You can create Google+ circles to control the audience for your own posts as I described here, but the most common reason to create Google+ circles is to organize how you read other people’s posts in your feed. Google+ circles can serve as filters by allowing you to only see posts from the people you put in a given circle rather than looking at everyone’s posts at the same time. Here are some tips for how to create Google+ circles that will best organize the posts you want to see.
- Create Google+ circles based on categories that make sense to you. Everyone thinks differently, so everyone will want different circles. Someone might create Google+ circles for professional, social, and family. Someone else might use funny and serious. Another person may create Google+ circles for friends in real life and Internet only friends. If you ever look at your main feed and think “I wish I could just read posts from [some group of people]” that means you should make a circle.
- Move the four Google+ circles you read most to the front. The first four Google+ circles by position on the “Your Circles” screen will show up at the top of your feed, which means you can switch from all posts to only posts from any of those circles with one click. If you don’t like the circles that are showing up select “Find People” then “Your Circles,” and drag the circles you want to see to the first positions just after the add a new circle prompt.
- Create a Google+ circle for must read plussers. We can pretend that we love all the hundreds of people we follow on social media equally, but there are usually only a few people whose posts you definitely don’t want to miss. Create a Google+ circle for those must read people even if they cross the categories you made from tip number 1. Remember that people can be in multiple Google+ circles.
- Create private Google+ circles for items to read later or that may require some action. If you create a Google+ circle with no one in it only you can see posts that are shared there. You can use these private Google+ circles to archive posts that you want to be able to access later. Just share the original post like you normally would but instead of sharing it to Your Circles or Public only share it with your private circle. (Thanks to +Rob Wingader for that tip.)
This is part of a series of posts to help you get started with Google+. The previous posts in the series were
- Google+ privacy: Create circles by what you post not who is in them,
- Google+ people: Finding signs of life on the second most popular social media site, and
- Google+ circles: You only need one.
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Kim Z. Dale 