I complained yesterday about the way you move in Google+ between your personal profile and business pages. I try to set this straight at the end of this post. Let me backtrack just a bit for now. I’m going to ignore yesterday’s complaints and just assume I don’t understand Google+ yet.
Anyway I want to be as positive as I can here. First let me say that it was extremely easy to set up a page. Somewhat easier than Facebook (although, once you understand the process, that is pretty easy too). The Google+ process does not have that distinctive Facebook techno-layer that makes you think you are doing something REALLY IMPORTANT and potentially INCORRECT when you set up a page. You know – the forms you have to fill in, the Captcha thing, the way you are shoehorned into a category, and a location.Google+ is easy and seems to make sense
Google+ has a lot of similarities, but somehow it doesn’t seem as objectionable. Even the process of getting a simplified, more user friendly URL is made pretty brainless.
Other than that, choosing profile and cover images is pretty similar. Once up and running the UI is simpler and less cluttered than Facebook, and as far as I know the choice of what to display and/or show to your followers is less mysterious than it is with Facebook.
Again, as far as I know, as with Twitter if you are following someone you get to see all of their posts. This probably depends on Circles, but I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. Facebook intervenes with EdgeRank showing your posts to some relatively small percentage of your “likes” – that percentage calculated on the basis of past interests, past interactions, and some evaluation of the worthiness of your post. Google+ has to be better than that.
Tomorrow, after a couple days of experimenting with posting to both my personal profile and a couple of business pages I’ll report on my experience.
Fig. 1
Multiple Pages and Identities
Just a word about my complaints of yesterday, namely that the distinction between personal profile and business page identities is unclear… I’ve experimented a bit and here is what I seem to have concluded:
1. As with Facebook when you click on the little account icon on the top right of the browser window you are shown your identity options. (fig. 1) In Facebook this shows you the pages you manage, and when you click on one of them you operate “as” the manager of that page. You post “as” that page. Comment “as” that page, etc. Once you are used to that approach it makes a lot of sense. Especially if you manage a lot of pages (like I used to).
Fig. 2 – Clicking on the Guitar icon opens up a new window.
Google+ is different. When you click on a page icon the page actually opens (which doesn’t happen in FB) and that particular browser window shows the icon for that page, and your activity in that window is carried on “as” that page.
That means you can carry on as (in my case) three different identities in different browser windows, all at the same time. Facebook doesn’t let you do that.
If you are used to Facebook the Google+ approach takes a bit of getting used to. Specific browser windows take on their own unique importance. Most other instances I am used to (like online banking websites) operate like FB does – when you’re logged in as “Joe” that login applies to all windows for that browser.
via:http://linknetsocialmedia.com/reflections-on-creating-a-google-business-page/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reflections-on-creating-a-google-business-page
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