Not to be outdone by Facebook’s layout redesign that included Graph Search, Google+ recently unveiled the redesign of their own social networking platform. Though Google+ may be considered the third wheel of the social networking services it has actually recently bested Twitter as the number two social media site in amount of user accounts, second to Facebook.
For those who don’t know exactly what Google+ is, it is Google’s answer to Facebook. Like other social media sites Google+ allows users to join communities, follow friends, and promote content through sharing posts, videos, and images.
Now that you know more about Google+, the redesigned layout now provides users with a new way to receive as many updates as possible. While the old layout only provided one single column of content, it now displays posts in a two or even three column layout that gives users more content per page. This does a great job of utilizing a computer’s entire screen. While the layout is now three columns, at times one entire post with a large image will take up the entire three columns almost acting as a feature post.
Aside from the three-column look, one of the biggest changes to Google+ is the inclusion of hashtags. Taking a page from Twitter, Google+ hashtags allow users to tag specific content in their posts so that it can be grouped together with posts of similar content. For example, if someone was writing a post about search engine optimization then they could use #SEO so that users searching the topic could find the post easily. Hashtags make it even easier to reach your audience
The interesting aspect of hashtags is that if you tag a post as #SEO you can click on the hashtag, and it will actually flip the post over unveiling other posts tagged with #SEO. This makes it easier to find similar content.
Aside from the layout and hashtags, another interesting update to Google+ is the new picture enhancement features. The most notable picture editing feature is known as Auto Awesome.
Auto Awesome’s features include the ability to make a GIF, merge similar pictures, and a feature called Smile that takes the best smiles from a set of group pictures, and puts them into one group photo.
Aside from Auto Awesome Google+ has also added Auto Backup, Auto Enhance, and Auto Highlight. Auto Backup allows for mobile images to be uploaded directly to Google+. Auto Enhance does exactly what it says it does. Lastly, Auto Highlight basically differentiates good images from poor ones so that users can more easily find the good pictures that they have taken.
In the midst of a social media campaign these photo editing features may seem unnecessary, but they could be the difference in uploading an appealing photo. Basically every Google+ post has some sort of a picture accompanying it, and if a picture is subpar, users will just skip over it without reading the post. Pictures are important.
All the new features make a social media campaign much more seamless on Google+. It probably won’t be before long before Google+ unveils yet another a new set of features, but for now these features make it much easier to disseminate information in the midst of a campaign. For more help navigating the new Google+ layout, talk to one of our experts at Premiere Creative and give us a call at (973) 346-8100.