Influence and Community Exercise

Support your fellow G+ users by providing detailed feedback, building your community, and being recognized as an influential poster.

Why is this important?

There are a couple of reasons why this is an important post to interact with:

1.) Namedropping is an action of appreciative reciprocation — I preach this all the time. Show appreciation for those people who make your G+ experience worthwhile. By tagging your choice, not only will they be notified of your appreciation (which is a good feeling whether or not they “require” it), but you will also drive other users to their posts.

2.) It will perpetuate the amount of good content in your feed(s) — When you tag someone, make sure you say why you are tagging them. For example, I’ll use a real example from my own feed:

+Daniel Treadwell–Daniel is one of my top 3 people because he runs group.as and diligently provides updates on his site’s progress. He is a conversation starter and influential person in my posts’ comments section.

By writing out what you appreciate about the poster, it lets the person you tagged know that “this is the reason I follow you, and I’d like to read more about this.” The ancillary function of this action is being a catalyst for crowdsourcing. Again, you’re helping out people who do something for you.

3.) You can find other interesting users — If people lead you to other interesting people, not only do you get THEIR suggestions, but you also have the chance to determine if that person will be an outlet in the future for finding other interesting people to follow.

4.) More people will follow you! — If this is something you’re interested in–showing that you are interactive with thoughts to contribute of your own–people will see that you might be a beneficial and interesting voice that they can add to their streams.

5.) “Accidental” Altruism — By contributing the above information, you are helping new people find people easier. There have been complaints of “my stream is too quiet” or “I am not seeing a lot of interaction” by new adopters. Well, that’s because they don’t know where to look. Now, you can help them by pointing them in the right direction. Warm fuzzies abound!

And don’t let Alireza’s 3-people limit stop you from listing as many people as you want (well… judgment call time on your part, probably not smart to do 10 or more without organizing them).

Don’t stop by just posting; re-share so people can add their 2 cents. The more information, the better.