Introduction and Guide to Google+ Communities for Foodies, Cooking enthusiasts and Food Bloggers

Google’s own Social Network, Google+, launched the brand new Community option last week. It was glorious! Special Food related Communities were created and Plussers happily joined to take part in the fun. Everybody was excited and Facebook and Twitter were kind of dead silent compared to Google+ at that time. Since I joined it back then in July 2011, I have been active everyday in Google+, but the release of the new Google+ feature was the point were many of my fellow friends and colleagues realized that google+ was meant to stay and leave a massive impact in the online world!

The New Google+ Community section

Every few weeks we have been surprised by Google with a new little useful detail to make our life in the social network easier. Fortunately Google+ is a cake walk and pretty easy to understand, and for this reason it gained quickly a name in the online world. Many of our friends have joined us there and since google finally came up with their communities – who are equal to Facebook’s groups – everyone found some interest in it and is taking part in the fun. The cool thing is that you can search for any special communities you fancy and join them. There are all kinds of topics already, they have literally mushroomed over night and you can see that a lot of people have taken advantage of the new feature and have joined their favorite community topics.

However, I would like to point out that some Communities are more strict when it is about approving new members. Each Community will have their own rules, therefore you will experience faster Community approvals for certain groups. Rules, in my opinion, aren’t always bad, in fact I welcome them, especially in bigger Member groups where things might go out of hand, and that’s not fun for anyone. Of course that’s up to you and once you start searching and joining groups you will realize what I mean with each community works differently. Certainly you will find something for your taste.

Since I am a passionate Food Blogger and Cooking enthusiasts, I decided to join a couple of Food related Communities. Some of my Foodie friends had already founded some groups and were about to send out a couple of invites. I happily accepted the ones I found interesting. Some communities give you the chance to take a peak at what the group looks like but you won’t be able to comment on the post there, unless you have been approved by a group Moderator.

A Cooking Community

To get approved faster and to become a member isn’t always guaranteed. Most of the time, the reason why a user is disapproved, is because he or she didn’t look real, so to speak it was just another annoying bot. Sometimes it is the fact that the user hasn’t filled out their “about” section or that it’s just another Blue head without even one public shared post in the stream. As a Moderator it can be difficult to see if that profile is actually used by a real human or not, and of course members need to be filtered, because who likes racists and offensive posters, right?

So if you want to speed up your Community Member requests, I would suggest to go through this check list underneath.

• Make sure that you have a clear picture showing your face
• Fill out your About section on your Profile to the max. Start by introducing yourself and add some details about what you do and what you like.
• Connect and add your other Social Network accounts and your website or blog
• Be active! Write about your passions or share what moves you.

Things you might want to avoid doing…

• Creepy posts, Racist posts or other obnoxious write ups
• A feed full of reposts and no actual social networking engagement
• A feed full of self promotion and nothing else (ex. individual selling insurances and just trying to get you to buy their stuff)

All this makes sense, right? You don’t just add anybody as your friend don’t you?  So, the same applies with some of the organized themed Communities in Google+.

Fill out your about section in your Profile

Once you are in, you can start to engage with your like minded colleagues by sharing your stuff or your thoughts or by showing the world your preferences.  You can even disable or enable the Community notifications. That might come handy if you don’t want to get notified each time somebody posts something into the group. Just click the bell in the left sidebar under the community picture to put it on or off.

Notifications and Search function in a Community

Some groups have special themed sections, so called sub topics, which you will find on the left sidebar. So, when you want to post something, you ll make sure that it is posted in the right category to keep it organized. You have a search function in the community as well, in case you are looking for a particular topic. If you come back to the group after a while, you will discover the new posts instantly by looking at the numbers in the left side bar next to each sub category. It’s an easy system and you ll surely find your way in there without difficulties. In case you can always ask me for help and I ll gladly point you to the right direction.

Community Post Categories

You can create your own Community if you wish so! In your main Community window, click on “Create a Community” and follow this guide to help you set it up correctly.

Create your own new Community

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Now, for Food Bloggers, the new community function has a treat. Our own +Chef Dennis Littley has created a own special space for us, called The G+ Food Blogger Community, thus giving us the chance to connect with each other in one place and share our knowledge with our fellow Food Blogger friends. It’s a great space to share your technical issues or food & blogging related questions with the others! The Community has some rules and so it is very well organized, resulting in a good and clear conversations between us all.

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More Google+ related links:

• A quick Google+ Introduction
• Get started in Google+
• Google+ – How to be a good Plusser

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 Connect with me on Google+

+Helene D’Souza Google+ Profile

+Masala Herb Google+ Page

I wrote this little guide because I am a happy Google+ user and I d like to motivate you in joining the fun there. Google never contacted me to write this article and Google didn’t compensate me in any way!

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Tagged as: Communities, community, cooking, Food Bloggers, foodies, google+, guide, introduction