Google+ .. just another social media site?

So we have ourselves another social media platform. Google wanted in on the world of Social Media and thus, Google+ came into being.

Now, apart from having some trouble registering for Google+ (here I must thank Ben for his patient phonecall to me) I was perfectly open-minded and ready to see how it would work and be received. Mostly, I wanted to know if Google+ was going to be an effective tool for recruitment. These are my findings, so far:

Firstly, I don’t think there are enough people on Google+ for it to be used as a tool for recruitment yet– I know there are more and more people joining every day but there are also people getting bored with it every day. So far on my mini-feed, I haven’t seen too much quality content and any I have seen, I saw on Twitter first. Therefore, I am already guilty of not checking my Google+ too often and that’s only about 3 weeks in.

Having said that, I think that a few of the features lend themselves very well to potential recruitment and overall general business use. The ‘Circles’ for example, allow you to streamline your information to specific people and when sending out updates, your appropriately grouped people will see and receive what you want them to - this means less struggle for you to control what goes out to whom.

Leading on from this, the resulting control on privacy that this provides means you can quite easily keep the ‘social you’ and the ‘professional you’ apart, which can definitely become an issue on other Social Media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, making it difficult either for you to be recruited or for recruiters themselves.

And last week the something happened that perhaps others foresaw, but that I most certainly didn’t – the games appeared. Of course, straight away we all played on them and I lost a portion of time to enjoying myself with Poker or Bejewelled. It was all good fun but thinking about it afterwards with a non-Puzzle Island head, what it has mostly left me with is some confusion.

What is Google+ trying to be?

One moment, with the Circles and Hangouts, it seems to be veering towards a site that business can be easily conducted on and therefore is encouraging people to use it in this way. Then, you have games being introduced into the mix which is making it seem more heading towards a more relaxed, less serious site where people register to beat their friend’s high score and post pictures of them being crowned as the Diamond Dash victor. It seems to me that, at the moment, Google+ is trying to be all things to all people. With other social media sites, they all seem to specialise in a certain area; (though I realise I’m slightly generalising here) LinkedIn is for professionals to network for business whereas Facebook is geared towards people keeping up with their mates and messing around on games. So if Google+ can’t decide which audience it wants to appeal to, it will probably lose people as a result.

Saying this though, I am perfectly ready to see where Google+ is going, what it’s going to bring to the exciting world that is social media and how people will continue to receive it. Like with all social media, you have to be willing to put in the hard work and not expect super-quick results straight away. I look forward to watching what happens..

Comment by Tim Spagnola on August 25, 2011 at 12:00pm: Thanks for sharing this Emily. I am interested in hearing different perspectives on G+. I also agree with you that it is still unclear exactly what G+ is trying to be. Perhaps things will be a bit clearer once an business edition is released.

Comment by Paul Alfred on August 25, 2011 at 12:14pm: Thanks for the sharing Emily ... I have just spent 2 weeks building my circles starting with the most influential people on Google+ ( It's really a hangout for Geeks early adopters right now) - I have also started building a Recruiters Circle - and you have quite a few people who spend a lot of time on this SM Channel... I think it's still a little early so I have to agree with you some what ... You are also right that you really need to spend time building and investing in developing your SM Channel regardless Twitter fb or G+ ... There some ideas that do come to mind for Recruiters: You can build developer Hangout Circles:

Java Developers, SAP Funtional Experts Graphic Designers NYC and so on ... Perhaps even hold a Job review session in real time about your Client's Job Description ... The possibilities for G+ is endless.

Just a thought.... +Paul Alfred (Add me to your circle - I will circle back :) )

Comment by Tracy TC on August 25, 2011 at 2:40pm: I am looking forward to the day that G+ evolves to the point that I can consolidate most of my social media activities in one place, although I admit that it's hard to visualize at this point. In the meantime, Sparks is my favorite part of G+ and I'm content to sign in just for that purpose. If you haven't checked it out yet, Sparks is basically a place to set up something like your Google Alerts, but within a context where interesting articles can be easily shared. I currently have five Sparks set up to feed me all the current news on five topics that I blog and share news about.

Comment by Tim Spagnola on August 25, 2011 at 2:52pm: consolidate most of my social media activities in one place - with exception of the RBC of course ; )

Taking a step from Paul - feel free to circle me (sounds kinda silly, but had to try)

Comment by Paul Alfred on August 26, 2011 at 12:57am: Rayanne we can build and share with like minded people in our own circles.... :)

Comment by Emily Stevenson on August 26, 2011 at 4:01am: Wow, thanks for all the comments! So I'm quite surprised and heartened to see that pretty much everybody is doing as I am doing - 'wait and see' .. I don't really know what to do when people add me to circles and I don't know who they are. I'm not a particularly active member, (I don't even post my blogs on there, Rayanne! which I might do now..!) I check it about once a day to see if anything is happening so am rather bewildered about people 'circling' me.

Due to my confusion as to what Google+ is, I don't really know what I should be posting on there (be it blogs, business or trivial) so for now I guess I'm staying in the shadows..