English: Google+ wordmark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today is the day I pull the plug on Bloggers Unite, the Google+ community I so eagerly and quickly established to build a place for we bloggers to qvetch, klatch, and ‘raderie.
It worked. For a bit.
In the beginning, as with most things new on the Interwebz, the sharing and energy around Google+ was #RockHot. Everyone wanted in on the action, and my community became a friendly place for peeps to read new material and cascade a few plusses around the sphere.
After that, the invasion of the non-English bloggers happened overnight. One day, we all knew one another, and the next folks from Latin America, Europe, and South America joined and posted blogs in their native tongues.
As owner of this community, it became challenging to support and share blogs I couldn’t read. Yes, someone did inform me to use Google Translation; however, my time is limited.
Segue.
It’s All About Time
What did Google+ communities offer beyond a Facebook group or LinkedIn group? The chatter wasn’t different (in my community, at least). We who jumped in together were already connected on other social channels.
Although I did try to jump start the conversation, it seemed bloggers posted something and took off to greater confines where the engagement was more robust. I get it, so did I!
Amber-Lee Dibble, kindly accepted the role as co-manager of the community, and then she got swamped on a wild horse adventure (no kidding, she lives in the Alaska interior).
Are Other Google+ Communities Thriving?
Like you, I joined some really robust communities back in the day. When I was publishing my first book a year ago, Writing With Verve on the Blogging Journey, (if anyone wants a free copy in exchange for jumping onto my list, let me know!), I joined APE The Book managed by Peggy Fitzpatrick for Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. With 3,400 members, it’s easy to get lost and lurk.
After I gleaned all I could (it was crazy with information), I had to turn off notifications as it became too much sensory overload.
Viveka von Rosen owns a community of 600 members about LinkedIn, her specialty, and I still see those notices rolling in my in box.
Maybe that’s the ticket to success for a G+ community? Specialty topics everyone wants to learn about?
Could be! And, what do you think? Are you still involved in any #RockHot Google+ communities?
Please list them here and tell us why as I’m now seeking a new home to visit!
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I think there is potential there, but there’s a long way to go and like you said, only so much time. I was part of a G+ group for our city which seemed like a great idea. had some initial enthusiasm and seemed to have quite a few influencers, but in the end dwindled down to one guy posting every day about how much he hated our city, everyone who lived here were backward rubes, etc (dude…there are 49 other states!). Some of the other travel/tourism groups have 100 members or so with almost no one posting. I thought G+ groups might be a good place to network with others in travel and tourism marketing, so far I haven’t found that to be the case.
There are simply too many places to be, to engage in, to stay up-to-date with. I think many of us joined groups and communities early in the day, only to find that the sense of duty and obligation to “be there”/comment/communicate became more of a burden than a joy. I’ve scaled back. I prefer to visit blogs and comment when I have something of value to say or share. Cheers! Kaarina
Brad_Lovett Hi, Brad! What a great case study, well not so great! One would think that people in your specialty would gravitate to a group oriented to the topic. Compare G+ engagement as opposed to LinkedIn and FB…there’s still a lot of negative perspective about the efficacy of G+ in general.
I like it b/c it is more professional, but I’m not posting there all day, either. Fascinating study, and the common thread is what’s new I can’t get anywhere else. Thanks for coming over!
KDillabough Yes, Ma’am, and you are one #RockHot engager. I appreciate the support you gave that little community. We tried, and that’s what counts. We can say it with a proof point, Kaarina! What’s on the ground by you? We have more snow and 10 F.
I pulled the plug on the #bealeader community months ago for the same reason, Jayme. It was too much to manage with the blogs and promotions being dropped into the community. I simply did not have the time to really manage that community on G+ and found that most of the “real” community members were having conversations on the #bealeader blogs and other avenues like Twitter and FB. I don’t miss it but I do have some folks who ask me to return to G+. It seems after I pulled the plug on the community many of the folks simply stopped going to G+ altogether.
KDillabough My unofficial observation about Google+ (communities inclusive) is the only people using the social networking site on an active basis (that is, at least once a day) are practitioners in the social media, PR, marketing, and advertising spaces. And Google employees. There are exceptions but they are exceptions and not the norm.
In other words, communities there are people talking to the mirror.
Good for you, Soulati | Hybrid PR deleting it.
Jen Olney That’s interesting, Jen! I watch your engagement levels, and your time is crazy online! Not sure how you manage that, but hoping you can redirect the ones on G+ to where it really counts — the blogs! Would be nice to clone yourself, right? Thanks for coming over!
Ari Herzog KDillaboughSoulati | Hybrid PRHey, Ari! I’m in full agreement! It’s a very professional-esque audience which I like selfishly b/c I can get educated from the bigger guns on specialty topics. Do you find that at all?
@soulati. I am always on it seems 🙂 It would be great to have a clone! On the blogs – that has picked up of late – seeing more engagement there – which I’m very happy to see.
Soulati | Hybrid PR Minus 27 degrees here. Had to wait this morning before heading into the city due to closure of two highways…not weather related, but truck fire that required hoses to be used, the water which then froze almost immediately. Had to snowplow the driveway 3x yesterday. I soooooo long for Spring. Keep #RockinHot my friend:)
Thanks Jayme for letting me know I am not alone in my neglect of the G+ communities and agree with the comments made by Jen Olney , KDillabough and Ari Herzog . It wasn’t that I disliked the communities nor found them filled with spam but it was that I just couldn’t keep up with the data overload and duplication from my streams or circles. I am finding that more and more with all the groups on LinkedIn, FB and Twitter. I also turned off notifications but that didn’t work as I just didn’t go back to the communities. It takes me quite a while just to go through my main stream that I am constantly narrowing.
As with Hootsuite hashtag or list streams, G+ allows me to search for a topic area easily and see everything in one stream. I categorize my Facebook posts into categories also (e.g. family posts, bloggers, healthcare, PR etc) and view accordingly. Yes, I probably miss a lot of great posts by people I admire but I have gained back some sanity (not much, but some;). I still keep the communities and will go to them if I am searching for a specific answer to a question or focusing on something special but for the most part I just stay with my narrow circles and I still feel like I am always trying to catch up. I also found them helpful initially for connecting with like-minded people and influencers in my topics focus but as I infer from Ari’s comment, it soon became a small club with the participants simply preaching to the choir. That in itself defeated my purpose of social media.
It’s like any type of community really, whether you build it on your own membership site, Facebook groups, a blog, or Google+ communities. If you build it with intentional structure to a targeted audience with a solid strategy and goal in mind, it will continue to thrive. I own more than a few communities and some are lackluster while others are thriving with no signs of trailing off. I also moderate and co-own a number of other communities, one of which nearing 100,000 members and requiring over a dozen moderators.
So it’s not the tool, but how you use it. The communities I own that are lackluster are clearly due to my own lack of leadership, direction, or intentional community building.
dustinstout Wow, Dustin! How the heck are you finding time to manage like that? Is that a paid gig, or you’re just doing it? How impressive. I invite you to write a post here about that! (As if you needed something to do!)
You’re right; for sure, it’s about how you manage and the goals you set…just like blogging, too. Thanks for your comments!
annelizhannan Jen Olney KDillaboughAri HerzogHi, Anneliz! How are you doing in the Mass. winter? I think that’s where you transitioned, right?
Meanwhile, it’s so challenging to engage and feel like you’re also receiving. The specialty communities are perfect for answers as there seems to be experts there; the general communities are less rewarding to me, too.
The other factor here is that we’re no longer new to this. We seek something else in social media than others do, and it becomes harder to show ROI for self. Right?
Soulati | Hybrid PR lol no, it’s not paid, but the leads that I gain from it pay for the time spent. It’s not easy to manage but small investements of time, consistently over the long run adds up quick. I probably will end up writing a blog post for dustn.tv someday about community management, strategy and my experience thus far, but I’ve got far too much on my plate at the moment.
I recommend you check out what we have going on here to get a taste of what we’re doing with several of my communities: https://plus.google.com/u/0/107665939201638457855/posts/JTauUAnt2TP
Soulati | Hybrid PR I don’t think I will ever be able to settle back into the cold winter climates after living in a temperate one. Indeed we are not new to this but honestly I find I am not getting better at managing the increasing data load that I would like. Sometimes I feel I should just focus on my specialty area (healthcare) but then miss out on so much great PR, social media and business management blogs and posts. People like dustinstout continue to amaze me at their finesse of engagement and quality content production. I, on the other hand, can’t keep up on reading all that he produces ;).
Hey there.
RIP +BloggersUnite
Yeah, well, I read all of the input below and agree across the board. Feeling pretty sick today, so my brain isn’t feeling very wity ~ I will say this: I think Dustin has it right and I will betcha it takes more than one appearance a day from each of those dozen+ moderators to keep the flow rolling and toeing the line. I know that when I tried to communicate- even using Google Translate- to those who infected BU it was to no avail and I didn’t want to flex my muscle too far as we hadn’t spoken in depth about that part. I felt (and that goes for in person as well) that it is the highest degree of rudeness to speak (or write) in another language, and while not make any attempt to share your words.~ Honestly, I felt as if it was the disease that started the death wail. (I know it disgusted me)
The drop and run problem, as the blow that also hit Jen and #bealeader, is a problem I see everywhere and I know that it has been DRUMMED in me since I began on line- if you are spoken to- ANSWER. Period. That’s just simple manners. So I know everyone else knows that valuable piece of advice.
It is insane. The pure and simple TIME required to be a member, a real member of a community. And when you are talking business, and multiple communities and and platforms… well, it makes for a skinny winner. I keep hearing we all have the same amount of hours in a day given to us… but I am not completely convinced! LOL
And yeah, we are still cleaning up fall-out from the swamping. So life may be a shipwreck at times, but hey! we are still singin’ in the lifeboats!
Hi Jayme – I think annelizhannan ANDannelizhannan KDillabough@ nailed it, there are now just too many communities and platforms to keep up. At this point, starting and growing a new community is tough unless it offers something truly unique and valuable – which, again, with the proliferation of communities, is an ever-more-challenging target to hit. Everyone has to spend their time where it makes the most sense.