Keep Track of Who is Following You: Find Conversations, Contacts, and Jobs

How being aware of your Followers can be a major benefit to you.

This is a quick tip: if you follow the instructions in the pictures, you can see the people who follow you and whether they’ve filled out their profile. A small piece of potentially useful information is available to you at a glance. That piece of information, for the most part, is the “Employed by” field (sometimes it is location, and sometimes it is school depending on which fields are filled out by the user.)

Mmm, ok great, why is this useful again?

1. Being able to quickly go through your followers and to add to circles from that window makes Circle curation a pretty simple process. I see that several of my co-workers are Following me? Boom–work circle. Lots of journalists reading my posts for some reason? Journalist circle.

2. Looking for conversations, collaborators, community? There are a lot of cool things happening on G+. One of those things is collaborative efforts by people engaged in the same activities: programming, visual arts, music, etc. Being able to search for people that are already following you is an easy way to start discussions based on similar interests, which could lead to collaboration. Also, open (i.e., public) discussions allow other people to become involved. Before you know it, you have started to create a circle of people who will interact with you regularly. The size and depth of those discussions attract others with similar interests–a micro-community or “G+ Tribe” (an idea that I had fleshed out about a month ago).

3. Looking for business contacts or a job? You might be surprised who starts to follow you if you regularly contribute to discussions on a specific topic. Let’s say you’re in the field of digital advertising. You contribute regularly to discussions about digital advertising. People will realize that you’re tapped in to the existing G+ community and they follow you. Alright, so you go into your Followers screen and start poking around. You see John Smith, and below his name is “Digital Advertising”. You click on his name to examine his profile a bit more, and all of a sudden you see that he works for a well-known digital advertising firm and he’s in the HR department. Or he might even be a “Recruiter”. Reaching out to that person may (or may not! You’ll have to examine their G+ activity and make a judgment call) help you learn more about working for that company, the atmosphere, and the environment. It could lead to a more substantial relationship that just may get your foot in the door.

3a. With that being said, know that your G+ action becomes a part of your resume.
3b. Be careful about how you interact. People have a knack for recognizing that you are using them. Some people don’t like that…
3c. This isn’t LinkedIn (yet).

3d. HOWEVER, many people in business may have their LinkedIn profiles listed. It may not be too invasive if you go to LinkedIn and try to contact them about a job there. Again, judgment calls that you have to make–but the opportunity is there.

Did I miss something? What other knowledge can be gained from examining and being aware of who is Following you? What are some of the cons?