Google+ Masterclass 3: How to post, share and +1

How to post / share

There are two ways to post, either by clicking on “Share” in the upper-right corner of any Google+ page or writing in the text box under the word “Stream” on your profile page. Then simply type in your post. You can add a picture, video, link, or location to your post by clicking on the four icons in the bottom right corner of the text box. Then all you need to do is decide who you’re sharing the post with by selecting the circles or people you want to see your post. Watch this video for a demonstration.

 

Searching for Content

You can search for content, circles and pages by typing into the search box at the top of your profile. For example if I search ‘Breakfast’ – people, pages, recipes, circles and articles will appear in the stream of content that I can then interact with.

Commenting, +1 and other Google+ interactions

There are a number of ways you can interact with the content of others, +1, reshare, hangout, comment etc. Here is a video about reading and responding to content on Google+. The +1 is one of the most important interactions and the Google+ equivalent of a Facebook like. You can +1 content and posts you see on Google+, but also providing you are logged into Google+ in your browser, you can +1 things you come across in the wider web helping provide social recommendations across the internet. Here’s a short video that introduces the +1.

+ Mentioning others

It’s really important to +Mention people. This is like Facebook tagging. By +mentioning people in the body of the text, you can share a post with them. They do not have to be in any of your circles. If you +mention only the person and do not share the post with any circles or the public, then this is a private message to the person. You can also email someone and allow them to email you, to enable this functionality, go to profile, edit profile, change contact settings, then select ‘Allow people to email you from a link on your profile’ and then you can choose who is able to use this functionality.

How to respond to comments

Hopefully your posts will inspire people to respond and comment, you can manually monitor your posts for new comments by checking back on the post – or there is red number in the upper-right corner of the Google+ bar where you can see your notifications. When you click on that number, you’ll see notes about who commented on your posts, shared your posts, +1ed your posts, circled you, and messaged you. See here for instructions on how to edit the number and type of notifications you receive.

How to disable comments, lock posts and block people

 

With any post, you have the option to disable comments, or lock posts so they cannot be reshared. To do this, type your post and in the box below the text box add the people of circles you would like to share it with. To the right of your selected circles you will see a little arrow, click here and the option ‘disable comments’ and ‘lock post’ will appear. To block someone who is commenting inappropriately, hover over their comment with your mouse and a flag will appear in the right hand corner of their comment, here you are able to report abuse or block this person.

Masterclass 3 to-dos

• Write some G+ posts +mentioning BritMums
• Comment on others posts
• +1 and Share 3 things you like on G+ and on the wider web

 

See more Google+ Masterclass tutorials