So, like any other social media technology or "platform," Google+ is more powerful if more people follow you. Or in G+ terms, "circle" you. So here’s the BIGGEST GOOGLE+ tip for growing your influence.

First you want to circle lots of people. And more importantly, you want to circle them in a way that you can sort them apart from your friends, or real friends. (We’re all friends in social media, in the big sense of the word.)

Finding more people to circle.

Once you visit the "Find people" tab, G+ will show you a lot of people with imaginary connections to your circles that you can then easily add to your "following" circle. (Following is the name of the circle I use for folks I don’t really know yet.)

Easy enough. You drag through all the little ID cards shown and pull them all into your "following" circle. (or what ever you want to call it)

And when you are just starting out you can repeat this process several times. Reload the page in the browser or click on the "find people" link again. Voilá another page full of people you can circle. When you are done this is the screen you should see.

Well done.

So now what happens now,  is G+ has a 5,000 circler limit. (I don’t know if that’s finite, or if it’s a ratio thing like Twitter. Anyone have the answer to this?) So after you’ve filled your "following" circle you will eventually hit the limit. Here’s where the 2nd part of the strategy comes into play.

You need a nifty little Chrome plug-in called Uncircle the Uncirclers. (You are using Chrome as your primary browser, right?)

Here you can see the plugin doing it’s work with little red pacman icons, gobbling up the uncirclers from your life.

Rinse and repeat.

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)

permalink: https://uber.la/2012/01/growing-google/

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