Are you on Google+ yet?
If you are you have to check out the new communities feature. If you are on Google+ you can see the Communities button on the left hand side right under photos. Communities are basically mini forums on the Google+ site. You can search for a community or create your own.
I have created a couple of them and it was pretty easy to do. I would love for you to join my WAHM community https://plus.google.com/u/1/communities/104863207404877874801.
Since the communities are rather new there is a lot of room to be creative and get a good community going. Like Facebook groups, communities are a great way for people to network with each other. You can have great discussions, share with others and make some new friends. I like that the people in the communities don’t have to be in any of your circles. Although I like adding the majority of people I meet in communities to my circles, I don’t always like to add everyone. You can make your community public or private. Once you set it up you can’t change it which could be an issue down the line.
Communities are easy to use and a great way to interact with others. Communities are not new to the Internet of course. I first went online back in 1996 when I was still in high school. Back then we had AOL and they had their own form of communities. Groups of people who wanted to talk about similar issues. Things might grow and evolve on the Internet but communities are never going to go away. I am glad to see Google+ take part in them.
The big issues with communities is going to be spam. I realized this morning that I am going to have to work hard to keep spam out of my communities. The WAHM community I started is meant to be a place for discussion, not just a place to share links. There are communities for that but this one is not meant for just links. I have already had people come and just leave their links. I hate to play the bad guy but I did set up some rules and will have to delete the spam if it shows up. I did notice that Google+ will identify some posts as spam and not make them public unless I tell them to. I have joined a few communities to see them filled with spam and that makes me sad.
The big question is, when you post in a community, who gets to see it?
This is what Google+ says…
If I post to a public community, does that mean all my friends and followers can see it?
No, the posts you share to a public community will not show up in your friends and followers’ Home streams, unless your friends and followers are also members of the same community.
Your public community posts will be visible to people who navigate to your profile page unless you have set your settings for them not to appear. Visitors will see text indicating that it was shared to a community.
Remember that your private community posts will only be visible to people in those communities, regardless of whether or not you show community posts on your profile.
What I like about this is it is easy for me to decide what people can see and it doesn’t just go into other’s feeds.
I really think Google+ is going to continue to get better and better. I think it is a great place for people to be. And adding communities was a great idea. I plan to take full advantage of them.
Know any great Google+ communities I should join?
Circle me on Google plus if you haven’t already 
Image courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
That sounds pretty good Julie. I have made my account with google + but I don’t make use of it optimally. I agree with you we must create or have our community to share ideas and to exchange information. There are a lot of advantages we can get through communities. Google+ support us to be better in developing our community. Thank you for sharing this good idea.
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Hi Julie, I’m in a few and I could not stand all the notifications
But I do like the communities and miss them since not receiving the notifications. I would advise not to join too many as one can easily get overwhelmed if they join more than 2 or 3 communities there. I like that they don’t get into all the feeds too, excellent point!
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Hi Julie,
Thanks for the info on Google +. I’m just getting started with it and trying to figure it out so it’s great to be able to read what you’ve done with it. BTW I remember back in the days using AOL, dialup modems, etc. I have to admit I like how far we’ve come with the different things on the internet and where we’re at today.
Cheers!
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