Sunday, July 17, 2011
google+
I have a nagging feeling that google+ could somehow be used to significantly increase readership of my blog, if only I was appropriately savvy. Anyone have any suggestions or thoughts on this? I don't crave the attention per se, but I'd be fibbing if I said I wasn't jealous of the readership numbers of the folks that blog at, e.g., scienceblogs, discovermagazine.com, or scientificamerican.com. Larger readership would undoubtedly motivate more writing, too, though that's not necessarily great for my time management....
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6 comments:
Google+ is currently does not have a lot of users. It is not even clear at this point if it will be successful at all.
Facebook is the established social networking medium.
One suggestion would be to set up facebook sharing abilities on your blog. Which allows people to share with just one click.
Another suggestion would be to start a Page on facebook from which you can post links to your posts.
Google+ conveniently includes a default 'following' circle that lets people track your public posts, even if they aren't friends/coworkers/acquaintances with you. You might post a blog entry or two recommending that people follow you, and then resume normal physics blogging. When people following you reshare your entries, those reshares will still have your name attached. Presumably this will give you access to a broader audience than currently reads your blog.
This process is how I started following one of the Google+ engineers, and Lance Armstrong.
You are probably right about g+. It seems g+ probably marks a maturing of the social media technologies, moving away from the juvenile model of online social interaction espoused by facebook, not to mention facebook's walled-garden model.
Additionally, google also has google reader to help with tracking and reading blogs, as well as their "buzz" to get attention. However, its still a work in progress as they are trying integrate everything together as one cohesive service. Blogger belongs to Google too, after all.
I personally read your posts through RSS feeds in Firefox for now, but if I were to bet on the future for any serious online social media interaction, my money would be on g+. I don't have any concrete suggestions for you unfortunately, except perhaps that in g+ people can add you to their "circles" (without you having to add them, unless you'd want to) and they then directly receive your posts, feeds, etc. automatically. So I think that way g+ allows well for a primarily one-way interaction vs. facebook's mostly required 2-way.
And frankly, I don't think facebook will ever grow up :)
Readership seems to be nonlinear with post frequency. You do an awesome job with sparse takes on new things in a specific science niche. Maybe team up with someone you respect? Lower the discussion level?
"Like" a lot of things in your google reader feed (another way to expose yourself). I agree re: sharing via FB. You also tend to never link to anyone else, and the blogosphere is a circle..... I'm sure the other quality scibloggers would link to you when you have quality content, but they need to care. I doubt G+ is relevant at your current circulation.
Thanks, all. As you can see, I've now added the various widget buttons.
Adam, fair enough. My issue w/ posting frequency is multifold - first, I want to have something original to say, rather than just repeating myself; second, especially since I do this for fun and not profit, I have to balance all the other commitments I have; third, I try to mix up the level of posts, so as not to bore experts or always blow students or laypersons out of the water.
I probably should try linking to others more (I do it with nonzero frequency). Still, primarily I'd rather produce content that's not otherwise out there - that was the point of the blog. I don't want to become one of the herd of bloggers who feel obligated to comment on whatever the blog-controversy-du-jour is (e.g., Richard Dawkins being confrontational; PZ Myers offending someone; slamming string theory as overly promoted pseudoscience). Hmm. Good food for thought, anyway.
You're welcome, of course. Here's a good review of g+ I ran into, and thought of passing along:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20079844-250/google-makes-me-happier-than-facebook/?tag=cnetRiver
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