What is Google+? Google+ is a social network and social layer for google services Some of its tools and features come from existing services and platforms, such as the Picasa photo storing and sharing platform. Some of the features are similar to other popular social networks and micro-blogging platforms.

Getting Started Fill in all of the required information. Click next step

Add a photo from your PC files if you wish. Click Create your profile Make a note of your email address. Click Continue to Google+

Circles are where your friends go Circles are where your friends go. In the main menu area, it’s called PEOPLE. Now in Facebook, you can create custom lists, but you accept a friend – and it just goes into the big pool of friends. Circles are an easy way to interact with different people from work, the community, or online. You can create as many circles as you’d like. People can be in one circle or many. If you click on the find people button, it will pull up suggestions for you. When you find someone you recognize, hover over their name. A menu will pop up and you can check off what circle you want to add them to. The little number on their profile explains how many friends you have in common. It’s perfectly acceptable to connect with people you do not know yet.

Posting on G+ Go to your profile button or your home button. type in what you’d like to say. If you have a link, just paste it in there and it’ll pull up a preview. You can scroll through the images (with the little arrows), just like in Facebook. You can also tag people. Where it says + Add names, circles, or email addresses, keep it public. Note that if you tag someone in your update, it’ll add their name after the public.

Pages Just like Facebook, you can create a page for your blog. Go ahead and hit CREATE NEW PAGE. When you want to post as that page, go to the top right where your profile shot is, and switch to your page. You can do many of the same things with your page as you can with your profile. People can’t +1 a profile, but they can +1 a page. It doesn’t mean they are following you though. They must add you to a circle in order to see your updates! Google Hangouts In addition to chatting and posting, you also have the option to start a hangout. A hangout is just like Skype, but you can have up to nine people talking at once. Hangouts have all sorts of great features like automated event notifications and the video gets published to YouTube so people can watch it later.

Liking in G+ On Google+, you ‘+1’ things that you like. It’s your way of saying you would recommend an article or status update. The +1′s are everywhere, just like the “like” button on Facebook. Have fun with it, and when you want to see all the things you’ve liked, go to your profile and look under the +1′s tab. You’ll see it all listed. If you want to see who has plus-oned a post you wrote, simply find the post and click on the little area on the top right-hand corner of the box (it’ll only appear when you hover). Click on VIEW POST ACTIVITY. You’ll see everyone who has interacted and you can click on their name and thank them!

Setting up Google My Business – this guide can be found at www. support.google.com/business

Terminology Circles - is just a way of setting up personalized social circles, whether they be centred around work or personal activities. Rather than share all updates with an audience of hundreds or thousands, Google+ aims to personalise sharing with smaller groups. This is a feature already available in Facebook though many users may just not know how to use it. Google+ users can also make public feeds visible to everyone (even those without accounts) and open to comments from other Google+ users. Huddle - is a group chat for phones. Rather than individually sending SMS messages, Huddle can pool them together to make a group chat which is still private to outside viewers, unlike Twitter. Hangouts - is just video chat and instant messaging. You know, the thing you can already do with Skype. The point Google+ seems to be making is that you don't always want to be available for chat, so when you step into a "hangout," you're signalling your availability. Sparks - is a suggestion engine that finds interesting Web items based on your interests. You can pick from categories of interest and share items you find with others in your stream. Instant Uploads