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Google Plus has taken off like a bullet and hit twenty million users in just 24 days,

a feat that took both Facebook and Twitter over a thousand days to achieve.

They are now sitting at over a hundred million users and still growing.

With this impressive growth in mind Google+ might one day dethrone Facebook

as the largest Social Media network, but currently Facebook is still leaps and

bounds ahead as they close the gap to a billion users a little more each day.

In this report I share over 50 Google Plus tips and tricks that will help you get off

to a great start on this powerful new platform!

You Can Now Open a Brand Page on Google+

Google plus started out as an invite only platform, then shifted to be open for all

people to join, and now brands can join and open brand pages.

To open up a brand page surf to: https://plus.google.com/pages/create

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Import Your Contacts From Facebook

The easiest method to import your contacts into Google+ is to first export them

from Facebook using the Yahoo contact tool.

Facebook has been fiercely closing down all applications which were specifically

designed for this purpose.

To get your contacts out of fb sign in to your Yahoo account and follow these

steps to export your contacts so that you can import them to Google+

1. Go to your contacts tab

2. Select 'import contacts' option

3. Choose Facebook option

4. Check if you have all your contacts there

5. Go to your Google plus account and go to Circles

6. Click Find and invite

7. Select the Yahoo button and send the invites

8. Organize your invited friends into Circles

Many of your Facebook friends may already be on Google plus.

When you add them in Circles you may be surprised to see that many of them are

in this new Social network already.

HOW TO: Send a Private Message on Google Plus

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In the example above I am sending a private message to Robert Scoble.

Messaging multiple people at a time is easy to do, as is messaging groups of

people.

2. Add People to Your Circles

Surf to https://plus.google.com/circles and you can organize your contacts into

circles.

The drag and drop interface makes it easy to organize the people you follow into relevant streams.

Currently I use six circles and they are:

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Family

Friends

Influencers

Following

Extended Network

Entrepreneurs

People can’t see the name of the circle you’ve put them in, only if you have put them in a circle or not.

3. HOW TO: Mention Someone on Google+

You can add mentions in G+ by using an @ or + in front of their name.

Mentioning someone will cause them to receive notification of your mention.

4. Drag and Drop to Share

You can drag and drop media from your desktop into Google+ to share it with

your network.

To do this you have to have the edit window already open.

5. Edit your Photos With the Creative Kit

The Google Plus creative kit helps you easily edit your photos.

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Photo editing is too often a chore, but the Google+ creative kit is a fast and easy

way to make edits to your photos.

Screenshot of the Creative Kit

6. Easily Access Your Brand Page

Once you've set up your brand page, you access it through your personal Google+

profile.

On your home page below your name and avatar pic is a drop down menu.

Open this menu to see your page, click on it to access it.

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7. Create a Google+ Badge for Your Site

A Google+ page badge creates a connection retweet your website and your

Google+ page so I recommend you do this if you have a site.

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8. Hide Your Follower Count

While you're building your brand's presence on Google+, you might want to hide

your low follower count.

On your home page, click the "Change who is visible here" option.

You can now choose to hide how many people have added you to circles.

9. Rich Formatting

Use these symbols if you want the text you are posting on Google Plus to

be Bolded Italicized, or Struckout:

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10. Edit Comments

The ability to edit comments is one of my favourite features of Google+. You can

access this feature via the arrow in the top right of a post.

11. Setting Your Notifications

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You can adjust your notifications for Google+ by clicking the gear icon in the top

right hand corner of Google+.

12. Hack Your Profile Photos

With Gpluspic.com you can create a custom Google+ profile pic and even hack the

pics at the top of your profile page.

The ability to display photos at the top of your profile page is a great branding

tactic and gives a more custom look to your brand.

The photos that show up in this space are your first five Google+ "Scrapbook

photos".

13. Stop The Noise

You can select to mute a given post, from the notifications window as well. Handy

for those chattier posts you may have commented on, but don’t care to be

updated with every new comment.

14. View Your Profile As Another User

Test your profile from another users perspective.

Click on your name in the Google bar at the top.

Choose View Profile.

In the category bar across the top on the right there is a “View profile as…” box.

In that box, type a user for whom like to view your profile as. Presto! you are now

viewing as that user!

15. Get Google+ features in the Chrome browser

Share your favorite web pages, and get Google+ notifications from anywhere on

the web.

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16. Find Out What’s New In Google+

Google is making updates to Google Plus on a regular basis. Here is the page where all of the new features of Google Plus are posted.

17. Google Plus Keyboard Shortcuts

j: In the stream, you can click ‘j’ to navigate down to the next item

k: Navigate up.

@ or +: mention someone in a post

q: While on the Home tab, press twice the q letter on the keyboard to search and

add people to your chat list.

Space Bar: Scroll down stream.

Shift + Space Bar: Scroll up stream.

Tab: Scrolls through comments/users on a post

Enter: Hitting Enter when focused on a Post opens up the comment box.

Tab + Enter: End comment.

18. Create an RSS Feed of Your Google+ Updates

With the unofficial G+ tool PlusFeed you can easily create an RSS feed of your

public Google+ updates.

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Simply add a Google+ user number to the end of this site's URL to get an Atom

feed of your public posts.

19. Google+ Has Several URLs

Did you know you can find Google+ at various URLs? There's:

http://google.com/+

http://plus.google.com, and

http://google.com/plus.

In addition, if you type in http://plus.google.com/me it will take you right to your

own profile.

20. Notify People in Your Circles About Posts

Google+ offers a way to notify people in a circle about the post, without having to

add their Google+ username. This option is meant for small circles and is only

available for circles with fewer than 100 people in them.

To set it up click on the circle you're sharing with (shown in the image above) and

check the "notify about this post" box.

21. Find People on Plus

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Find people on Plus is a directory of people on Plus, sorted by many different

credentials such as location, occupation, etc.

Make sure to add yourself to the directory if you check this site out!

22. G+ Search

Search Public Google+ Content with this unofficial Google custom search engine.

23. GPhangouts

GPhangouts shows you where you can "Hangout" on Google+ by giving you an at-

a-glance overview of public Hangouts

This site also gives you the option to add your own Hangout.

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24. Group.as

Group.as is a directory of Google Plus users.

First you can view all groups to see a tag cloud of all groups that have been

created, then you can add yourself to the groups that are the most relevant to

you.

This website reminds me of the Twitter directory wefollow.

25. Shorten Your Google+ URL

Gplus.to is a simple tool that enables you to make a short link for your Google+

profile. Another link shortening service for Google+ that I use is plusya.com.

Plusya.com is another URL shortener (with analytics) you may want to use as well

or instead.

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26. Google Plus Statistics

By registering an account with social statistics (you can log in with your Google

account) you can start to track your progress in terms of how many people have

included you in their circles.

Once you register you will get a rank among all people who have registered for

tracking, which is currently over 45,500 people.

27. +Everything (Chrome)

With +Everything the Google+ bar follows you everywhere around the web so

that you can see if there are notifications waiting for you, or easily share any web

page or access any of the many different Google apps.

28. GTools+ (Chrome)

GTools+ add many useful features for Google+ services. You can:

Stick the Google+ bar

Translate posts

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Customize notification color

Change the Google chat place

Add notifications for Gmail and Reader, and more.

29. Google+Tweet (IE, Chrome, Firefox)

This app adds a Twitter tab to Google+.

30. Uncircle Inactives+

Uncircle Inactives+ is a plugin for Google Chrome that shows you all of the people

you have circled who are inactive on Google+ and have not posted anything in the

last thirty days, and makes it easy to automatically uncircle them.

Now that you know about this plugin you should try to post at least once a

month on G+ or you will run a greater risk or being uncircled by your friends and

followers who use it.

31. Color Plus (Chrome)

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Color Plus is a Chrome extension that lets you change the color of the Google Plus

bar because the gray is utterly boring.

After I installed this extension I changed the color of my G+ bar to blue!

32. Start G+ (Chrome)

Start Google+ is designed to help you jump right in to Google’s new social

network.

Here are a few things that the plugin can do:

Put your Facebook and Twitter streams inside your Google Plus stream,

complete with “Stream” links on the side and rich media

Automatically post to Facebook AND Twitter whenever you share

something on Google Plus (you can turn this on/off from within Google

Plus)

Add a Gmail inbox notifier to the top bar, so that you do not have to keep a

gmail tab open. Clicking on the Gmail icon shows a menu with the unread

messages that let you access your emails directly inside Google+.

33. +Photo Zoom

+Photo Zoom is a simple extension providing fast and simple zooming for photos

within your Google+ Stream.

Just hover over the image you wish to zoom and +Photo Zoom will load the

enlarged version of the picture.

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34. Get your Facebook Photos with Move2Picasa (Chrome)

Google+ syncs with your photos stored in Picasa.

That's good if you're a Picasa user, but what if most of your

photos live on Facebook?

Give Move2Picasa a whirl. It'll easily import them all.

35. Usability Boost for Google Plus (Chrome)

Usability Boost for Google Plus will help you visualize and focus on the content

within Google Plus.

Main features of this extension are:

Small CSS changes that put the focus on the content, separating visually posts and

comments

The Google/Notification bar stays at a fixed position on top so you’ll never miss a

notification again !

Displays a direct link to mute post

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36. Connect Twitter and Google+

Surf to ManageTwitter.com to access this easy to use tool.

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37. Cause+

Cause+ is a site where you can find active causes on Google+, and promote your

cause if you have one.

38. Plusya

Plusya.com lets users create a shorter URL for Google+ profiles and enables them

to share, track and analyze profile traffic.

39. The Unofficial Google+ Wiki

This wiki is a useful source for Google+ newcomers. The wiki covers posting,

managing circles, hotkeys and more.

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40. Google+ Counter

The slogan of this site is "helping you find people on Google+."

41. Helper for Google+

This robust extension for Chrome adds several features to the stock version of

Google+. These include:

Share Google+ Posts with people on twitter.

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Notifier - Get desktop notifications on new posts, also with sound. (mouse over

notification to freeze it)

Translate posts with Google Translate to language specified by you

Bookmark Google+ posts for reading them later. Faster and easier!

+1 public Google+ posts to aggregate them to the +1's tab of your Google+ profile

Bookmark posts on Delicious

Share posts on facebook

Linked hashtags in posts for better search

And more!

42. G+7 Google Plus Gadget

G+7 is a program that shows your Google Plus stream on your desktop.

This gadget is for people running Windows 7 as their operating system and want

Google+ in their desktop, and has many cool capabilities.

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For instance, it allows enlarging a particular story from a Google Plus stream feed

so that a person could view it in a large pop-up window for better visibility.

43. Extended Share for Google Plus (Chrome)

Google+ does not have a quick way sharing your posts to Twitter, LinkedIn,

Facebook, and Tumblr this extension will add a link “Share on …” to each post.

Once clicked, it will bring up an internal bubble asking you where to share your

post.

Future additions to this project will allow you to auto share with a single click

instead of going through the hassle of clicking multiple times, for a better overall

experience.

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44. Liquid G+ (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE)

Liquid G+ adds columns to your Google+ screen just give a magazine view style.

45. +1 Plus One Extension (Chrome)

This extension lets you easily +1 any web page.

Just simple as one click!

46. Plus Minus (Chrome)

Plus Minus allows you to filter your Google+ stream and view only posts from

people in the circles that matter the most to you.

47. Surplus (Chrome)

The notifications on Google+ are amazing, but to actually have them pop up on

your browser, you need to be on one of the Google websites.

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Making this more easy and helping Google+ get more addictive, this chrome

extension lets you access your notifications and make a new post anywhere on

internet.

This extension lets you check, read, comment and share without actually visiting

any google website.

48. Replies and more for Google+ (Chrome)

The replies and more for Google+ extension for Chrome adds links to posts in your

stream that make it easy for you to reply to the author of the post.

This plugin also makes it easy for you to share a post via Twitter, Facebook, and

email, and comes with several other features.

49. Instaport

Instaport is a simple two step process for exporting your instagram photos, so

that you can upload them to Google+!

Once your instagram photos are uploaded you can sync your instagram photos

with Google+ by using Picasa, but keep in mind before you attempt this that

setting up this process requires some tech savvy.

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50. Google Plus Widget

With the Widgets Plus Google+ widget you can show your visitors that you are on

Google+ and make it easy for them to connect with you.

I installed a Google+ widget about half way down my sidebar so check it out there

to see it in action!

Bonus Google+ Tips and Resources

Here is a post I created with over 50 awesome Google Plus buttons and graphics.

Hangout Canopy

Have you had the change to use Google+ Hangouts yet? If not, is it because you

can never catch anyone in a hangout? Hangout Canopy solves this problem by

keeping you in the loop and letting you know about new public Hangouts around

the clock. No longer do you have to wait for an invite or hope to find a cool

Hangout going on from someone in your Google+ circles. All you have to do is

keep an eye on the Hangout Canopy browser button and it will do all of the work

for you.

Getting Started

Since Hangout Canopy is simply a Google Chrome extension, it’s easy to get

started. Just download the extension from the Chrome Web store and you’re all

set.

Finding Google+ Hangouts

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If you’re already signed into your Google account, you’ll see a number on the

browser icon. This represents the number of Hangouts that are currently going

on. Clicking on the icon will show you those public Hangouts in the ‘Stream’

section of the window.

Clicking on the arrow on the right side will slide open a window over the stream

that lets you go to the Google+ profile of everyone in that Hangout. There is also a

Join button that you can use if you want to immediately join the party.

Keep An Eye on Favorites

The ‘Watching’ section is a great addition to this extension because it allows you

to add your favorite users who you‘d most like to hangout with. You can then

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keep a closer eye on them and know right away whenever they decide to create

or join a Hangout.

In order to add users to ‘Watching’ you’ll need to get their profile URL from

Google+. Now you’ll never miss your buddies again!

Random Fun

Finally, there’s the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that you’ll probably recognize from

Google search. If you just want to join a random Hangout, you can click on this

button to so do. The Google+ Hangout will open up in a new tab and just maybe

you’ll make some new friends!

Hangout Canopy also includes a list of the team members who are responsible for

this tool along with the Twitter timeline for the Hangout Canopy Twitter account

– if you’re interested in seeing what they’re up to.

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Conclusion

I hope the above tips and tools help to make your Google+ experience more

awesome than ever.

Share This Report

If you enjoyed this report you should share it with a tweet on twitter and of

course you should share it on Google+!

Cheers,

http://plusya.com/Garin