Google Communities

As you have probably heard, Google has made some pretty big changes to its Google business services, you can find out more here, here and here.

Today, I want to talk about Google+ Communities.  

Now, I consider myself a Google Gal and use many of Google's tools including Gmail and Hangouts. 

I also have a Facebook page, Twitter account, and a website.

So, you may be wondering why I would need or want to use G+ with their Circles, Communities and Pages.  

Well, wonder no more, your answers are in  What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us  by Guy Kawasaki. In this great G+ tutorial, he provides a features comparison chart of common social media tools. Additionally, he reminds us an estimated 12 percent of our followers on Facebook can see our updates compared to the 100 percent of G+ followers who can see our post in their circles and or communities. 

Google launched community pages last week and many are springing up. G+ Communities are moving fast and furious – and they just make sense. In Martin Shervington’s recent post he describes the community pages as follows:

"A community is a group discussion forum, much like a message board. Unlike a message board though, communities are integrated with your Google+ stream depending on whether they’re public or private. A community page allows any member to post within that community. This allows for more centralized discussions on any given topic, rather than interacting on various posts in the stream that may be about a certain subject."

More from Martin here.

A Word of Caution 

This past week, Guy Kawasaki let his G+ followers know he had made a fundamental mistake with the APE: Authors, Publishers and Entrepreneurs  G+ Community when he set it up. 

He set it up as public but realized he should have set it up as "Anyone can request to join, but moderators need to approve membership," so that only members can see his community posts. His APE Community posts show up in his regular profile timeline and  in the timeline for anyone who is following him.

At this point, Google doesn’t allow you to change the G+ Community setting once it is set up. Many Community owners have run into the same issue and have been communicating, urgently, with G+urus to make a change. I am pretty sure they will address the issue in the near future. But, not soon enough for Guy who, like many other community owners who have made the same mistake, has deleted his original community and has a private APE G+Community now. I would love to see you there! 

If you plan to set up a community take your time, read each step thoroughly and follow this handy dandy chart.

Once you have your community up and running be sure to post it here.

I invite you to add me to your circles. Click the following link to circle Jo Miller on Google+

We are setting up some communities now and I will update this post once they are launched.

Do you have a G+ Community? Have you had a great experience on G+ Communities? Please tell us about it in the comments below.

Jo Miller, GPC