Every Friday, we’re posting Google+ tips to help publishers make the most of all of the features and resources available. Be sure to check back each week for the latest in our educational Social Fridays series!
Since we started 4 weeks ago, we’ve walked you through placing the +1 button on your pages, creating and verifying your Google+ page, and adding the Google+ badge to your site. You’ve completed the main steps for getting set up on Google+ and are posting regularly -- but do you know how your content is spreading? In today’s Social Fridays post, we’ll show you how to find this information using
Google+ Ripples.
With Ripples, you can now see how your public content was reshared over time on Google+, and what users were saying about it. To try it out, just find a public post and select ‘View Ripples’ from the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner of the post. You’ll see a number of circles that each correspond to a user that has reshared your content, and inside the circle you’ll see the people who have reshared the link from that person (and so on). Circles are roughly sized based on the relative influence of that person -- so the larger a person’s circle is, the more reshares have resulted from their original reshare.
You can also see who has been discussing your content on Google+, even if they didn’t reshare your original post. Circles on the Ripples page that aren’t connected to other circles represent individuals who have independently shared your content. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to play an animated version of the visualization that shows how your link was shared over time. You can also see a line graph that illustrates activity on the post.
With this information, you can identify key influencers or top contributors in your community who are helping to get the word out about your content -- whether or not it was reshared directly from your +page. You might want to reach out to these engaged individuals to ask for their feedback about your content, or even set up a Hangout to talk in more detail with them.
Give Ripples a try today, and see how some of your recent content has been publicly reshared. For more information, watch this video:
Want more reports and metrics? Be sure to join us here again next Friday, when we’ll walk you through the reporting tools you can use to track the performance of your +page. Until then, let us know on our AdSense +page if you’ve found any interesting insights via Ripples.
Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
