Stop Waiting for Your Life to Come to G+

The importance of encouraging your friends and family to adopt G+.

So, Floodgate occurred — can we talk about it like that? The Floodgate? Is that right? Not like… the floodgates were opened… but like Watergate. Floodgate.

Anyway… Floodgate. We have a huge number of new users and I am still seeing a ton of people saying, “My friends and family aren’t here yet,” or “I can’t follow bands,” or “I’m bored here. I don’t have a use for it yet,” etc. etc.

Well, yeah. Totally legitimate reasons to be bored and disenfranchised. What I would like to suggest, then, is this: if you want those aspects of your life here, go ahead and try to get them. I mean, you might fail — you might say to your favorite aunt, “It’s fun! We can do Hangouts and share articles about __,” and she might say, “You know, it’s just too much for me to learn.” And yeah, that might happen.

Well, ok, keep on going. Go out and find your favorite local band. Let them know how easy it is to share a multimedia experience on G+. Talk about how people are exploring the platform, how they can reach a huge audience, and how they can find other bands and get fans in other countries… or do a Hangout concert like +Daria Musk .

(Minor digression: anyone interested in a local band sharing circle/community?)

Alright, so now you have those guys here. What else do you wanna do? “Well, I wanna show my best friend who moved across the country a bunch of my photos and movies… and yeah, he wants to reunite with our group of friends.”

After a little bit of work, you might start to see those things you miss from Facebook (that personal connection) come over here… and hey, that’s great if that’s what you wanted. The cool thing this leads to is being able to watch them branch out and discover new things (if that’s what they’re interested in doing) and it helps add to the overall community (if you’re interested in that).

You get the idea?

So here are a few takeaways:

1.) You’re going to get out of this platform what you put into it. It is my belief that if you’re putting forth real effort and you have a goal in mind, you’re going to increase your chance of finding value in the platform.

2.) Don’t wait for things to happen for you. This follows takeaway point #1. I feel that gambling on whether or not someone or something will fall in your lap is not your best bet.

3.) Reach out! Bring what you like about other social networks here!

4.) Google+ lends itself to exploration… and discovery. This is very important — you are able to find people all over the world and connect with them in a way that has previously been very difficult… forums exist, true. But how many do you need to join to accommodate all of your interests? Twitter — ok, but the limitations may prevent you from getting the most out of those connections… Facebook? Not really… it’s more of a personal thing, unless you’re looking for brands or celebrities, although FB isn’t too shabby.

This is by no means a complete list. I’m not promising this will work, nor is it useful for everyone. As my amiga +Christina Trapolino says, “Own your experience.” Make G+ into what you want it to be for you. But if you’re not willing to put in the effort to create or own your experience, don’t get mad at G+ for it, right?

Also, let me tell you this: when I’ve helped individuals in the past, using G+ usually gets easier after your initial energy expenditure. Knowing more people = more stuff = more discovery = new interests, and so on and so forth. It does get easier, and it does pick up!