The Google + Experiment

So I’m running a little experiment this week. I was going to keep it a secret and just tell you the results, but I thought it might be even more fun if I had a few readers who were willing to play with me, and then we could compare our results.

A little background.

1. I’m not a huge fan of G+. I find it confusing and a little bit frustrating.

2. I’m annoyed at Facebook. I want more than anything to pick up my ball and go play somewhere else, but there’s just something addictive about that stupid blue banner… and no matter what I say I find myself opening a Facebook tab at the beginning of the day. I also find myself mindlessly refreshing the page at multiple times during the day. I don’t know why… (I think it’s the addiction).

3. I noticed recently a boost in search traffic when I started sharing my blog posts over at G+ ~ just on my profile… nothing fancy. I’d like to see what will happen if I start using G+ strategically.

4. My facebook stream seems to be flooded with nothing but business opportunities and people selling stuff. (Yes, I’m well aware this is ALL my doing by following/friending the people I’ve followed and friended… nonetheless I’m finding it annoying at this point in time).

5. My solution… an experiment. 

For a week… use G+ like I would use Facebook.

Post personal stuff there, pictures of what we’re doing, what’s going on, the funny things that happen. My thoughts. The books I’m reading. The stuff we’re cooking… you know, all the stuff I share on Facebook.

Spend TIME on G+. So instead of refreshing FB when I’m bored… refresh G+.

To be able to measure this experiment I took down my pre-experiment numbers. The people following me, and the page views to my profile. I also (oops forgot about this until today) took down the number of visitors to my blog, and where G+ sits in my referral resources ~ it’s currently my 4th highest source of traffic.)

I’m going to play for a week, and then I’m going to check the numbers again and see what’s happened. I have a feeling, just from doing this for 1 day that there’s going to be a huge boost in traffic.

So… what am I doing on G+?  (so you can play along if you want)

1. Sharing an image/quote at least once a day. (it has a link to my blog as the watermark ~ I do them in picmonkey)

2. Sharing some kind of image from our daily life.

3. Sharing some kind of conversation starter… book I’m reading, meditation I’m doing… something.

4. Sharing any blog posts I publish.

5. Following “influencers” aka bloggers I admire and would like to get to know better. I’ve put them all in their own circle so I can easily check in on what they’re doing and like/share it as I am inspired.

6. Following other mom bloggers. Again, I have them in their own circle, as well, so I can easily see what they’re up to and like/share as inspired.

7. Participating in groups. This is where the magic happens folks. I’ve tried using FB groups and most of them are completely worthless if you’re looking for engagement and connection. However, the groups on G+ are awesome!! Find 1 or 2 groups that are related to your niche and start sharing and participating in them. Reply to things, comment on things, and like things!! Really… it’s that simple. 🙂

8. Putting new people in circles daily. It’s so easy to find new people who you find interesting, and add them to your circles. I will admit I’ve cheated a bit… one of the 2 groups I participate in on Facebook had a “G+” day, and I followed a lot of cool bloggers from there… but all you have to do is go to groups, check people out, or do a search on a keyword you’re interested in.

How long does this take? 

I take these actions in between other things through out the day.. but I’d say probably not more than 30 minutes or so. I think it’s good to be interactive for short bursts through the day so different people will see me… but people will see your +s and comments no matter when they jump on.

So what do you say?
You want to get all sciencey with me and do an experiment?

Grab your current stats, write them down for later comparison and jump in to G+ and let’s see where we end up in a week!

Leave a comment below with your G+ address so I can add you and we’ll stay in touch through the week if you want to play!

I’m excited to see where this is going to lead. I’m already seeing an increase in traffic to my blog and pageviews to my G+ profile.

Oh… one other thing… if you’re going to play I highly recommend you go to your profile and make sure things are set to public (like your website address etc). I went back in last week and realized everything was set so only I could see it, a blogging friend of mine found hers set the same way. No clue how that happened, but it doesn’t help having people come to your profile if they can’t see your website address right?

If you’ve got other G+ questions feel free to ask below… I’d like to start putting together some G+ tutorials for everyone. 🙂

Ok… let’s do this!!