Shared publicly  - 
How to let G+ enhance and make your circles more relevant
+Amanda Blain has shared her method for curated circles on topic.
I have found this post via +Max Huijgen - read the post and see if you like it, but I am a lazy guy and I have created my own method.

How to follow lots of interesting people and curate them into circles of interest

I am following nearly 5K people and I have more than 50 circles right now. I have curated some of these circles by myself like +Amanda Blain has done it, just by searching and checking profiles, but most of the people I follow have been included by using some shared circles, that were curated by other people on some topic. Python, Javascript programmers for example or photographers and journalists or business pages.

Information overflow or underflow, depending on the engagement of the circle
Because there is now a need to curate my reading habits again, I have looked into the circles page of G+ and have found, that I can very easily create a new circle from an existing circle by just sorting the circle on relevance. I take about 50-100 people from larger circles and put them into a new circle named like the old one plus a little tag.

Changing the Noise Slider to switch to the new Circle

Then I just use the slider to make the new circle noisy and calm down the old one to zero. So only the new smaller curated relevant circle shows up in my stream. After a while, I just delete the larger circle or if I find that the curated relevant circle does not show enough engagement, I just add some more people from the larger to the smaller circle. And boom I am done. I let the system and the user engagement find relevant people. Sounds pretty easy and works for me right now.
Hope this is helpful for others.
*5 Steps to Circle Management - Why the "Following Circle" is not the way to go*

Google+ is interested based. You form relationships with people around the world who like the same stuff you do. Start off with investing 15 minutes a day if this sounds like too much. This is the best thing you can do to improve your experience here. Promise. Just start at step 1.

Step 1 - What do you Care about? I have close to 200 circles. I do NOT have a following circle. An average user should aim for about 5 - 10 interest based circles to start! Every single person I circle is categorized by something in their profile's about section, location, something we talked about etc. Every single one. I circle over 4k of people. That is why its important to have a good and detailed about section full of things you want to read about! I decided early on what I wanted to post about here on G+. Inspirational thoughts to keep me and others motivated, Video games, tv shows I like, food, tech stuff, web development and other topics as i see fit. Because these are my main interests I need to find other people interested in that stuff. This takes a bit of work, but start by putting all these interest in a nice easy to read format in your profile.

Step 2 - Find People To Circle on Those Interests. Search. I recently got into the show ABC show - Once upon a time. There was no shared circle on the subject that I could see. So i made one. I did a regular search for "once upon a time". I found people posting about it. I circled them. I didn't ask i just did it. Then i made a post about it with a nice graphic from the show asking people if they like the show to comment.( I notified the people i had circled. Most commented and said they wanted to be included. Other people who circle you will comment on it, BUT more importantly someone in the future will search "once upon a time" too.. and go BACK to that thread and comment. I also used relevant hashtags to help with future searchs #OUAT #onceuponatime ... I go back to that post often and add the new people who comment on it. There is a fair amount of work required in this process, but your circle size will likely never reach more than 100 people. Even on a pretty popular topic.

Step 3 - Make Posts, Keep Searching and Get Rid of Inactives - I wait awhile.. a month or two to build it up. I notify these circles occasionally when i post in these topics. Use it every once in awhile and most people don't mind being notified of a topic they are interested in. I continue doing searches on the keyword. "once upon a time" Then i get ready to share the circle. I use this extension from +Ehsan Ahmadi Gharacheh - Uncircle Inactives - I set it to a month before. I always check the results. Some people I don't want to loose sometimes, even if they haven't posted in a month.

Step 4 - Share the Love - Now that you've spent all this time developing a micro community, you need to share it.. and this is key... the people IN the circle need to add it and share it. This to me is the most important part of Google Plus. Yet so few are doing this. Why is this important? Well if you are in my circle about once upon a time(, chances are a chunk of the people who follow you ALSO like once upon a time. When you share a specific topic shared circle to your followers, The micro community grows. The majority of people who add and share that circle can start commenting on once upon a time posts and BAM everyone's stream and posts on once upon a time will get more relevant comments. That is what we all want here isn't it? That Engagement word thrown around so much?

*NOTE* Although the "+mention 3 people who are cool and i'll make a circle" and "THESE ARE THE BEST PEOPLE ON G+" circles are fun and nice, They are really pointless IMO. Adding one of these circles to your steam does NOT translate to your stream being awesome or cool to you. Being one of the "best people here" is a really subjective expereince. One that doesn't translate well through shared circles.

Step 5 - On going Management - The steps im describing here are the best way i've found of creating a stream of information that is interested to you and getting followers who are going to be interested in the things you post about. Adding a circle of less than 100 people will not destroy your stream. You can turn down the 'noise' on these streams with the slider at the top of any circle page if you aren't sure of the relevance of the shared circle. Few people here are posting about 1 topic only though, and just because they don't post about it, doesn't mean they don't want to comment on your stuff. Circling people first and commenting on relevant post is one of the best ways to get them to circle you back. Uncircle people as you see fit but realize You will see some post about things you don't care about by people in these circles (just like your friends lunch posts on facebook that you just scroll past)

It is unfortunate that, google has not allowed the option to provide public circles, so there is no way to subscribe to updates to a certain circle. Could be accomplished with hashtags. That feature would make this whole process easier. Until then, time investment is required(and so worth it). I spent probably as much time on this as i did on my various twitter lists though. This is social media. You will get back what you put in here.

What are your circle management tips? I see many saying they don't add or share circles they are in... which i think is a shame. I hope this post clarifies some of my points on why i share circles every other day or so and how much work and effort i put into sharing the G+ magic around here. :)

#circlemanagement #circleshare #googleplustips #engagement﻿
Max Huijgen's profile photoDavid Röll's profile photo
Add a comment...