First of all, is anyone still using Google Plus? I can honestly say that I was NOT at all looking forward to maintaining another social network. I joined Google Plus because I heard that when it comes to sharing it really beats twitter. Or, at least it was the first couple weeks it was out. I do notice that people are RTing blog and news posts a lot less these days and I think that a lot of it has to do with long term use of twitter changing the landscape of how people feel about those they follow and the content they post. I have some other theories too…

But we’re not here for that right now!

I did join google plus, I started adding people to circles.  My main purpose for google plus was to enhance football conversations as a complement to my football blog. I tweeted to my twitter followers that if they want to be in my football circle to add me. So…people start adding me. I quickly note that some of the people adding me do not like football. I know this for a fact!

So…why were adding me?

Obviously, the answer to this is because they want to keep up with my non-football updates. But how would I know that? See, when someone follows you on twitter it’s easy for them to follow and unfollow if you’re content isn’t what they’re looking for. When someone adds you on facebook, they’re getting whatever you post to your timeline that is accessible to them. They know that they won’t like everything you post, and they’re not looking to do so.

But on Google Plus, you have NO CLUE why people are adding you. And it makes it a much harder social network to manage, especially if your plan is to be a one-trick pony.

The way I’ve tried to solve this problem is by creating a temporary circle I called “why did you add me?” I posted an update to ONLY that circle that said tell me which circle you’d like to be added to: football, social media, or general updates. This is a fine strategy except that most of the people in that temporary circle will never see the post. Should I repost? I don’t know.

The best way to achieve this goal is to tag the folks in an update so that they get a notification about it. That’d be fine if I didn’t have 106 requests.

What google doesn’t seem to understand, generally speaking, is that people want to be able to choose how they use a social network. This is the same problem that surfaced with google suspending accounts that don’t use real names. Why would I use my real name when everyone on the web knows me by “J Danielle?” For a supposedly groundbreaking social media site, there’s absolutely no respect or attention to the personalities that exist online.

Getting back to choosing how you use a site, there’s no fool proof or easy way to separate people in a way that lets “influencers” reach the right audience and also helps “audiences” get tailored content.

I have other issues with google plus as well, such as the SPAM. I mean who wants email notification that a spammer added you to a circle?

I’d be interested to see how others are using google plus? Is there a way to separate people appropriately that I haven’t found yet? if you can totally debunk my argument by showing me how to achieve my goal, that would be absolutely great.