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Welcome to Google+. In this video, I'll take you on a tour of many of the main features
of Google+, the social destination, before I then show you some tips on setting up your
profile. This is home on Google+. And you might like
to think of this like a dashboard. And from this dashboard, you can not only see the content
that you want to see that's important to you, but also you can communicate with people by
clicking on this box and typing a message. Also, I can add images by clicking on "photos"
and simply dragging and dropping an image from the desktop into this section. And that
will upload it. You also have the option to upload from your computer or from photos that
you already have on Google+. And just so you know, these are the same photos that you'll
find by going to the menu bar and clicking on "photos."
Alternatively, I can click on an icon to upload a video or upload a link or to start an event.
And once you've got the general idea of this box, you can just drag and drop content straight
in without even having to click the icons. Once you've decided the message you want to
send out, you want to look at who you want to send it to. And you can do this by clicking
the box where you can send it out to public so that everybody sees it, or to specific
individuals, or to your circles. And when you're ready, you just click "share."
After you've shared a post, if you want to edit it or delete it, you come to the upper
corner and choose those options from the dropdown. Circles on Google+ are a way of organizing
your contacts. And to add something to circles, you simply hover over their name, which will
bring up this hover card, and then hover over again this add section and then I can add
them to their circle. Also, I can create a new circle and make that
specifically for this contact and then add more people to it later on.
You can organize your circles by going to people. And then you can either find people
who you already know and add them in as contacts. You can see who's added you. Or you can click
on your circles and that will bring you to this section.
From this screen, you are able to drag and drop the circles around. But also to add an
individual, you search by name for them and then add them to that particular circle. Or
you can select one and move them into other circles. And even select a whole group and
move them in one go into another circle as well.
Worth noting that you can add in circles that have been shared with you. To do this, click
"add people" when you see a shared circle. Add a name to the top, and then click create
circle. Or if I want to delete an individual prior to adding in that circle, I can click
on the "X" and then click "create circle." As you can see, it's been added here, and
I can move it to wherever I want. Let's now return to home by hovering over and just clicking
on "home." Just to recap, the content that you will see
in this stream is dependent upon who you have in circles. And each circle you have setup
has its own stream. So you can move through circles and see the content that is being
published by those individuals within that circle. And you also have options on notifications
and on your settings of how much content you see in the home stream.
Your notifications are little white messages and you find them by clicking on the button.
And if it has a number, it means there are new notifications.
You'll see the nature of the notification within this section. And if you click in,
you can then interact on that particular post. And this may be your post, or it may be somebody
else's. If a notification has a video attached, then you can click and play that video from
within your notifications. And if it's an image, you can click on the
image and be taken to a page where that image will expand to full size, and you'll see the
comments there. You can also navigate through the notifications.
Once you've clicked on the notification, you can move right using the arrow on your keyboard
or back to the left. And the same will be for using the letters J and K.
When people add you to circles, you can click to the notification and you can add them if
you recognize them, or you can hover over and check out their hover card, or you can
click on their name and visit their profile to decide whether you want to add them back.
If I've already added someone to a circle and they've added me back, then they'll appear
in notifications. And I can click, say hello, and the circle I've added them in will be
included in the message to them. If I don't want the circle to see the message
then I can click to remove. Or I can check the box and also send them an email. (You
might want to use this cautiously.) And then click 'share'.
In the same vicinity as your notifications, you also have a share box, which you can find
all over Google+. And next to that, you can access your account information and your privacy
settings. You're viewing your notification settings and you want to navigate straight
to the home screen, you can click on Google+. On your home screen, you're also going to
have friendly reminders for upcoming events and upcoming birthdays. And you can just send
a message by clicking on send wishes and then just clicking share.
There's also another way to find people with whom you're likely to relate. You come across
to communities and you look in the community sections, you'll be able to search for your
favorite interests and see which communities come up. From there, you simply select on
a community and then you are likely to be able to join.
Also worth noting is that you can create your own community. And the choice will be between
public and private. Returning again to the home screen - if there's
content to which I relate, there are several options. I can just read it and enjoy it.
Or, I can +1 to say that I've enjoyed it, or that I acknowledge it. I can comment by
clicking in the box and writing a comment. I can also share that content by clicking
on the arrow which will bring up the box that we're familiar with. And I can decide on the
audience and add a message there myself before I click share.
Another thing to add when it comes to commenting. If I have a plus sign and then I start typing
somebody's name, you'll see a box will appear with options of who I want to send a message
to. Once you've posted the comment, you can always
edit by clicking on the "edit" button and then saving once you've edited. Or if you
want to delete the comment, you can just click there as well.
If you want to see more information on who has +1'd, commented, or shared, then come
into the images, click, and the board will flip, and you'll be able to see the individuals
and the information there. When you add the plus sign before a person's
name when you're typing the message, that means they may get a notification. But this
is going to depend on their settings. And your settings will determine who can contact
you. And you'll find them by clicking on settings on the sidebar.
The first setting you'll probably want to have a look at is who can interact with you.
And you'll do this by deciding who can send you notifications, for instance, anyone. Or
maybe just people from your circles. And also who can comment on your post.
Returning now to home, there's another way you can reach out and connect with people
using Google+ and that's called hangouts. You'll find hangouts by clicking on the green
speech mark. It will bring up a box of people that are your contacts from within your circles.
Depending upon their settings, you may well be able to start a hangout with them. Now
this in part is text chat, but also you can invite more people to that particular hangout,
including inviting circles. And you can initiate a video call with that person or that group
just by clicking on this icon. You can customize who can contact you and
start a hangout with you just the same as they can do that within their settings. If
you come to menu and drop down and click on customize new requests, you'll then be able
to choose who can hang out with you or who can send you a request. You just change the
settings here. Another way you can start a hangout is to
click on the hangout icon before you click into the box that you're now familiar with.
And you click on the icon, it will start up a video call aspect of a hangout. And you
can then decide who you want to invite to that video call.
There's another aspect to hangouts called hangouts on air. These are live stream events
that you too can be broadcasting to the world. By clicking on the pages icon, you can also
create your own page. And then choose from one of these categories. If you click on local
it will take you to a page of recommendations and also reviews that you've done from around
the web. There's also a list on Google+ called what's
hot and recommended, which as you can see here from the symbol many well appear in your
stream. And you can get more of that content by clicking on the "what's hot button" on
that left hand bar. Also in this section there are other options
including sending feedback to Google on reports of issues, future ideas, or general comments.
Looking again now at the stream, you'll see that there are additional new posts that I
can click and receive in that stream. And if I click on question mark on my keyboard,
it will bring up this list of additional shortcuts. On many posts, you'll find that in the upper
corner they have hashtags. And if you click on these hashtags, there can be additional
content relating to that particular hashtag. At the top of the page, you'll notice there's
a search box for searches within Google+ and there are links to other Google products and
services including YouTube, Gmail, Drive, and Calendar.
Looking now at a post from the Dalai Lama. If I want to visit his profile, I can hover
over and click on his name, and that will take me to his profile and I can find out
more information about him and the content that he's posted. Also we can see that he
has a friendly picture of him smiling. If you don't replace the default image, you
have a blue head. So this is one of the main things that you're going to want to change
as soon as you join. And if you haven't done it yet, then it's
very simple. You simply click on your image, and that will take you to your profile. And
in fact, if you click on anyone's image on Google+, it's almost always going to take
you to their profile. Click on "change profile photo" and you can
drag and drop one straight from your desktop. Or alternatively you can upload one from your
computer or from your photos within Google+. And once you've done that, you can then select
the area that you want to show and set that as the profile image.
From there, you're probably also going to want to change the cover photo. So click on
that and you can select from the gallery, or you can upload and choose one that you
already have available in your photos. And the first thing you'll probably want to
do is tell your story. To do this, scroll down to where you see edit, and click on the
edit button, and then you can put in text, using bold, italics, and aligned as you want.
And then decide who sees what sections. And when you're ready, just click "save."
You can customize and edit each of the sections on your back page. For instance, if I come
to people and click "edit," if you want everyone to see who you have in your circles, then
you would choose public and make sure the box is checked. Or you would choose circles
and select either your circles or specific circles.
And if you want to remove how many people have you in circles from your profile, you
just uncheck that box. And you can always change these later. And when you're done,
click "save." If you want to change anything, you simply
click on "edit" and then, as in the contact information section, you choose who see what
information. Looking at the link section, if you are a
contributor to a website, for instance, you write on that particular blog, you want to
make sure that that site appears in the contributor to section. But also there will need to be
a two-way link back from that site to your Google+ account as well.
When you have a clear headshot that you use for your profile picture, it means that you're
eligible for Google Authorship. This means that a small icon of this image can appear
alongside Google search results from either Google+ content you've posted or from content
you've posted from a website that you've linked to your Google+ account.
To tell if you are tagged in the image, you hover over, and it will bring up this circle.
And if you haven't tagged yourself, then you will want to do so.
The information you see on a hover card, including your own, comes from your profile. So the
images appear, and the text, based upon what you have in for instance the about section
under the tagline. And for me it says, "Plus Your Life and Business," because those are
the communities that I run. And the employment section, if you don't work
for a company, you can fill that in with a little more content, as I have done myself.
When you're on a profile, and you're ready to go back to, for instance, home, then come
across the sidebar and just click on the home button.
This is Martin Shervington. And that was an introduction to Google+. Click on the annotations
for the next videos in the series. And please subscribe to my YouTube channel for a lot
more handy hints, tips, and tricks.