In 2012, self-published titles jumped to more than 391,000, up 59 percent over 2011 and 422 percent over 2007. Safe to say, there are hundreds of thousands of authors seeking spaces to sell and promote. A great place to do that is my current favorite social media platform:
Reason being, Google+ is more inviting. It’s far less private than Facebook. With Facebook, when someone requests to add me, we become friends. Not only will they be able to see my activity, but my timeline will be streamed with theirs as well. With Google+, that’s not the case. Similar to Facebook’s friends, you can add someone to your circle. However, they don’t have to add you back. Furthermore, you can create several types of circles which is awesome because I may only want to publicize information to certain persons.
You can also create and join communities. These are kind of like Facebook’s groups. Communities are categorized however you dub them so. For example, I’m a member of communities that pertain to women entrepreneurship, motherhood, natural hair, writers/bloggers, and fashion. If I were to write a book on being an entrepreneur who homeschools, for example, then I’ll likely share that in both the women entrepreneurship and motherhood communities. Please don’t limit your participation to giving, though; there is TONS of valuable info on Google+.
Hangouts are another plus. Here, you’re allowed to take what could’ve been an interactive post or blog, and make it a live conversation. Should you want to webcam it, then you can, adding up to 10 persons to the call. YouTube has a function that allows you to upload your Google+ Hangout to your video manager. Feel free to use the Hangout to host your first virtual book tour 😉
Finally, you can now create a page for your business/brand. This is very similar to that of Facebook’s. In my opinion, it appears much cleaner though. Another plus is that the page is owned by Google which automatically puts you up there in the search engine. So, should someone search for my business, then my Google+ page is more likely to appear before my website does. This is fundamental to the author seeking to be seen, especially given the fact that your page can be linked right back to your website.
Are you on Google+ yet? If so, how are you digging it?