G+ allows us to post reasonable length posts, but more and more people are going back to the old ´read my blog, here is the link´ style of posting.
In the early beta-phase of G+ this was quite common, but when people noticed you get more traction by posting the full text here, the amount of spammy links went down.
At that time in summer 2011 I argued that linking to your own blog was not really different from linking to other products or services. The content might be very interesting, but what´s the difference with a nice bargain for a new phone or a link to a headhunting service? The intention is always to get reader impressions and usually to monetize them as well.
Nowadays lots of people seem to have gone back to blogging and link dumping on G+ with just a few lines of introduction.
Do you follow blog links from G+ posts and do you consider that worthy posts in itself; different from links to other products or services?
and if you went back to blogging yourself, do you get the same interactivity you got on G+; is it a move which pays off? #SocMed
I personally think that the best way is to post some unique information that adds to the blog entry, and then link to the blog post for those who want to read the full story. That's the rule I enforce in all the communities I moderate
I don't follow very many, unless it really looks interesting, or there's a reason for it, like a gallery of images, for example.
Interesting question – one of the things that we need to remember is that we have been encouraged to verify our authorship and to link our website to Google + as well as to make our website content rich.
If your blog is hosted on blogger, which belongs to Google then as soon as you have created your blog post you are automatically encouraged to share it on G+ (a window pops up as you publish your blog) which would suggest that Google want us to share our content here and that we are completing the circle between websites, authorship and G+?
I agree that pure link sharing is not a great way to go but if you have written an informative post and is relevant to those you are connected with here on G+ then it would seem like a great way to add value for people by sharing your posts?
For me dump sharing links, as in – add the link to a post and say "read my blog" is not a great way to go and a lot of people are doing that which I think is tantamount to spray and pray tactics. But if someone adds some relevant information into their share here on G+ – tells people why the post is of interest and why they may potentially want to click the link to find out more then that is what social is about and is not a spammy tactic…… Just my thoughts 🙂
Good point +Carol Dodsley – Google does make it very easy and in fact pushes bloggers to post and share links, so yes, it might seem that they want to encourage such posts with links
I don't follow them unless they've given me a good reason to. The post has to be more than just a link.
I'm with +Scott Wilson — on my blog I can add the photo at the place relevant to the text — a feature that posts here still miss.
(I'm using blogger)
Im happy to get the info here when my (maybe new) friends post something new in their blog. I can still decide if it's worth my click or not.
I find other types of posts here more annoying, but that's a matter of taste.
I know and understand your motive +Scott Wilson +Micha Fire and I find it a nuisance as well that you don´t have proper formatting on G+, but do you get the same interactivity when blogging and linking compared to the ugly formatted but full text version on G+?
I erase them all from my community if the don't have an extant and proper introduction and uncircle if they keep adding and messing up my stream. ..
If the subject is interesting, I always follow the link to the blog post.
The advantage of sharing links is that you can share the link on multiple platforms and let them all point to the same content that is formatted how you wanted it, using multiple pictures, videos or other embeds if necessary. Plus, you can measure statistics on your blog posts, which is something you still cannot do on G+.
+Max Huijgen the interaction is the same for me on posts from my blog or direct posts here.
And on my blog I also get some new readers of old and very old posts; that does not happen in G+.
+Max Huijgen I think this actually has some algorithmic implications in the way that Google ranks your page. If you want to have a high page rank with your blog, it is important to drive traffic there. Since such a small percentage of my readership is on Google+ compared to what I see on my blog, I would rather direct comments and traffic over there.
This is where the notion of integrated Google+ comments becomes a very desirable feature. Until then, I'll continue to thoughtfully post links to my blog post.
I took a lot of time to develop and curate my website, there is no reason to abandon it just to encourage more comments. That's my bread and butter, this is just another means of networking.
I generally try to do an additional post of a blog entry with the full text here on g+.
It's a pain to do, because the italics don't cut and paste well. I include a link to the blog itself, for the rare occasion a reader might decide the content worthy enough to go to the blog and click an ad to help me make ends meet.
Yip I played around with So.CL +Mark S but I was not too happy with it.
Basically I want people who I follow to share content with me. Following link bait is often a disappointment and as I have about 90 notifications every time I wake up, it´s also next to impossible to follow all these links.
I have to open a new tab for each one to keep my ´notification stream´ in order.
+Peter G McDermott I understand, but as you mention the bread and butter, how does a link dump differ from other commercial links aka spam?
I see it as no different from posting here on G+, +Max Huijgen. I'm guessing you'll disagree with me on this. But think about it: when it comes to posting original content (as opposed to sharing others' work), both are attempts to garner attention for your content. Remember all the discussions last month about PageRank for profiles here? How different is that really from PageRank on other sites – and the motivations behind them?
With Google+ Comments now deeply embeddable in external sites, I find that the line between off-network engagement and on-network engagement is getting fuzzier and fuzzier.
If it's good content and relevant to my interests, I will definitely click through to check out other's writings on their own sites. And I'm hoping the same is true for my content.
What does get really annoying is when you have people just link-dumping in communities with no intent to engage people in conversation.
My two cents…
+Scott Wilson +Peter G McDermott there is a WP plugin which does a seamless integration between G+ and blog comments.
Doesn´t change my hesitation in following links, but for a content provider it might make sense to use it.
+Gideon Rosenblatt I must admit that I read less of your content now that more is placed outside of G+.
Not a matter of principle, but convenience and a slight annoyance that I have a notification leading elsewhere.
:_
That's my situation too, +Scott Wilson, so I pretty much agree with you on the tie-back to monetization. It feels more spammy, but then, that is how some people make a living.
+Max Huijgen it's great question mate. I do post articles here on G+ – biut did more 20 months ago. I then changed to splitting my posts up – as many are TL:DR – posting half here and half on my blog.
Since taking over at +imassera (where we don't sell anything) I post a title, intro text and link – but don't link dump in other peoples or community posts.
I'm in agreement with +Gideon Rosenblatt – as we've fully integrated +Brandon Holtsclaw's G+ comments plugin into our site – which means now that I actually see the site as an actual extension of G+
The other reason of posting a link here is the potential future benefit of visibility in search – having experimented with what works best (at least for me) I can post here and gain visibility in Google Search – or I can post an article on a site, post a link on my G+ page or personal profile and gain additional visibility – as well as occupying some Knowledge graph real-estate on Google search…
I'd be interested in hear people's thoughts further …
+Max Huijgen I guess my question for you is what do you consider "link dumping" vs. thoughtful sharing?
https://plus.google.com/108541235642523883716/posts/Qe1agox3J1y
Is that spam to you?
I understand, +Max Huijgen. I just find that I am able to communicate much better on a blog for many of the reasons people have outlined above. The other thing is that it's really, really hard to build context and connection between related ideas here on G+ – and much easier to do on a site where you control the look and feel, the linking, etc.
Another point that I think is important to bear in mind is that RSS seems to be slowly dying as a notification framework. Google's pulling Reader, and its lack of support for FeedBurner both point to a somewhat questionable future for RSS. People are increasingly using social networks to stay connected to sites.
+Max Huijgen I think, if anything, you might be missing the point of Google+.
This "network" as we call it is way more than a network, but a social fiber that we can use to weave between our other streams of content.
I take photographs, I write posts, I even post videos, but not all of them are meant to be consumed right here or their context would be lost. In order to keep it together, we have separate homes for those things and I look at Google+ as a way to keep everything in sync, but in its own place.
With Google+ comments in Blogger, my Google+ followers can comment there as easily as they can here and read my content with better formatting. That's a good thing. With that sort of feature, I am less convinced that linking to my blog is just link-dumping. As you may have noticed, I pretty much dropped blogging for Google+ posts because of the high level of interaction on this service. But now I think of Blogger as a better-formatted version of specific content intended for my Google+ audience. At the same time having Google+ comments on my blog encourages others to follow me here, so it's kind of a win-win, since non-Plussers will be exposed to the great conversations on the blog.
+John Blossom I can't wait for that to really work with WordPress and other CMSs
To reinforce my point, take a look at my blog, http://www.petergmcdermott.com, my business, http://www.mcdermottmedia.com and my Google+ profile and tell me if the +profile has any means of organization or sense in my stream of posts.
Like others have said: If I am to click through and read a blog post on any platform, the link poster has to hand me the link as well as a compelling reason to click it, or I'm gone.
If people can't be arsed to present their content in a meaningful way (no matter if they wrote said blog content themselves or they're promoting someone else) I am lead to believe it is not worth presenting properly, and if the sharer of the link don't want to spend any time on it, why should I?
If I click through, I do so because I am somehow, via the presentation of the link, led to believe that what's "behind door no. 2" is relevant to me and my interests and of a decent quality.
I don't mind people linking to their blogs instead of writing in here at all, but if they want me to actually follow them actively on little trips into the bloggosphere, they'll have to work for it.
I tend to post the full text of posts from both matthewgraybosch.com and starbreakerseries.com, +Max Huijgen , with permalinks to the blog posts at the end.
I don't usually like to read long G+ posts and prefer to click through and read an article on a blog. I have my reasons…
🙂
The troublesome thing to me is the all or nothing that I see from too many people on Google+… and I'm seeing it in this thread. There is an assumption that there is no social media life outside of Google+ for the distribution of information and/or thoughts. It's as if a segment of people expect writers to only care about the Google environment and I find that absurd. There are many of us who have a vibrate social media life on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. We have blogs. We're supposed to either tailor our blogs to fit the views of some on G+ or we are spammers?
I reject that categorically. As a previous poster noted, it is quite clear that Google has intended those of us using Blogger to do just that…. blog. They want us to share on G+ and that is why they gave us the tools to incorporate G+ comments in our blogs.
I've read many many times here that a post is too long so they won't read it or they will read later… which of course they won't.
Some people incorporate some of their blog post here. Some use most or all of a blog post here and perhaps link at the end. Some just use a few sentences and link to the story. If you don't want to go to the link, then don't, but it doesn't make the blogger a spammer/ I respect the blogger who actually wrote the post more because they created it instead of just resharing someone elses photo.
+Scott Wilson Exactly. I'm a nobody blogger with no real following. If you dig me, great. If not, there isn't anything I can do about that.
Since integrating comments into my blog, I find it much more natural to "introduce" my posts on G+ and let people explore in more detail at the blog if they want. That may not work for all topic areas but it seems OK for my 'cycling adventures' blog and I feel like I'm getting more views. If Google+ could support blog-style posting directly, I would certainly reconsider what I'm doing in blogger.
+James Barraford I´m not trying to force people to post full text on G+, and personally I´m not interested in what Google wants us to do with Blogger.
I wonder however how the distinction between the different kind of link baits can be made. How to define spam?
+James Barraford Touché.
As much as I love G+ and basically live here and post here exclusively, I am with you on this. There seems to be a big almost secterian segment here. So many judgemental diciple.
People can be such snotnoses.
I see people pressured by those types, starting to refer to Facebook as the other network and apologise openly in the OP if they are linking to an Facebook group or something.
Still, some zealot or other will jump into the comment section with some smartass holier-than-thou comment about blue pills and red pills or some such. 😉
Fortunately, I don't see that happening with people's blogpost links. Well, very seldom, at least. 🙂
+Peter G McDermott I checked your post and it´s just a call to follow the link.
As an exception I did, and the text could just as well have been placed on G+ in its entirety. No crucial formatting; I could have read it more conveniently on G+.
It didn´t add value for the reader to be posted elsewhere. So it´s the very defnition of link bait.
+Max Huijgen To each his own.
Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion though, I think I might even turn this into a blog post. Too bad you'll have to click the link to read more =P
I think there are times when it is no less than appropriate to link back to the blog. The blog can contain a lot more mixed media that may be integral to the story and G+ limits the amount of media that can be included in the post.
People generally don't appreciate a list of URLS and you can only include one YouTube video. With an extension you can provide another clean link which makes for a tidy post and certainly you can post a portfolio of images or incorporate a slideshow via Google Drive.
I don't see any real value in expending drive space to make a post and I notice the stream can pull a bit when a few people that you follow in the stream post multiple images in portfolios. Especially now that size limitations on photos have been lifted. Sure, you can resize all of your images for the post. But, by the time you complete all of that nonsense, Chrome has updated, there is a new TOS and Google has implemented new search tools.
Ain't nobody got time for dat!
+Max Huijgen I understand you aren't. Others though feel different on the subject as I've seen in other threads as well.
There was a classic Twilight Zone episode starring Donna Douglas (Ellie May on Beverly Hillbiillies). She was what we would consider beautiful. To those living in her world though, she was ugly, an object of scorn and ridicule. That is how I see the issue of spam. We can ask 100 people and get 100 different thoughts. I suppose in the end that's why I feel people need to let go of some of their judgments on the issue.
If someone is posting too many links that in your view is spam… cut bait. We are never going to come to anything remotely like a consensus on the issue, but it is interesting to talk about and maybe learn a thing or three. Speaking for myself, perhaps instead of just a couple of sentences when sharing my latest post, I could throw a quote or two from it in here.
+Dirk Talamasca Ding ding ding! You hit the nail on the head.
I do follow blog links if given a succinct intro. Do I become another statistic in their bounce rate? Maybe.
Would I post in a similar fashion if my blogs were up and running? Absolutely!
+Peter G McDermott and others, do remember this is in no way intended as an attack on what people do.
i couldn´t care less.
All I have to decide is if I want to actively follow people who mostly post links to their blogs. I´m considering unsubscribing to some people I used to follow as they went the link way.
However my question was how others feel and how much sense the choice for a ´follow the link´ strategy makes.
Having a blog to keep things together and cross-posting everything is a different question. Hell, even if I do it 😉
+Peter G McDermott I followed your link too and don't consider it spam. I wouldn't click through on it, but I definitely don't consider it spam.
Link baiting yes, definitely – but every link I post here has a bait text too. Only difference is, it's not for content made by me but by someone else.
I see absolutely no problem in your way of doing it.
As long as it's not all you do – which I know it isn't. 🙂
There are unexplored and even very new reasons for these things happening more often.
Without going into detail… I see opportunity.
Massive opportunity.
Look to the cause and not just the "monetary" or "self-promotion" reasons for this activity.
+Max Huijgen I agree that if people post that way all the time that it is (I don't know if I would go so far as saying SPAM), an annoyance which basically works out to be the same thing as SPAM
I certainly think there are times when you must link back to the blog because a straight post cannot provide all of the information that you'd like.
+Max Huijgen I do get it that if you check a profile and 75 percent of their posts are links to their blog it's offputting. That person usually doesn't stay in my circles, not because of their blog linking, but the lack of anything else. Same as the non-bloggers who post nothing but links.
+Dirk Talamasca I use the word spam to provoke thoughts 😉
All too often people think a link to a photography workshop or an ad supported blog is ´nice sharing´ while a link to a really good deal on Amazon or a good recruiter will always be titled spam.
I love your question, and here are my thoughts, I read 'some' of what is here, but I just didn't have time to read it all
I post links, and I don't call it "Link Dumping" because always I will have a great introduction to it – and I think that it is not Spam, as this is supposed to be a place (for me) where we "Share" our lives
My life includes SO MANY interests – in and "Outside" of the world of Google – one of those is a BLOG that happens to actually be HOSTED by Google (Oooo, a wrinkle)
Would Google find it Link Bait? For me to ask people to go to a Blog that is on Blogger? They want traffic there too, they make money on it, in fact, I spoke with a Community Developer who agreed that there needs to be support in Communities to have this supported (And turned on or off by moderators) because Google wants to know where else you go
Google doesn't want you to just stay here, heck, they would make no money at ALL if you did, at ALL, and the more we force people to sit inside this bubble, the MORE we will shoot ourselves in the foot
HOW? How do we shoot ourselves in the foot? If you don't allow links, and follow them, then advertising Must come inside the walls of G+ if you won't leave the walls of it
+James Barraford that´s what triggered the post. The observation that people I used to follow (often subscribed to their posts) went back to link dumping with some bait intro.
Sometimes I wonder whether there's just a fundamental difference in people's assumptions about what the user model is here on Google+. You've got some folks who tend to see G+ as an evolution of the world of discussion forums, whereas others see it more as a social network like Twitter or Facebook. Both are actually true. +Max Huijgen, rightly or wrongly, I put you into the former camp.
I have a blog under Blogger. At the end, it asks me if I want to post in Google+. I just write a short (one sentence) description with it — as I don't really want to copy/paste it and have it exist two places in the digital universe. But, I don't get many comments (most are "anonymous") either place — on G+ or under Blogger. Close to reaching 1,000 pageviews but I'm definitely not in the top echelon (yet).
Certainly +Gideon Rosenblatt I´m the long time champion of Google as the #MOAF (Mother Of All Forums),
but that´s not the issue.
I would raise the same questions for Twitter or FB link baiters (to coin that phrase).
+Max Huijgen
13+ 62 comments and counting on this thread. If I regularly had that on my blog I would be amazed! My co newsletter is opened by 1000 people each time I publish. About half will go to the blog to read something in more detail. Comments – not really.
The real question is – why is it so much easier to find a tribe of people who interact on G+. They don't just comment – they converse with each other in the thread and unlike facebook they very rarely have a physical connection.
This is more than interesting.
I think it is the issue behind your issue, +Max Huijgen. 20-25% of tweets are what you might call link bait. I call it "information networking" – i.e. getting information to where it needs to go. So, for me, the links are useful and a critical aspect of why I'm here on G+. But if your assumption is that the purpose of this place is discussion, then that's definitely not the case.
Again, I think it is a poor phrase to coin, as it puts a negative connotation to the practice, when it is just a different practice than you prefer
but as you can see, many prefer the other, it is just choice, not one or the other being better, and Thank Goodness for Google giving us the opportunity to do both
I love outside links, I want to learn as much as I can, from as many sources as possible, whether it be +Charles Summers 's blog, or some amature Scientists experiments, or what…
Not only that, textually, all I can do is strikethrough, italicize or Bolden
My audience is from all over the world, some don't have Google, but even if all were on Google, they enjoy my 'style' that can't be expressed here, I am after all an artist
Ahhh, I see that you are pointing out those that have far more devious purposes in mind +Max Huijgen. Those are pretty easy to spot and yes, I uncircle them. However, I do admit to keeping a couple in my circles that continue to post in this fashion even though I have offered some gentle advice on how they might make their posts more effective. They have nice blogs, they are very kind people but they clearly want to drive people directly to their blog to register a hit.
I have not seen their posts receiving many +1s or getting a great deal of reshares by going with that format. But, I have seen them complain that they receive more traction on a Facebook page than through Google+.
+Max Huijgen Good question. I tend to ignore blog links unless it's from friends or trusted sources. If there's no summary or preamble, then more so.
+Karen Peck getting comments is easy on G+
Having just 16 plusses on a multitude of comments is my trademark 😉
+Joost Schuur have you seen this post & discussion?
It's exactly about what we discussed recently re post guidelines for the London community.
In addition to thing mentioned above I really wish blogger posts put the full text, already formatted into the G+ post when you shared it. If they did that I'd probably move all my WordPress blogs over.
I'm suddenly not feeling alone after reading some of these posts in regards to comments at my blog. Before G+ added the commenting I almost never got comments unless a very controversial story. After Google added the commenting I'm seeing more comments but it's still topic driven.
My post two weeks ago about the right to a trial in America had +120 or so and about 150 comments out of 500 views in two days. My Grateful Dead post the other day had over 800 views in first two days (I know, I know, for a real blogger that is a joke, but for me it was a lot). Of those 800 views not one comment. I had several on FB from friends. I even did at a concert site. So obviously people liked the story enough to go to it, but didn't feel the need to comment.
My wife asked me how often I comment at blogs (I read over 75 a week) and I said maybe once a week, twice a week. She said… well.
Are we trying too hard to get someone to read what we took the time to write?
+Gideon Rosenblatt I find the information networking most effective when – like this post – it creates an exchange of ideas.
Blogging is broadcasting while my usage of G+ is networking through communication.
Just checked my score at the Google Analytics equivalent for G+ +CircleCount
Average numbers for the latest postings:
28 comments per posting
32 reshares per posting
87 +1's per posting
That´s a lot of networking and interaction going on and don´t even belong to the people with an enormous following count.
Actually, +Max Huijgen, this is a discussion; a back-and-forth conversation with people hashing out ideas. It's super useful and it's one of the things G+ is really good at. But the other thing that it's good at is connecting people to content that lies outside of G+ that would be of interest to them. This is where the shared interest graph comes in, and it's a big part of why this network has value too.
Links are not to bad on a computer because my browser will just open another tab but on a Mobile device ( phone or tablet) it's just to damn annoying.
+Gideon Rosenblatt Exactly, but each mention of this doesn't seem to get far. Links are a very important part to the overall plan of Google, and to most of us, I would hate for Google to become just a forum of thought
Oh yes, wow, do I enjoy having these internal discussions that go on here, and how G has separated itself from any other place as being highly intellectual – EVEN more so we should not shut out the interests of the rest of the world, and the knowledge gained from it, if Google did, it wouldn't be Google
And this talk of how many shares per posting, and numbers this and numbers that – I learned a long time ago, a lot more important is enjoyment factor –
I only know my largest numbers, I can't break them down, but I can say, my outside sources, my Blog – My Photo Gallery – and my Home Page – All get lots of comments and action, bot from Google, in fact it is 90% of it, but I still get HUGE interaction outside – I do well – when I link my blog in here, my interaction goes up, if I don't, if I forget, it doesn't drop, it just doesn't get Peaks, so not a big deal
The point is choice, and fun, that is all
The only reason the content lies outside of G+ is that people create this artificial barrier in the case of blogs +Gideon Rosenblatt
If your content would be on G+ it would be read more and through follow up discussions have added value.
I think a lot of it is the orientation of the post. This post was a question — and it was related to the forum. Questions SHOULD get more comments if the questions have any reason to exist. My blogs are "just" informative — I don't expect comments unless I really screw something up. Still, I would like to get some dialog going — if only to find out what interests people.
By the way +James Barraford unless you've set up GA on your blog, I think those numbers are probably quite inflated. I see 2x to 3x more pageviews reported by blogger vs. GA.
+Gideon Rosenblatt I have to ask you, since I can 'tie' my comments, in my blog, to G+ (So can you) I think we get what he is speaking of no? But the best of getting "To people who don't have G"
Again sir +Max Huijgen you don't speak to the inability of G to allow for blogging, there is no rich text, there are no multiple picture management, word wrap, paragraph management, anything, and if anything, WE, us bloggers, attract people To G+ because of our blogs being outside, but we often talk about G, and have multiple links to it
You don't speak to these things why?
+Brian Titus So I suck even more than I thought I did.
+James Barraford you're kicking my butt, that's for sure!
+Brian Titus That's with GA, btw. I'm in a weird place because my site was an offshoot from a place I was one of the creators of – Media Tapper. Then I created CP and had several of us writing. Then it just became me. I moved it to blogger and my wife is now doing some food stories as well.
I think as long as one is happy with what they are doing, whether it's 5 people or 500 people reading, it's all good.
I agree with the poster who used the NY Times as an example.
Excellent thread +Max Huijgen
+Max Huijgen re:"I wonder however how the distinction between the different kind of link baits can be made. How to define spam?"
Let me save you the trouble… it's ALL spam… 🙂
Sorry, will have to "draw you off-site" to quickly and easily (ha!) substantiate my point, since G+ also doesn't let me post inline images/diagrams in the comments here… to keep it on G+, I'd have to write my own public or shared post and notify you there just to provide extended, multi-media commentary here…
-> onthespiral.com/unifying-value-universe (by +Gregory Rader, please also by all means see the diagram on the post, it is most instructive )
"…The key to unifying these disparate definitions is understanding that the attention economy as an inherently unstable domain. Both types of contributors use the same mechanism (attention) to parlay their contributions into interactions belonging to an adjacent quadrant. *In other words, everyone in the attention economy is marketing.*
Traditional marketing is attention acquisition intended to motivate monetary transaction. Social media participation is attention acquisition intended to motivate movement into the relationship economy, for example by networking with potential collaborators.
Contributions to the attention economy are only rarely intended to motivate perpetual activity within the attention economy. Few people aggressively pursue the exchange of intangible value with weak ties as their ultimate goal."
—
So the only question then is, is the spam useful to you in some way? Some sort of direct ROI (rare), a vague sense of being better informed (headfakes a notion of ROI, like most non-financial news media, actually), or at least being entertained (for which there is a near endless pool of substitutions… hence the monetizability has been trending toward $ZERO for 5-10 years now).
Your spam, Sir, is more often useful to me than not. 🙂
As to all of the other questions about G+ UI/UX many problems people are legitimately bringing up (formatting, asf.), and the by now labyrinthine flaws of the entire site/service structure, with Communities pasting over the Circle metaphor, interacting oddly with Notifications, and e.g. no way to add a community to a Circle to hone/curate signal (just found myself flabbergasted by this again yesterday when I wanted to make a comprehensive Google Glass related Circle for monitoring):
"Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage." 🙂
/cc +Alexander Becker
+Karen Peck re:"13+ 62 comments and counting on this thread. If I regularly had that on my blog I would be amazed! My co newsletter is opened by 1000 people each time I publish. About half will go to the blog to read something in more detail. Comments – not really.
The real question is – why is it so much easier to find a tribe of people who interact on G+. They don't just comment – they converse"
—
I might be able to help you with that. My basic UI/UX steps/controls rule of thumb is that each additional one costs about 50% compliance/"conversion". So that's in line with what you're seeing for the click-through on the newsletter, 1 step, half the people might do it (actually, you're pretty lucky if they do at all).
Now comes the interesting part: On most blogs and comment systems, unless you are already logged-in, you have to engage on what amounts to 3, 4, 5, or even more steps to comment (even possible Captchas…), ON TOP of the 1 (or more depending on length and detail) step of commenting itself, and the step (again 1 or more depending on length and detail) of reading through more than the headline/intro paragraph, and possibly the other reader comments.
So the compliance goes way, way down. If you start with 1,000, by theoretical step 10 (this is obviously not exact, but the point is the trend) you are down to 1 reader who may be ready to comment.
On G+, at least there are no login, etc. procedures or any extra steps to take, so a quick comment is literally "Write 1-3 sentences. Click "Post". = 2 Steps. On top of that, there is the vague notion/hope on a social/interest network such as G+ that people will be more likely to click through to your profile and/or add you if your comment is interesting enough. Which of course happens. That's happening at least at rates a lot higher than on people clicking through on blog comments' commenter URLs, and then taking a few more steps (Q.E.D.) to subscribe there via RSS.
My feeling is that that's the real reason why people participate at somewhat higher rates, that they feel (largely unconsciously) a certain greater equity and fairness in this set-up: "It's a (sort of) public space that we're all just conversing in."
If despite this advantage, there are tons of accounts on G+ with very high follower-counts, but less engagement than Max is famous for, and they get as low as 1 in 10,000 followers engagement action rates, 0.01%… 1 in 1,000 is about the norm here, and 2 or more in 1,000 is actually quite remarkable.
I think everybody's G+ stream should be "the world according to me."
It should replace a personal blog. But if people also have a professional blog of some kind, that's part of the world according to me.
If a person's stream is nothing but promotions to an external blog, they're not going to get many readers, so that problem solves itself.
So I say: There's nothing wrong with it.
+Mike Elgan I admire your G+ Diet, but I question why you think it should replace a personal blog. As it stands, Google+ offers absolutely no tools for organizing content other than search. If I have a personal blog and like to organize my posts by topic, that is 100x more powerful than just sharing things in an instant.
+Peter G McDermott Every site has trade-offs. Choosing any one of them means giving up some things to get others. Ultimately, what you're trying to do is reach people and start conversations. And you're going to do that better, with more people and with better conversations on G+ than anywhere else. If you want organization, curation, personal branding or any of that, but one quarter the readers, that's a choice you can make, but it doesn't make any sense to me.
+Mike Elgan I agree with you totally
For me that is what I have been agreeing to also – 90% of my personal "Thoughts, and blogs" what might have used to have been a blog are now in here, however
When the subject matter requires more subjectivity, or more import – when it requires more finesse or Je ne sais pas – then that thought will get built outside and if it requires tools not present, then it stays outside.
But again, IF we keep our audience here, and not constantly back and forth, then Google cannot advertise, without putting the advertisement in the whitespace, like my Nemesis – FB – I do not want advertising in here
but, if their audience becomes stagnant, where else can they advertise, but right now, THANK GOODNESS – we are mobile, jumping everywhere
+Google should take this to see that unless they fix mobile, to make "Jumping" in and out of sites and links easier and friendlier – then this is where we are heading, this "Awful" Only ICQ type environment with only textual talk
Sorry to be so late, my answer is no, since you subscribed to the person. They didn't opt you in, you circled someone. You solicited their posts. You asked for their content. If it's not agreeable to you, uncircle and it's gone. I uncircle people every day, if I get tired of their repeated posting on things I don't care about. I'm certain people uncircle me every day, too, as I am all over the place wrt topics and interests.
Now, if the discussion is about whether it's cool to post links to your blog, of course it is, because if I circled you and that's what you do and I am still circling you, please continue. Most of the comments I read are in agreement with my own view, and +James Barraford stands out in saying the Google Plus is not the world and never will be. I live in the Google platform, love many of the tools, but this is a vast and changing universe, there's something very innocent in thinking, "This is it, all of my output will now go here, I don't need anything else." Oh, by the way, lest we forget: Reader, Wave, Buzz, Posterous – this shit comes and goes.
And now one of my signature digressions. Here's what I often will tolerate if I like most of someone's content:
Lousy formatting that could have been fixed.
When you post a link, shouldn't you look at it and see that the graphic is an ad for something unrelated and the description reads "Subscribe. Buy the Book. Purchase T-shirts…" I have to really like you as a friend if I see you do that often. Fix that, choose a photo or remove it if there's no good image. Kill the description if it makes no sense, and write one.
Bare links with nothing else
Please find a not brain-dead tool to post your shares, because a big fat link with nothing else looks like crap, is unreadable, could be malware and you're not gonna be my friend if you can't figure this out.
Obvious use as SEO only
I will not watch "read my blog" links go by with never a comment answered, zero engagement or discussion. If you want to post here for autolink SEO, it doesn't matter that I'm not looking or caring.
We now return you to your regular programming.
+Randy Resnick Can't argue a syllable 🙂
So nice to be appreciated 🙂
+Randy Resnick yes and no, it's never quite so one-sided, is it? I circled you, but you wanted to be circled, you decided to post your goodies in this new social network in order to find more people to read and appreciate your lovely bits and bobs, heh. And I think +Max Huijgen is saying "do whatever you like, but you'll get uncircled or unnoticed, I'm just sayin'…". And I agree. I have a plusser who has taken to writing his thoughts and snapshots, and they're only twitter-length generally speaking, on his new blog and then posting the link… I used to comment on those thoughts, but now to have to click out to go read it, and then back to comment… can't be bothered, a +1 is the most they get… and it's a pity, 'cause it hurts the relationship. Of course something of decent length, structured, with pretty pics and so on… well, I can click on that and like it. It all depends. I would still reccomend an intro to get you into clicking mood, though.
Well then, we all agree +Daniela Huguet Taylor
<now rewritten 4 times! Final time!>
Yes/No/Maybe.
There's likely multiple factors of influence.
Audience, Proposition, Value etc.
Compare the majority of What'sHot posts to the posts made by people like +Max Huijgen or +Jeff Jockisch.
A lot of the WH posts are "inane" – little thought, little investment of time/effort. Look, appreciate, +/share.
Where as the stuff posted by Max or Jeff often requires an investment of time and thought.
Question : how many of Max's/Jeff's audience participate in/on WH posts?
Look at the topic of the post. Is it of interest to the Audience? Is it presented in an eye/mind capturing way? Does it invite the audience to participate? What benefits does it offer? Do the benefits outweigh the costs of interaction investment?
By externalising the main content, you increase the "cost" of interaction. It requires more effort/time.
If the post is not appealing, if it doesn't promise enough value, if your audience is not that loyal … then the chances are you will fail to get the conversion and few will click through and/or interact.
You are, in effect, using the G+ as an advertisement – so the same requirements will exist.
You have to appeal – strongly – to the right audience. You have to motivate them, you have to direct them etc.
Failing on those points results in failure to convert, offset by Loyalty.
+Mike Elgan I can't really agree on the Google+ as personal blog comment. It goes back to what I mentioned earlier… G+ is not the end all be all of social media.
You use the G+ diet, but you cross post to other social media such as Twitter, so you are using other than just G+ to convey your thoughts. You're doing that to expand your reach, because as a professional writer in order to make a living you need readers. But why should I limit myself to one platform just because i'm not a professional writer. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Advocating that means advocating the destruction of blogging in my opinion. There are not the tools within G+ to convey all we can convey using Blogger or WP. What if we want to use guest writers? What if we want to create a visual atmosphere that takes the reader into a realm we want them to experience along with the words on the screen? What if I want Aunt Martha in Illinois to read my wifes latest food recipe post on Facebook?
For some people who don't care about reaching readers then I see your point. But honestly, I'm not sitting for several hours thinking about a story I might be interested in writing, spending more time researching, then hours of writing, rewriting, and proofing…… just to have it be a Google+ post.
+Lyndon NA +Mike Elgan You both hit the core of the argument for the non commercial bloggers; what price are you willing to pay to get your formatting and curation the way you want them.
It´s unfortunate that we don´t have post view numbers as I think most people would be shocked to see the comparison between a G+ post and their own blog page views.
And for commercial (ad-sponsored) and non-commercial bloggers the question; Is it really worth loosing almost all interaction and most of the readers just to be happy yourself with a format which looks better and a usually very low income stream?
+James Barraford Agreed. It would be like going to only one restaurant ever – you'd never bump into the people who went to other restaurants. I post tweets for selected Google+ posts with some little teaser commentary and tweet blog posts similarly. Social media is a movable feast, although it's important not to try to be in too many places saying the same thing, otherwise you lose your authenticity. But that said, a few communities are necessary for my practice.
No, +Max Huijgen , but it's worth having my content mirrored on a site Google doesn't own.
+Max Huijgen Why can't we have both. I do not see the point at all that posting your blog within G+ as a post and linked to your blog costs you readers. I would like to see hard data that shows that using G+ only as a format is beneficial for even one extra reader.
Fully agree on having a blog next to your full text posts on G+ +John Blossom +Matthew Graybosch +James Barraford No discussion there.
I auto-copy every post to a WP site to make sure content survives Google decisions and if I had more time I would make sure formatting there would be better than the G+ ´bare´ version.
+Max Huijgen If we could have you as an adviser to Google on recreating the blog experience here that we have using other outlets I would reconsider going almost all in here.
Give us a little piece of the empty white page real estate to showcase the first several paragraphs linked to our latest blog posts.
I would love that.
It makes more sense than "You may know." If I go to your G+ profile, Max, in a nice little box are your last 2-3 blog posts summarized and linked.
You bring up an interesting and true factor… the Google decision process. That's another reason I keep a firm foot in other social media camps. All the experts thought AOL would remain the king for a long time in 1998 and we know how that turned out. I am not saying that G+ and AOL are comparable as complete examples, but the public is fickle.
Related: +Dan York on owning your online platform (audio)
https://plus.google.com/113367946980799058337/posts/5xR9e49MRkf
+Randy Resnick Thank you. 6 mins that everyone on this thread should listen to as +Dan York is spot on.
One of my concerns with posting my full content here on Google+ and on my own site is that Google's search algorithms penalize "duplicate content" (see: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359 ). Because of that I do not mirror my content.
And because I don't trust Google or any of the other services to not change their platform underneath me, I operate my own sites on my own domains – and then yes, I do post links here with typically some brief commentary.
I'm not ready to trust Google (or any other social network) as the sole repository of my writing.
Okay, here we go. I'm doing a little research for a follow-up post to this debate:
https://plus.google.com/108541235642523883716/posts/QtKsRCdCa5o
This thread is making me think about some alternative strategies that I'm going to test over the next couple weeks.
But here's the thing: we're missing the actual data to know exactly how many people actually see our posts here on Google+. So we can guess at what the drop off is when we force people to click through to an article. But the fact is we don't know.
And by the way, that's different from Facebook, where at least if you have a page there, you do get access to some estimate on that data.
+Gideon Rosenblatt A work around to that is to post a photo with each post, you can then see how many times that photo was viewed. It's crude, but it's something.
Are you sure the photo isn't served from Google, Peter?
I didn't even know about that, +Peter G McDermott. For others, click on your photo, then select "Options" in lower left and then "Photo Details". On the far right, you'll see a number next to "Views".
That's great and at least some sort of stake in the ground against which you can compare your other non-image posts. Tks Peter. Still far from enough to really answer this question though.
Ah yes, the views. Thanks, forgot about that.
Why doesn't Google just allow GA to be easily used per selected posts?
+James Barraford there is so much more Google could be doing to give us insight into how we are actually using the platform. Who we are interacting with, who sees our posts, who we're actually connecting with and why. All we have is circle counts and "relevance" sorting. We're a long way from GA here…
+Brian Titus and that is why I can't understand any argument to go all G+.
+James Barraford Oh I'm right with you. G+ cannot fill the role of blog right now, even for the small thing I'm doing with my blog. G+ is basically just a dumpster full of content, and whenever you try to go back to anything you've thrown in, you have to go wading through a lot of trash to (maybe) find it. God help you if you can't remember a specific/unique word from something you know you typed, especially if you're trying to find something you said on someone else's post.
+Dan York the penalty for duplicate content doesn´t occur if you use G+ ánd a personal blog.
+Gideon Rosenblatt another approach to guestimate viewing numbers is to use common conversion ratios for interaction. Even with the most pessimistic my G+ statics suggest high view numbers
Average numbers for the latest postings:
29 comments per posting
32 reshares per posting
89 +1's per posting
Following +Peter G McDermott´s suggestion I checked the view counter on the image with this post. Views: 3232
What I don´t know is if this is updated every time people revisit the thread? I guess it´s absolute numbers, but I don´t know. Do you Peter?
Something I just shared with a few folks. Some of you here might be interested. Tks again to +Peter G McDermott and to +Alex Schleber who dropped me a private note w/ this same image view tip.
So here's another trick:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Here's a decent proxy for determining how many people actually visit your profile on G+ on a daily basis.
1) Change your cover image.
2) Wait some period of time
3) Do the trick above for getting image views for your cover image (I've checked: it is tracked this way)
4) Divide the number of views by the number of days you waiting
5) Revel in your average daily profile visits stat
Should work, right?
Not to pop balloons but almost no one is going to do that. There has to be a better way. Google?
I blog where the interaction is, and Google+ beats all places on the web when it coms to interaction. That's why I blog on Google+. Even if you now can integrate Google+ comments on a blogger blog, it kills interaction because people don't like when linking to your own blog and just type a few line of text on Google+ so that users needs to click through to read the rest. I know because I've tried that for a couple of weeks from day one when Google+ comments where available for my blogger blog. It destroyed almost all interaction. Now I'm back on Google+ blogging again, and hopefully the awesome interaction will come back.
My blog(s) get very near to zero traffic, but I like using a blog for longer posts because I can be more creative with the content such as multimedia files, attachments, links to supporting sources, etc.
While G+ is great at getting the word out there, a blog is where the true word is. Think of it like perusing a bookstore. Most people wonder around, pick up some books they think might be of interest and read the inside cover (or back). They don't read the whole book, but that description area gets the most views.
Linking to your blog is like that. The few sentences by way of introduction are that "about" blurb and once you've gotten the reader's attention you can then hope they click the link (or buy) the serious content.
Now, I will admit there are plenty of people who do the proverbial link-bait. The +The Huffington Post is the worst at this with links to their website and then a link to the original content to keep reading. That's three clicks just to get to the meat and potatoes.
Ridiculous.
I've also noticed, like the original post here states, there's been a resurgence of people posting nothing but links to their content with no introduction what-so-ever and they rarely, if ever, comment on Google+ even on their own posts. For them it's just another distribution method. I could call out a couple of those as well, like +Chrissy Morin and +Brad Kellmayer. (don't worry, neither of them spend any time on G+, but instead just share their content and move on). I've noticed this is very prevalent in alternative journalists, as well.
These sorts of people, people who use social media as a low cost distribution method as a click-through aggregater for their own blog or content source don't really understand the power of using social media to enhance a product or service's awareness, but instead are merely looking for those numbers.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Maybe they looks at their states every day and think: "Gee, I got 1000 click throughs from Google+ today, I should post there more often." Maybe they don't and they return to their fanbase on Facebook or Twitter where they've spent years collecting followers and building a rapport writing G+ off as a ghost town.
But as we all know, G+ isn't a ghost town, it's a communications tool and communications go both ways, not just one.
I write a blog. Actually, I try and keep up with a couple of blogs and fail miserably at them. Some I share to Google+, most I don't. Why? My blog is a place for me to flesh out ideas in my head and put them on digital paper. If someone's searching the interwebz for the same thoughts, they're more than welcome to read my blog(s), but they don't have to and I'm not asking them to.
#PagePhotoViewCounter Views of this post: 3261
+Max Huijgen How can you know how many views?
That was my question, +Stefan Svartling.
On Google+ we build up blog posts together through comments. SO comments like yours +Jason ON makes this post even better. That's the difference to old traditional blogging.
Checking the image details +Stefan Svartling I´m updating my last twenty or so posts.
Are comments all that matter? If the same 20 people comment back and forth for two days that's more relevant than hundreds of people reading post on all social networks and the Internet in general?
Are we still talking about reading views of posts or is it now about comment interaction because they aren't exactly the same.
I'll toss this out to bloggers: would you prefer 500 people read your story with 10 comments or 200 people read with 150 comments?
+James Barraford
I would go with 500. I am a sower of seeds – the more seeds that are planted, the greater the likelihood that one takes root in someone's mind and grows into something beautiful.
My choice: 200 people + 150 comments
(assuming also that commenting has a higher chance that people actually read the whole piece, I often click a link and drop it at first glance which would be one of your 500 +James Barraford)
Now the other way around: this thread with 131 comment and only 24 +1 ´s or the reverse?
+Grizwald Grim a lot of seeds "die on the vine" in nature. Actually, that's a principle of seeds. You could equate the number of comments to "seed survival rate"…
+Alex Schleber I prefer to see comments as early sprouts, and part of the manifestation of the seed that has grown from my mind. The post becomes a living thing, co-created by those that comment.
I admit to a prejudice that now I see in my blog. Over the years when I've seen no comments or very few comments, even at mainstream sites, I get the impression no one cares. Now, that story may have had 100k pageviews, but I can't know that without the analytics. My base assumption is there is apathy towards the story.
Adding another layer… if you are a non-commercial site but looking to make a jump to the big leagues at some point either via your blog or getting noticed and hired by a bigger site, do you strive for comments or pageviews, or both. Those looking to hire you are going to want to see your analytics at some point.
So many tentacles to this discussion.
+James Barraford good point. Some outlets such as BusinessInsider.com post their number of Views per post, on the assumption that 1) if you're big enough the number will get above the single-to-double-digit "embarrassment threshold" in short order, 2) on a largely financial news-related site, some of the readers/actors have a real interest in knowing how many people have already read this (less = better, because it means you're early-ish to the story).
3) After going past say the 100 mark, the question becomes how much does the Social Proof of that weigh vs. the Social proof of 500, 1000, 5000, asf. views? What is the curve? Are there diminishing returns (likely) after the first few hundred, at which most people unconsciously "cry uncle" and say to themselves "OK, I'll read it"… (different set-points / thresholds apply for different sites/scenarios/use cases of course).
4) So would it be universally better to show view counts?!
What would be the ´embarrassment point´ for G+ posts / personal blogging +Alex Schleber +Stefan Svartling +James Barraford +Peter G McDermott
+Alex Schleber If there is advertising involved that makes the view counts more interesting as bloggers get vicious for numbers when numbers equate to money. So determining interaction against pageviews becomes money as well. How open are commerical sites to giving out page view info?
For the non-commercial blogger, ego has a seat at the table. I'm sure that most remember the first post they wrote that had over 100 views. Then 500 views. Then 1000 views. I've only had that twice, an interview I did with +Giselle Minoli in Oct 2011 that did 4k, and a story on Dana from Homeland that a HuffPost TV writer linked to and did over 7k in three days.
I got all chest puffy…. and my next post did 28 views.
+Max Huijgen I find it a bit insulting honestly and am leaving this post – I have spoken to you many times in it, not once have you acknowledged me, while others have and agreed with what I say – just because I have the opposite view? I have no idea, but…
You seem way too involved in ensuring numbers, I more want friends and fun, so enjoy, muting this, and gone, I was invited here by others who thought my input would be appreciated
Peace, I hope you enjoy your hidden G world
+Gord Birch There is that. I am in this to build authentic community.
+John Blossom Me too, and a community goes beyond walls, walled in communities don't last, they become cess pools of hate and stuff, you know?
I want a community that is continually updated from everywhere – outside of me, from all over the world, even (God yes, even) from FB – because from anywhere a gem can come, and if we close our doors – we close our minds
As has been done here to my points by one person, but not the WONDERFUL others who talk to me, thanks buddy 🙂
Everyone has opinions, but to me, the WIDER your group of friends, the better you are – you can never have "Too much" love
Geocities! FTW!
+David Kokua Finally.. a voice of reason.
Blogs are more versatile for embedding multiple pictures, videos, soundclouds, Tweets; thus blogs are far better than G+ in many respects. G+ posts for me are preludes to something I may transform into a blog-post or plus-posts are something slightly below the threshold of constituting a blog-post. I love G+ but blogging is a lot more refined. G+ is more like shorthand note-taking or very informal blog-posts. With blogs you are more in control of the formatting.
Basically you´re saying that blogging is archiving for posterity +Singularity Utopia 😉
Or perhaps it is the difference between a quickly published leaflet and a more professionally published book.
No one cares about blog archives. It's an old way doing blogging. All Google+ posts gets archived here and very easy to find by doing a search.
+Stefan Svartling hmmm… I consider the search to be only so-so in terms of reliability… which can be extremely frustrating at times when you know that something has to be there, and you have to try about 5 different terms/combinations to get to it.
I think the publishing versatility of blogs is better, the ability to embed multiple items, to link words instead of needing to include the actual URL, to change font sizes, styles, colors according to specifications, to include a <blockquote>, this is where blogs excel. Posting on G+ can be good, but it is less professional, it is more informal, it is a basic type of publishing, it is like an immature (style-wise) blog-post, it is unformatted (a general standardised formatting), rough around the edges, you cannot embed multiple items. It is an issue of presentation.
+Alex Schleber Yes but the point is that it's very few that is looking for old content. Especially in blog archives. People are more realtime now then they were before. Yes I have a few old (some really old) Google+ posts popping up from time to time that people has found through search, but I think most of the time, people want to see fresh content.
+Stefan Svartling But those old posts via search are the key. They are what establishes credibility in search rankings over time.
+John Blossom yes and old Google plus posts rank well too
+Stefan Svartling I don't think that is always going to be the case.
+Peter G McDermott that's true, but that is the same with old traditional blog posts too.
For example this post from mars 2012 still index incredibly good when searching for "apple event 2012" here on Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/104961406012654314344/posts/T24RfyuU4Hs
I just did that search and in my first attempt it was at the top.
And in Google search "my apple meta event 2012" that post is at the top too
I have now tested all kinds of different searches to find my old google+ posts and I find everything I want to find. No problem at all. For example this search find all three posts I did about that: https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/chrome%20torrent%20extension
+Stefan Svartling Is that with SPYW turned on or off?
+Peter G McDermott You mean the normal google search? On. But the most important is to find the posts here with Google+ search.
No I am asking whether or not you have the Search Plus Your World slider turned on. That will augment your search results based on your interaction on G+
+Peter G McDermott As I said in the comment above: On. But that doesn't matter when you do searches on Google+
Ahhhh! So what about organic search for those posts outside of plus? That is how most of my content is consumed on my blog after all.
+Peter G McDermott Well they rank well with Search Your World On.
Right, but they don't rank well outside of that…
What percentage traffic do you get from general google search +Peter G McDermott?
Excellent thread here +Max Huijgen and some great comments, thoughtful opinions, and ideas from the usual suspects. I'm very late to the party having been buried for the past ten days without time to blog or even visit G+. To add my two half pennies, I'm with the engage here but include something new or a detailed summary if it's a really long post. Also, duplicate everything on a 'no spider' site in the event that Google decides to 'Buzz' off or and screw the 'Reader'.
Great post! I have a page here on Google+ for my blog where I post links to blogposts. Problem is: The people that follow me and the people that follow my page are'nt the same. So I reposted my pages posts. I used to do this with my personal account, but someone asked me to stop it. So I did. Now people that are interested in my blogposts follow my page, the rest follows my personal account. I usually don't get a lot of traffic from Google+, this way or the other. But I think it's important to have your own blog, outside of the Google+ ecosystem.
I think there's a lot of unwarranted idealism and a bit of "social cleansing" in this purist view of G+ and what it should be.
1) It doesn't f'n matter. If you don't like how a person posts, unfollow them.
2) This network is nowhere near as good for editing and multimedia expression as a good blogging platform, like WordPress.
3) If the material is interesting, it's no bother to open a new tab. Nothing on this planet requires less effort. We do it all the time.
4) 99% of people on social media are polluters. They either post low quality nonsense, stuff you've seen dozens of other places, or add no original thoughts of their own to the topic. So in the rare instance where I find a person with original ideas, I don't care if they scribble their ideas with their own excrement like the Marquis de Sade, I will go out of my way to read them. And clicking a link is hardly asking too much. And it won't stink up the house.
5) Really depends on your goal. If it doesn't make you money or it doesn't make you happy, don't do it. If what you post is related to how you make a living, your blog is still the best way to showcase of your thought leadership. You can supplement that presence with posts here.
6) If you're here for entertainment and social interaction, do whatever works to get the level of engagement you crave. If posting links doesn't do it, eventually you'll either learn or just go away from sheer neglect. Social Darwinism.
+Steve Faktor all excellent points, except: WordPress NOT= "a good blogging platform"… 🙂
Also, +50 on the Marquis De Sade reference in this context.
Good points +Steve Faktor. I particularly like #4., although I would put the percentage at ~80. The most aggravating are the meta trolls who don't take the time to read the post and/or linked articles. I have noticed a significant increase in snark-like comments of late—made all the more clear by a couple of weeks away. It's a hockey stick of which a detailed longitudinal analysis would make for an excellent post.
+Alex Schleber Yes, I almost wrote "blood and excrement", but restraint is the sign of a true artist;)
PS – what do you have against WordPress? I think it's a bit complex for the casual user, but quite scalable and customizable for industrial-strength CMS. For most people I do recommend Tumblr…which has its own challenges. Been meaning to check out Quora's new tool also.
+Colin Lucas-Mudd Snark=sarcasm=the unfunny man's version of humor. It's all around us. It's a defensive reaction to a society many feel they can no longer control or feel powerless in.
+Steve Faktor if you've ever seen WP's codebase, it is a complete mess. And really it doesn't scale unless you use about a dozen add-ons. There is a reason why most bigger outlets like Forbes and BI have had their own custom CMSs built for them.
Agreed re:tumble issues. The Quora blogs look pretty slick in their minimalist way, with decent integration with the rest of Quora, e.g. here: http://googleglass.quora.com/
+Alex Schleber Ahem, I beg to differ… I write on Forbes and log into WordPress to do it…
+Steve Faktor really? I thought for sure they had built their own. Well, let's say that it's heavily customized by them. Not everyone can afford to have that done for them initially.
+Alex Schleber RoRo – that Glass article on Quora is link-bait for Mashable. Wait till +Max Huijgen gets a hold of them!
+Alex Schleber Yep, Forbes looks exactly like my site's back-end minus all the admin functions. Here are the recent stats: http://royal.pingdom.com/2013/05/07/wordpress-top-100-blogs/ Just doesn't pay to build a back-end from scratch. Most only tinker with the design.
+Steve Faktor thanks for the link, very interesting/useful. A lot of the more serious/newer properties started with custom. Also, HuffPo is 40+M U.S. Monthy Uniques, TMZ 10M, asf.
Most of the other blogs noted are not even in the same league scale-wise (3M or less). Technorati 100 NOT= in order of actual traffic…
Do you get to see traffic stats for your Forbes blog? Would be interesting, as the whole site has 11.5M MUs, but their own internal stuff isn't run off of WP, is it?
+Alex Schleber Nope, don't get much reporting beyond what's on the public site. Also agree Technorati is not the best way to rank blogs. As for platforms, Gawker is the biggest network on custom. Then there's the Verge. Not sure what drove their decisions, but also not curious enough to pursue!
Couldn't agree more w/ you on the CMS point, +Steve Faktor. In the consulting shop I used to run, we used to run into nightmares over and over getting people off their custom CMS solutions. We were heavily invested in an open source CMS (Plone), which though excellent and well supported, continues to be steadily disrupted from below by WordPress. I absolutely love the WP business model and the way that they've scaled. I'm also starting to see a few fairly large sites that used to use full-blown CMS, opt for WordPress instead. For example: http://grist.org/
Don't get me wrong, +Alex Schleber, I know there are many people who look down on WP and many developers think it's a mess, but they've built a very powerful platform and it just keeps getting better and better, eating more and more into the CMS market. Sorry to veer off-topic, +Max Huijgen.
See this follow up discussion https://plus.google.com/112352920206354603958/posts/j2qj1i8jVKy which also has some interesting data by +Trey Ratcliff on page views on his blog vs G+ in the comments section.
+Steve Faktor as long as you remember that I don´t have that purist view on G+ usage.
I´m all in favor of having your own blog to curate and backup your writing. All I do is wonder if it makes sense to post only link-bait for the sake of the page views on your blog.
If monetizing your writing can only be done by running your own blog you don´t have options, but I doubt if that´s true for most of the people posting link-bait here.
See the link in the comment above this one.
+Max Huijgen Ah okay just saw your last comment, now your previous one (on the new post) makes sense. Thanks.
An excellent point about the spam going with personal blogs is made by +Tom Meaney who originally shared this post to Android (General Discussion):
Ok guys, I have just spent the last 15+ mins going through this community and removing all some of the spam from the boards.
This has to stop.
From now on I will be using the "*Remove, Report and Ban*" button for the following posts without any mercy.
Links to your personal blog.
Everybody and their cat has a blog these days and guess what, nobody gives a sh*t about your 4 line, ad-infested opinion on something that has probably already been talked about to death.
Stop posting links to your blog, you will be banned.
….
That's all for now, any problems with anything just + tag me and I'll do my best to help you out.
/PSA-Rant
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tnx +Alex Schleber for drawing my attention to it.
I concur, we have a (Spanish) writers' community here on g+, and all people want to do is share their blog, fly in, post blog link, fly out… it's very annoying.
Communities are like apartment buildings. The Android one just mentioned has 45,000+ members. There's no surprise there are so many superfluous posts (to be kind about these). Communities that are about writing or podcasting usually have a section of "Introduce yourself" and/or "Pimp your show". I personally avoid communities with more than (say) 1,000 members. 45,000 – that's just nuts! You can always go look/search it if there's occasional useful stuff there. Notifications with that number are out of the question.
Ours is over 7500… But we have a rule that the full story must be in-post, bare links get deleted straight away.
+Randy Resnick but the point about blogs being spammed is valid on the general G+ stream as well.
Very clear rule +Daniela Huguet Taylor A hard-liner!
Open or by invite? I find by invite makes things a lot quieter. Limit intake of people according to their history and whether they appear human or bluehead.
+Max Huijgen yes, obviously that was the main topic in the first place, you muddied the waters with the community thing 🙂
Ours? Open… But they've learnt quite well. 🙂
Funny how comments are inserted when you think you're answering the above. Yes Daniele, so 7,500 in an open community would surely require some serious moderation.
We're actually only 5 moderators currently, and it's not doing too bad, although we are planning on getting some more in order to get more stuff going on and better interaction. But the short stories they keep flowing… 🙂
+Max Huijgen I used to post fully on G+ but i'm currently doing 50-50. Small posts that link to interesting stuff are posted on G+ only, longer posts that might also have more than one image or have embedded code are posted on my blog and i link to it from G+. At the same time I switched to G+ comments on my blog so it's still a hybrid of blog and G+ 🙂