Part 3 (2/2)

Notes: I'm seeing a lot of value in Google+ as a real estate professional. I've created lots of video walkthroughs, and I've even hosted local Hangouts that I use as digital ”meet and greets.”

Takeaway: Being there between sales is the key to real estate professionals' use of social networks. By giving past customers, current prospects, and potential future customers some interesting ”connective tissue” in between transactions, there are many opportunities for connections and referrals, which are two of the four best parts of social networks and social media.

The Reporter.

Time Used per Day: 23 hours (Some days, I'm glued to Google+ and Twitter.).

Primary Goals of Usage: Source gathering, story building, and commenting Number of Original Posts per Day: 13 Number of Shared Posts per Day: 1215 (I share a lot!).

Number of Comments per Day: 1015. Connecting in the comments matters.

Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 12. I point people to my news articles and my video posts.

Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: 0 (Is that bad?) Typical Strategy: Be the source of news, or at least one of them. Show my human side, which is important, too.

Special Uses: Video Hangouts with prospective story sources. Team video Hangouts with my crew. I also use Huddle on my Android phone.

Notes: What matters most is to gather up elements for a story, so I do that a lot here. I find that having more sources helps, so I've circled people into categories such as Tech News and Boston, and Best Of (for my top-shelf commentators).

Takeaways: If I were a reporter using this service, I'd throw in a bit of off-topic conversation. Even a nightly newscast has the lighter news or the silly anecdote. I think some reporters and news professionals fear that adding their own voice to their stream impacts their sense of impartiality. Society has grown up. We know our reporters aren't robots. We know they have personalities. It's okay to share that on Google+.

The Sales Executive.

Time Used per Day: 1 hour Primary Goals of Usage: Networking and prospecting Number of Original Posts per Day: 13 Number of Shared Posts per Day: 710 Number of Comments per Day: 50+. Comments are where I spend most of my time. I might not always make new stuff show up, but I search out great profiles and comment on them all the time.

Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 0. I don't blog. But sometimes I link to things I'm selling or to people who need help. I'm a connector.

Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: Everything I do is off topic. Or maybe it's more that what I post I consider an important topic. I connect with people.

Typical Strategy: Build relations.h.i.+ps and keep them warm. Comment, comment, connect, comment, and connect....

Special Uses: I don't like Hangouts, but my sales team uses Huddle a lot. I stay active in the comments section, making sure that people know I find them interesting and making sure they connect to people who can help them. I'm at the elbow of every deal I can find on Google+, and as a longer-term effort, I think this pays off. The phone's suddenly ringing more often.

Notes: Not everyone has time to waste online all day. I'm never at my desk. But I do find myself sitting in waiting rooms while on sales calls ALL THE TIME, so when I'm there, I log into Google+ from my iPhone, and I post updates, and I live in the comments section. Sometimes, I share my location data, and other times, there's no way I want someone knowing I'm at their compet.i.tor's office. You must be smart about that.

Takeaway: That the sales professional doesn't like Hangouts makes sense. She has too much to do as it is, and sitting around on live video chats seems wasteful. The Huddle feature enables fast messaging back and forth, and that feels more reasonable for her time management. Remember, just because there are all kinds of features built into Google+, you don't need to use them.

The Educator.

Time Used per Day: 3 hours (or more!) Primary Goals of Usage: I'm running three courses online using Google+ as my collaboration platform.

Number of Original Posts per Day: 57 Number of Shared Posts per Day: 13 (if they relate to the courses) Number of Comments per Day: 30+ (I answer a lot of questions.) Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 1012 links to other sites and reference materials Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: 0, but only because I don't want to distract my students.

Typical Strategy: I use Google+ as a kind of digital cla.s.sroom in between my in-person sessions. I use it to post links to homework a.s.signments (everyone has a blog of some kind to post their longer a.s.signments) and use it for the Hangout feature quite a lot. There are more than 10 students in my cla.s.s, though, so that sometimes feels a bit exclusionary by nature. Recently, I decided to do it in s.h.i.+fts to alleviate that problem.

Special Uses: Lots of my students use Google+ to connect with current online leaders in the s.p.a.ces we talk about. When we recently wanted to talk about green automobiles, we found representatives from Nissan, Toyota, and Tesla Motors to talk to us.

Notes: Before this, we used an expensive and frustrating piece of collaboration software. I'm not sure how that industry hopes to compete with FREE, now that Google+ solves a lot of issues for me.

Takeaway: The potential for Google+ is huge for educators. It's not built as specifically as some education software, but what the platform lacks in specific-for-educator tools, it makes up for by creating fast and simple connections between people with no-cost and browser-based tools.

The Photographer.

Time Used per Day: 1 hour (sometimes more when I'm not as busy) Primary Goals of Usage: Share photos, attend photography Hangouts, and meet and talk business bits with others Number of Original Posts per Day: 20+ (if you count photo sharing) Number of Shared Posts per Day: 1015 (I share other great photos that I find.) Number of Comments per Day: 510 (For whatever reason, I don't comment as much as I should, but I press the +1 often.) Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 35 (I share links to my main site with every grouping of photos I post.) Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: 35 (That's the nature of the business. We talk about whatever interests us.) Typical Strategy: Nothing major. I just like sharing my best work. The critiques I get back often help me grow or inspire me to try something different. It's changing how I see my craft.

Special Uses: Naturally, I use the photo-sharing feature the most, but friends have shown me ways to make slideshows with music and upload them to YouTube, so I've started doing that, too.

Notes: I could probably get more out of Google+ than what I'm getting, but I think that the more I share, the more it's improving my work, so I'm not going to knock it. I like it more than Twitter and Facebook because I can see something immediately versus clicking a link on Twitter, and because it's a bit more open than Facebook. I don't use Flickr as much any more, except to post my photos. (Meaning, I don't comment as much there.) I feel like photographers are coming over to Google+ for more sharing and presentation.

Takeaway: Photographers are already using the site en ma.s.se. The sharing capabilities are giving people a nice way to present their work. I think where it will pick up is when photographers can set up business pages and invite people to engage and book new business.

The Business Executive.

Time Used per Day: 30 minutes Primary Goals of Usage: Reading, keeping up Number of Original Posts per Day: 1 (if that) Number of Shared Posts per Day: 710 Number of Comments per Day: 12 (I don't comment much.) Links to My Blog or Projects per Day: 0 (I don't blog.) Number of Off-Topic Posts per Day: 0 Typical Strategy: I use Google+ to keep up on interesting news and interesting people. I still use Twitter for this as well, and Google Reader, but I like the interface on Google+, and I'm getting a lot from my half hour of reading various links. I never EVER read the main stream or Incoming. It's too unfiltered. I have a few trusted sources that don't share animated gifs and cat photos, and I prefer their posts.

Special Uses: I'm using Google+ as an information hub and it's suiting my needs quite fine. It hasn't replaced anything (maybe someday, I'll stop using Facebook), but it gives me a different view than what Twitter alone gives me.

Notes: One of my social media managers complained that I don't post original content and that I'm not ”joining the conversation.” I don't want to join the conversation. I'm using it like a news reader. There is nothing wrong with this usage.

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