the unnamed circle. You can click on that circle and name it at any time.  

If you click on a circle you can rename it or remove people from it. To remove someone just drag and drop them outside the circle.

Privacy Note:

To decide who can see the people you have in circles or those who have put you in their circles, click on the Profile Icon.

On the left side of the screen you’ll see the words:

Change Who is Visible Here

Click on these words and it will bring up your options. I keep all my contacts visible because even though other can see who my contacts are, no one can see which circle I put someone in except me.

It’s totally up to you how you set this up. I like to find new contacts by searching who others have in their circles, but that’s just my preference.

This should give you enough to work with until we meet again on Tuesday. I recommend you take some time and become familiar with the different options on the circles screen. But be careful about creating too many circles. Keeping things simple helps keep things easy.

Be sure to post any questions you have.

And…don’t forget to join the conversation!

Blessings,

Edie