Why Google+ is, for Content Creators & Professionals Anyway, NOTHING Like Facebook

Pictures of you partying it up with Stupid. Pictures of you wearing a shirt that says, “I’m with Stupid” and that points to a mirror with another picture of you taking the original pic of yourself.

Your personal life. What events you attend. Who you hang out with. Who you let it all hang out with.

Religious stuff. Political stuff. A whole lot of stuff. That’s what Facebook’s all about. Your entire friggin’ life, right down to what TV shows you dig and what websites you read, all over it.

Luckily, FB is fairly decent about allowing you to keep things private.

On the surface, Google+ may seem like another Facebook. Another giant social network to share your life on.

But it is absolutely not!

At least, you should be aware of a few things before you go blasting posts to Google+ like you do on Facebook.

Firstly, if you use Gmail, or someone you email uses Gmail, your picture and a link to your Google+ profile will show up over there. Yep. That means they have one-click access to whatever you post on that particular social network.

While stalking someone out on Facebook might seem creepy, clicking a link in your email doesn’t.

Secondly, if you’re a professional writer, blogger, or anyone who’s creating content on the web, it will do you well to setup Google Authorship. Get credit for your work all around the web, not just on your own personal blog, as long as you have everything setup correctly. That said, once you start getting that credit, people will have access to your Google+ profile.

Yes, you can keep some things private.

But unlike Facebook, this information is tied to Gmail, Google search results, YouTube, and just about any other Goog-related product or service you participate in (now including your eyeballs!)

So keep that in mind the next time you want to post pictures of yourself wearing your cat’s sweater…maybe that’s better left for the ‘Book and keep your G+ nice and clean.

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