Social Media Marketing

Pin a Quote bookmarklet for Pinterest

If you have become addicted to Pinterest, we have something that will further fuel your addiction. The “Pin a quote” bookmarklet allows you to convert text from websites into images and pin it to pinterest.

First drag the pin a quote bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar. Now suppose you come across an interesting quote on a site that you are browsing. Just select the text.

Next click on the Pin a quote bookmark. 

You have the option of adding the source of the quote as well. Once you are done, click on post.

This brings you to the final screen with the prepared image for preview. In addition to pinning it on Pinterest, you have the additional option of sharing it to a plethora of sites.

There you have it, a simple but very effective tool to enhance your Pinterest experience. Please don’t blame us if you spending a few more hours pinning interesting quotes to your boards. Enjoy.

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Social Media Marketing connect Blog Top nine posts that you might have missed

1. The new Facebook Brand pages are here:

The power of  TIMELINE is here! Share your STORY by adding in as much details about You, Your BRAND as you can.

Read more..

2. Your SMQ Social Media quotient celebrating 3rd year at Techdivine Creative Services:

Dear Friends, Thanks for an amazing Support and all Your good Wishes all these years.

We at Techdivine Creative Services are entering into the Third Year of our Second Flagship Brand “Your SMQ”‘s Launch this March 2012 wherein we have catered to around 27 Clients across 15 Industries in 4 Countries so far.  (More about the Company, Background and History & Our Brands ~Click Here)

Read more..

3. Pinterest: Social Bookmarking via the visual medium:

Now this is an amazing social bookmarking site. No wonder there’s so much buzz all around. It’s called Pinterest.

But it’s social bookmarking with a slight twist.

Read more..

4.  8 Freewares to increase your productivity:

8 Free Alternatives to existing products that you use.

Read more..

5.  Do you really need a tablet pc:

It’s raining Smartphones and Tablets since last one year, isn’t it? No wonder, everyone out there is considering investing in it.

Read more..

6. Marketing & social media trend setters 2011 & 2012:

• What were the trend setters of 2011 &
  
• What we can expect in terms of digital & social media technology integrated brand, product and services marketing for 2012

 

 

Get your Netiquettes right. Don’t make a social faux pas

Netiquettes to be observed while browsing

Quite often, many users commit online faux pas’ which they come to regret later. We have tried to list a few such online faux pas which you might have come across when you are browsing various social sites. If you find this article useful,do share it with others so that even they can benefit from it.

1. Most important of all, do not share your personal details online. Never give out your address, phone number, credit card details or other information if you are not sure about the credibility of the party on the other end.

2. Please change your password at least once every two or three months. If you have difficulty trying to think of new passwords, use a tool like lastpass which generates and saves random passwords for you.

3. Think twice before sharing pictures ridiculing others on social networking sites. It may seem like a LOL image, but do take a moment to consider whether it makes fun of a sensitive topic. While humor is good, it should not be at the expense of others. Also keep in mind that you might have a few minors in your social circle (even though officially you have to be 18 to sign up) and you would not want them to see such images.

4. Do not post personal comments on official or brand pages. For eg: Someone you know might have an official brand page. Don’t make informal comments on the page. Communicate through some other channel. You don’t want to embarrass the other person.

5. If you are tagging a person, make sure the tag is relevant. People do not appreciate being spammed with irrelevant tags. If you do have to bring their attention to an album, tag them in one of the photos instead of in each & every one of them.

6. Don’t get into flame wars with others on your profile. Do not respond with abuses to any insults thrown at you. Rather avoid commenting on that topic. This preserves your integrity without sullying your name.

7. Don’t let your posts be only about you all the time. Be social & keep engaging with others. Everybody likes a pat on the back. Remember it’s a “social site” at the end of the day.

8. Make sure you customize your privacy settings such that your personal data or photos are shared only with those who matter instead of everyone in your friends list.

9. While protecting your personal data, also make sure not to share other individuals’ private information under any circumstances.

10. If you have added your boss, teacher or any other senior to your friends, refrain from making any derogatory comments about them.

At the end of the day always remember, if you are online someone somewhere is always watching you. If you have any other tips that you would like to share, please do so in the comments.

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Pinterest

Now this is an amazing social bookmarking site. No wonder there’s so much buzz all around. It’s called Pinterest.

But it’s social bookmarking with a slight twist. It’s based on the concept of “pinning” stuff that you find interesting on virtual pinboards. The first and foremost advantage of this site is that it’s a visually rich medium. The visual of the site looks like a “grid layout”.

Secondly, you are not confused with a score of options. All you need to do is pin, re-pin, like or comment.

Here’s how it works:

When you first sign up, you are given a bookmark to add your browser. It’s called the “pin it button”.

Once you have installed the “pin it” button in your browser, the next time you find some interesting image or video on any website, just click on the ‘pin it’  button and it gets added to your list or section created. It will show you the thumbnails of all images on that page. Select the image that you want, create a new pinboard or select an existing pinboard that you created and voila! You are done!

Alternatively, the pinterest site itself has a lot of content for you to pin, like and comment on. Have a look!

This is what your profile looks like. For me, I am just starting off, so it probably looks quite sparse at the moment.

You can follow different people based on your interests and see what they pin. You can’t message them directly, you cannot write on their “walls”, nor can you tag them in your photos.

Pinterest is a site where you share your ideas or get inspired. It will mainly appeal to those involved in photography or lifestyle products too. For brands, it’s an amazing opportunity to share with their prospects and existing consumers, their rich plethora of products available.

If you are looking for a platform which involves art, creativity and design, this is definitely it. As a site that’s said to generate more traffic than, Google+, Reddit and LinkedIN, Pinterest definitely has the potential to make it big.

Do you think you could use Pinterest to advance your Business? Share your thoughts with us.
Ciao – Ravi.

Techdivine Creative Services

Connect with us here:

• Techdivine On Facebook
• Techdivine on Twitter

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Angry Birds on Facebook!

After conquering iOS, Android, Chrome and Google Plus, the birds are ready to take their feathery battle with the gluttonous pigs to Facebook. Yes! Facebook users rejoice! Rovio is going to launch the Facebook version of Angry Birds on February 14^th i.e. Valentines day. You can check out the Facebook Event titled “Angry Birds coming to Facebook!” The event is scheduled for between 6:00 PM EST and 9:00 PM EST this Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2012).

[IMG source: Mashable]

Here’s the event’s description:

“Squawk! Everyone’s favorite furious fowl, Angry Birds, is coming to Facebook! Nothing says “Happy Valentine’s Day” like competitive pig-popping among friends! Join in on the fun – mark this date on your calendars, and let’s make this the biggest Facebook Event ever! Watch the game trailer here: http://bit.ly/yaqbZw and stay tuned for more details!”

Here are a few screenshots from the trailer for your perusal:

SCREENSHOT 1

SCREENSHOT 2

Screenshot 2 gives us an idea of how the game will actually look when you are playing via your facebook account. The top right corner shows your profile pic. The star at the top reveals some new power ups that might have been added.  Also old favourites like the explosive black bird, the rapid yellow bird and the mighty red bird make an appearance. It will be interesting to see what new aspects Rovio plans to add apart from integration with your social circle.

Ultimately, it is assured that couples & singles alike are going to have a field day this Valentine, slugging it out with each other. All we can say is, Oink to that!

Keep gaming on and do share your experiences with me. Looking to beat your score! – Ravi.

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• Advertising through Social Gaming crosses $200M
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Connect with us:

• On Facebook
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• On Twitter

Marketing and social media trend setters of 2011 and what we can expect in the year 2012

• What were the trend setters of 2011 &
• What we can expect in terms of digital & social media technology integrated brand, product and services marketing for 2012

The top trend setters, Power house websites and applications in 2011 were:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google Plus
• Google Android
• Foursquare
• WordPress
• Instagram
• YouTube

 What they achieved and what we can expect from them in the year 2012:

Top trend setters:

Google Android: We saw the globe going gaga over the rich sweet OS treats offered by Google Android in terms of Éclair, Froyo, Gingerbread and so on. Google Android with its open source and scores of free apps, made its presence felt more with the launch of Gingerbread and that was coupled with Samsung’s ample choice of smartphones and tablets powered with Android OS. It has over 85% of its users now upgraded with Android 2.1 and 3.1 OS.

Facebook: The ‘F’ word. Facebook still remains as the top social networking site with over 700 Million users and sure enough, we are looking ahead at an early Billion user milestone mark this 2012.

Twitter: This site which was started merely as a social bookmarking tool or site, now is looking to be a threat to the mighty facebook too. Twitter crossed the milestone of users now sending over 200 Million Tweets per day and with the amazing platform now reaching to over 100 Million active users, the little bird was simply trending across the globe.  With its all new Activity stream, available across more countries and in many more languages, addition of TweetDeck, integration of tools for Sharing photos, videos and more content from popular streams across, Twitter will be the site to watch out for brands and users across the globe.

Foursquare: Foursquare set a record of Billion Check-ins in 2011.  That, further boosted with its user base now growing over 10 million people,  this location – based check-in site made it clear to the world ‘when it comes to geo target or location based application, foursquare rules the lot. (Foursquare Interesting infographic )

Google Plus: The much awaited Google Plus was launched with more anticipation than probably any other news with a frenzy of users paying scores of dollars for getting an “Invite” into Google Plus. Though the initial rush has eventually seemed to settle down with many users opting to stay a little bit longer with facebook than jump on to the G+ wagon, this power site of Google will surely add up some amazing surprises for brands, marketers and users across in 2012. Especially with the One+ button going live across search engine for users to use the tool and popularize real-time content streaming.

LinkedIn: In early quarter of 2011 LinkedIn crossed the 100 Million members mark and its looking better than ever. With its IPO soaring  and creating the most amazing financial buzz around,  it is a site to look out for. With its newer features of Live news, popular stories and more, professionals across the globe want to be a part of this amazing network. Lot is riding on it this year and if the past experience is anything to go by, 2012 will be a year of positive updates and surprises for LinkedIn users across the globe.

WordPress: WordPress crossed the 50 Million mark in 2011 and this popular Blogging platform now empowers over 70 Million sites (70,112,513 WordPress sites across the Globe.) With its ease of use and flexibility for users to add their own codes, app integrations and widgets, we wont be surprised to see it cross the 100 Million mark this 2012. With more and more bloggers and readers around the world, WordPress seems to be an obvious and unanimous choice.

Instagram: With over 150 Million photos, this site seems to be raging with creative and rich content in terms of “captured moments’ which are shared by users every second. Its easy to use, very  fast and empowers users to express themselves amazingly. This app would be a game changer in terms of rich media content sharing especially for pictures and we would not be surprised to see picture editing and effects features integrated more with the instagram apps in 2012.

YouTube: This video stream site turned Five in 2011 and with that it achieved a remarkable milestone of over 3 billion videos viewed a day.

Do we need to say why it’s going to make more eyeballs move on your computer screen in 2012. Keep watching.

 Most important points for BRANDS:

• Its very clear. The year 2012 will be the year of RICH CONTENT (Pictures, Videos, Pods & more)
•  With Brands understanding more clearly about social media quotient analysis and Consumer responses, metrics, the year 2012 will be about “BEING at the right place (Being present only in social sites where the brand and products presence really matters) at the right time.
•  2011 was the year of smartphones. While that can only see an uptrend, 2012 will be the year of Tablets across users. The fight between Apple’s iPad and Samsung Tablets will see a much stronger and more varied availability of tablets from other major players like Blackberry, Motorola, HP too.
• 2012 will be about real-time content streaming and data sharing with users that are genuinely useful to them and will add value to them on a daily basis.

Who will win:

• BOTTOM-LINE: Brands that can capitalize on giving Spontaneous responses to their in-house marketing teams or external agencies will only be able to capitalize. There will be no time for “Delayed responses” this 2012.
•  It’s all about bringing together Marketing and Branding strategies with technology that the user is comfortable with for that particular brand, product and services.
•  Detailed social media analysis, combining various digital strategies like viral marketing, keyword and SEO optimization, Creative Content writing, Online PR Campaigns, will need to go hand in hand with the brands campaigns across social sites like Facebook, Google Adword campaigns and social bookmarking and real-time content and trends streaming across power tools like Twitter.

Do share with us your views, suggestions and comments on “How YOU see the strategies, newer trends and social media marketing-technology integrating in terms of going social will evolve in the year 2012?

Have a wonderfully social year ahead.

Your SMQ Team

Techdivine Creative Services

You can also connect with us here:

• Techdivine Creative Services on Facebook
• Techdivine Creative Services on Twitter

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The journey from Social Media to Assured Sales

The journey from social media to assured sales is the one every brand would love to make.  As it not only ensures good business, but also helps brands to establish themselves as “Consumers Choice”.

Of the many aspects that are part of an online marketing campaign, there are few which are the core points that brands need to keep in mind while planning a social media marketing campaign:

Understand the consumer first -  Do your homework, research, analysis and understand the complete demographic and online social behavior of the consumers on:

• “How do they react” to specific tone of messages, words, phrases etc online.
• Each consumer (Industry centric) reacts differently online and offline.
• The idea is to have a very thin line between the two worlds and give the end users a real-time experience with rich content, feel in terms of demos, apps, videos, immediate feedback and responses too.
• In simple terms, it should result into value for connecting with your brand and a wonderful experience at the end for the users.

The consumer of today is well informed and it is to be used as an advantage by brands as their target market today interacts and engages themselves more than ever before.

So the first idea is to understand and connect with the consumer within and then with the end users.

• Don’t sell, but relate to their needs, buying patterns, customize and give them value for being a part of this online social engagement.
• Remember, every user online who speaks about you or “Likes or Mentions” you across social networking platforms, is your very own brand ambassador.
• Recognize them and reward them accordingly.Make room for immediate gratification.
• Look at what brands like Starbucks or Mountain Dew does. They take customers feedback and create products relevant to their needs.

Now comes the part of understanding what they need and the aspect of really making it happen based on organizational support and dealing with roadblocks that are inevitable (Organizational roadblocks – Rigid Policy, guidelines, in-house team support etc). Every effort towards customization for consumer, especially on an online platform, assures the Brands tremendous recognition and feedback via brand promotion and mentions by their consumers and the best part is that, its measurable.

Offer them custom designed services and products. Its wonderful when brands ask customers to design their very own “Combo products / services” It not only keeps them engaged with the brand, but also tells them that you value their opinions and doing your best to deliver.

Today e-commerce companies like Flipkart are doing really well because of many reasons, but few of those mainly owing to the fact that they have a “no-hassle return policy coupled with Cash on delivery” option which gives tremendous trust to consumers buying online today. With that, they also offer daily special offers, deals, low-price and that with great service is bound to make them popular. It shows that they have listened.

Another important aspect is, to not be on, each and every available online platform.

This is a mistake which many brands today make. Being or trying to be everywhere. Be at relevant online platforms. Understand whether your end users use blogs, forms, social networking sites, google searches, web banner ads, emailers, smartphone apps etc and establish your presence across those profiles only. Being across 4-6 such platforms to begin with is more than enough during a period of a six month to one year campaign wherein, you get a better understanding of their comfort levels with engaging online and you can then focus on may be just those 2-3 platforms, where their presence is more and for a longer duration.

Search engine optimization also is an important part of digital marketing today with feeds and comments appearing on searches. But with the pace with which social media monitoring and marketing seem to be growing, its become compulsory to integrate social media campaigns with seo. But make sure, you concentrate on on-page optimization as strong as off-age optimization too.

Customer insights and knowing your company or Brand’s social media quotient (SMQ) is the core of a social media or any digital marketing campaign. It also ensures brand monitoring for both, negative and positive mentions about your brand, product and services. Always remember, if you exist as a brand, someone out there is are already talking about you. Make sure you are a part of that amazing conversation prism.

SEO and Brand monitoring helps you to find the relevant sites when combined with social media influence strategies (SMI). It lets you study in-depth about the relevant sites, have a brief look at the profile of registered users on that site based on connect you have with the users or the apps integrated with the site. You then get to know the influencer(s) too. The idea is to gauge the quality of brand and or keyword related conversations real-time.

No campaign is complete without predetermined target to be achieved in terms of real ROI for the company or brand. Make sure your social media monitoring and brand marketing campaigns have enough strategies and process in it to help you evaluate the return on investment for your campaigns. Remember, good campaigns are those which constantly are improvised with consistent responses and feedback based on the social media quotient analysis and reports of your campaign.

Some power packed tools that always go a long way when used appropriately are:

• Blogs: It’s a powerhouse in terms of social media tool. A great way to engage your users with interesting and relevant information and at the same time, gives them an opportunity to interact with the brand too.
• Forums: Extremely efficient when it comes to users wherein the products need a lot of assistance in terms of support intermittently.
• Facebook: Wherein the end user is right in front of you
• Twitter: Users are consumption hungry and need quick information at jet speed.
• LinkedIn: For Corporate professionals. Connect and grow as a business together

So, what did your brand tell your customer today?

Share with me your views and comments here. Would love to hear from you.

Thanks and have a wonderful connect ahead.

Ananth V

Founder & CEO

Techdivine Creative Services

You can also Connect with me here: On facebook, On LinkedIn & on Twitter

Key Branding Rules on Social Media

Brand managers have been placed at a higher sense of responsible and more accountable position than ever before.

So before one goes ahead with the power of online marketing tools, Offline solutions, Creative writing for content of your product across sites online etc  of today and leverages it for their brand, it is very much essential to know, what are the keys rules to follow.

BRAND ‘key’ rules:

Always be very clear of your organizational goals from planning a social media campaign, or using multiple platforms for implementing the same. The core needs to be always on the Brand and not the tools or techniques of implementing it. Remember, the social sites are merely tools.

Given below are few key points that every organization needs to keep in mind before implementing an online marketing campaign and reaching across the millions of prospect across the globe irrespective of the nature of your product market or service or industry.

1. Responsibly use the available platforms after properly analyzing them and understand clearly the technology available through those online social networking site platforms before placing your brand on it.
2. Today, with the massive reach across over 750 million users online, the key is also on the timing behind the appropriate use of these media.
3. Always add a face to your voice, whatever be the platform you are using.
4. Integrate your multiple platforms together and stay in sync with the content that you promise to share and make sure you deliver on it.
5. Most importantly, understand that the platform is not to “sell” but to connect.
6. Privacy, content, IP’s are to be clearly showcased across platforms. Reusing of your content, selling it for commercial and such other interests of third parties should be made very clear about.
7. Better safe than sorry. Always understand that what is once online, stays online. So make sure, the information you are showcasing online, can afford to be shared by all those you know and those you don’t, in matter of seconds.
8. As the clichéd quote across superhero movies goes, with massive power, there needs to be a sense of great responsibility too, make sure you understand and implement it in your campaign.
9. Respond: Whatever may be the conversation happening around you, about your brand or organization, respond positively. In case of any dissatisfaction expressed about your product or service respond with utmost sincerity and get to the root cause behind complains at the earliest. Address it and provide proper responses unless the feedback or comments are repetitive by an individual whose nature and online characteristic seems to be disruptive and destructive in general. Make sure, you learn to ignore and at the same time create a backend system to resolve an intentional and unwanted negative comment or feedback from a user online.
10. Do not share personal information, especially of clients and members. Always keep your member groups moderated in terms of the content being posted.
11. Have a clear Social Media Quotient analysis done of your Brand with insightful reports, analysis and feedback.

 Branding yourself in today’s era is very much essential, but make sure, the way it is done is not the way you or your team members want it to be done, but the way it is to be done. With control, Brand-Customer connect and moderation.

Do share your views on it with us here.

For Customized Social Media Marketing, Brand Monitoring, Online Marketing services – Write to us at: socialmedia@techdivine.com or for QUICK CONNECT & Customized Industry Solutions Reach us here

Happy Branding online.

 Social Media Team

Techdivine Creative Services

Connect with us here:

Join us on FACEBOOK – Social Media, Digital Brand Marketing & Creative Agency – Techdivine Creative Services

Tweet with us: @techdivine on Twitter

—-

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Hot keys and tips for Your Google Plus

Try them out for Your GOOGLE PLUS Profile:

• For Quick Comment:  Single Click on any post from your Stream. It gets highlighted  & then HIT the Return / Enter key on Your Keyboard.
• Space > Scroll down
• Shift & Space > Scroll up in a jiff
• Letter “J” > Let’s you Scroll down a single post
• Letter “K” >  Allows you to Scroll Up one post
• Click on the time stamp on any post and it takes you directly to a permalink of just that single thread

Stylize your POST:

1. Type any Word inside *Techdivine* & this is what you get Techdivine, your word in BOLD
2. Type any Word inside _Techdivine_ & this is what you get Techdivine
3. Type any Word inside -Techdivine-  & this is what you get Techdivine

Hope you had fun reading the post, we sure had fun posting it.

If you come across some interesting hot keys, let us know.

Enjoy!

Join us on Google Plus

Your SMQ

—-

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Google Plus: Review

I love technology and I always have got my hands on every possible tool, gadget and apps as early as I can. All that I was looking out for, from the first week of July was the awesome “Google Plus” invite like millions across.

Finally I managed to get my hands on an elusive Google Plus invite.

All I wanted to know was:

So is it the next big thing? Can it compete with facebook? And most importantly is it better than facebook?

Let’s check it out.

(The Profile pics and names are Blurred to protect their privacy)

• The Welcome Screen

 

As soon as you login you are presented with a very clean looking “Welcome screen” that makes every Google user feel just right at home.

And yes, you do need a Google email login to sign in, that is of-course after you have got your Special Google Plus Invite.

Once you enter the welcome screen, you can watch a video to find out more about the different features like circles, hangouts & sparks or alternatively complete your profile or add get down right to business as in Add Your CONTACTS to the simply superb “circles feature”.  I just loved using the drag and drop feature with Google circles.

The bar at the top gives you easy access to the other google services like gmail, orkut, Google docs etc & also your notifications. Below that you have shortcuts to your Home, Photos, Profile & Circles.

The left panel helps you to navigate easily among your various circles & also has the proprietary google chat.

 The right hand panel has a summary glance of the people in your circles along with the option starting a hangout & sending invites to your contacts.

• Stream

The stream is akin to your facebook news feed. It shows you the various updates by other people. You can comment, share or alternatively ‘+1’ it which is the google + equivalent of a facebook ‘like’. You must this “+1” button next to all Search results on Google offlate.

• Photos

Clicking on Photos takes you to the various pictures uploaded by the people in your circles. You can filter them by selecting photos from your phone, photos of you or your albums.

A small bubble at the top right corner of the picture shows you the number of comments. On clicking on any picture it goes to a theatre mode similar to that of picasa.

We all are aware of the painful scroll function in the Facebook picture viewer, but Google Plus has made it gorgeous.  

And the picture viewer works quite fast too. The comments are shown in the right hand pane. So no more getting bogged down to scroll all the way to see the long list of comments on the thread just to read say “nice pic”.

Also the photos taken from your phone can be uploaded to a private folder. The coolest function in the PICTURE upload section is “you get to upload pictures without the hassle of selecting one file after the other. That’s right, you can drag your mouse over multiple files in your Computer folder, Drag and release them on the “Drag photos here” screen of Google Plus.

Another neat feature is when you move your mouse over any album, it gives you a peek into the album. Sweet! You can link your picasa album here too. Make sure your Picasa settings are moderated from your end.

• Profile

The profile is very similar to the facebook wall. It shows the various posts, the people in your circles, people who have you in their circles & so on. The interesting part is things that you ‘+1’ on the web are shown in a separate section. So that reduces the clutter & you can focus on stuff that people have shared.

• Circles

This is something new. Basically you create a group & add people to it. No, wait, there’s more to it. Now you can have a drink on a weekday you’re your friends or party with your college buddies, post, share it and still keep it away from your Boss who is also part of your Google Plus profile, but not in the circle with whom you have shared the pictures. So, it allows you to share stuff “specifically” with that group only. This is not just limited to keeping your pesky boss at bay, but also for creating like-minded individuals groups internally to have discussions, posts, pictures, links etc too. Like for eg. If you are an Android geek, add all those Android fans to a group called Androids. Now you can share all Android related stuff only with them without exposing your nerdy side to your other friends. Whenever you share stuff in your stream, it asks you which circles you want to share them with or all of them which is basically the ‘public’ mode. And creating circles is simple two step process. Create a circle and drop your friend in it. And you are ready to go!

• Sparks

Sparks basically lets you select any specific interest of yours and allows you to stay updated on it. Like I have added ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ to my sparks list. Now next time instead of searching for it, I just click on my sparks link. Voila! All the latest news with a single mouse click.

• Huddle

Huddle is a mobile app aimed at group chat. For eg: You want to plan a movie with friends tonight, but can’t get them together in one place. You create a huddle and add your friends to it, either from your circles or individually. Once your friends accept the invite they are included in the “huddle” Each can text his availability, you can decide on the movie & even plan on the restaurant to hang out at after the movie!

• Hangouts

Been saving the best for the last! Hangouts is the best & the most awesome feature of Google +. Similar to a huddle but with video involved, you can conference with up to 10 people! The video focuses on whoever speaks the loudest, or if it’s too disorienting you can click on any one user to focus on.

You can open a text chat window at the side, mute any person or even open a youtube video to discuss it.

Facebook did launch a video calling feature recently. I was among the first persons to install the plug in and try it out. Unfortunately when I logged in the next day, it prompted me to install the plugin again. And again. And again. Also you can only have a one on one video chat. Comparatively Google Hangouts requires you to install the google video & voice chat plugin, which most of the features using gtalk already have installed. It only improves upon their earlier version of gtalk & integrates the group calling function into it. This effectively kills the need for skype (ironically which is powering facebook’s video chat).

Conclusion: 

Google Plus is definitely a mighty contender to facebook.

• The only disadvantage I found, being on Google Plus is this: “There are too few users on the site.” But I guess, even that can’t be a legitimate grouse as it is still in beta and I remember how few invites are still being shared across.
• Hopefully when it exits public beta we will have a lot more users embracing it.
• But even then, it will be extremely difficult to topple facebook from the social networking throne simply because of the sheer number of its subscribers.
• Also Google Plus is still in its nascent stage and it isn’t prudent to have such high expectations from it. But this is a good time for social animals as all this competition can only mean many more game changing events in the future.
• The power of Facebook rests mainly in the scores and millions of apps that are part of the superb social site that revolutionized website and social networking globally.
• With Google’s Android, Google Search, YouTube, Picasa, AdWords, Blogger, Gmail and so on, the integration of power apps would be a much easier.

As I let time to decide on which Social site will create more buzz, let me have a blast with both for now as I keep exploring the features from Beta site – Google Plus.

Lots more to come, stay tuned with me here.

Do let me know what you feel about this social networking site from Google – Google Plus.

Would love to hear your experiences and comments too.

Keep sharing, reading and commenting.

 Ravi E

Tweet with me @ snowfire88 

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