As Google Plus continues to grow its active user base and integrate its “social layer” across its other products and services, the number of ways to utilize this powerful social media marketing channel only continues to grow. For any user or brand that wants to take a deep dive into their circles, sharing, engagement and posting activity, this post is for you.
By using?these four Google Plus analysis tools, you’ll be able to get valuable insights into meaningful Google Plus data which will allow you to be more strategic with how you circle, engage, share and make your time on the network more effective and efficient.
To Embed Four Tools To Help You Measure And Manage Your Activity On Google Plus on Your Site: Copy and Paste the Code Below
All My Plus
All My Plus is a free Google Plus statistic tool that allows you filter data and view reports to help you analyze your Google Plus activity including:
- How many comments you’ve received on your shared posts
- Your total number of shared posts
- How many times your posts have been reshared
- Shared posts with the most comments, reshares and +1’s
- Users whose posts you’ve reshared
- Average number of comments, +1’s and reshares for posts you’ve shared, reshared publicly or shared with a public community
All My Plus Sounds Awesome, How Do I Get Started?
To get started with All My Plus, you’ll need to give the tool permission to add cookies to your browser and access to your public data on Google Plus. You’ll?sign-in to All My Plus using your Google+ account, your Google APPs account, or by entering the ID or?URL of a Google Plus profile or page you’d like to explore in the Submit box.
Where Can I Find My Google+ Profile ID (URL)?
Your Google Plus profile ID will be the custom (vanity) Google Plus URL you’ve approved or your 21-digit profile ID number that will display in your browser when you’re on your Google Plus?profile or page.
Once you’ve signed in or added a Google Plus profile or page URL to the Submit box, you’ll be directed to your dashboard which should look similar to this:
How Does All My Plus Work?
The script in the tool uses the Google+ API (application programming interface) to?download your data via Google Takeout and display it in various reports. The tool pulls follower numbers from the Google Plus statistic tool, CircleCount.
All My Plus Search Feature
One useful feature of the tool is the ability to search for keywords and phrases in?Google Plus. After entering a search, All My Plus will display results for?posts that contain your search keywords, and allow you to quickly filter and?refine your search results using the following options:
- Shared publicly or in a community
- Original or reshared
- Contains comments, +1’s or reshares
- Video, Photo or Link shares
- Date range
How Is The Search Feature In All My Plus Actionable?
The search feature is great for finding shares of your own posts (I’ll admit that sometimes?I lose track of notifications), and also for new post discovery related to topics you’re interested in. Use this feature for relationship building by finding and?engaging with other users who have shared your posts or posts that are relevant to?your interests.
Use All My Plus To Identify Your Most Popular Posts on Google Plus
To see what your most popular shared posts on Google+ are, from the dashboard, navigate to the popular posts box to see what posts have received the most +1’s, comments and reshares. By analyzing what could have made these posts so popular, you can uncover the types of post or communities you’ve shared with that resulted in high post engagement. Use the data to refine and guide your future sharing strategy on the network.
All Posts: Take A Walk Down Google Plus Memory Lane
The All Posts dashboard in the tool takes you through all of your Google Plus sharing history. Using this feature, I was able to quickly see that my first post on Google Plus was on 8-31-2011, was 166 characters, was shared publicly, and had no engagement (that’s okay,as things have since improved). It’s interesting (and fun) to turn back the clock and see how your sharing on the network has evolved and progressed. You’ll again have access to filter the data in a way that provides you with the data and activity that’s relevant to you. Here’s a screenshot with a quick break-down of the features from this dashboard.
Use the All Posts feature to analyze the following aspects of your sharing
- How the length of your posts may have influenced engagement
- If sharing publicly or with a community resulted in high engagement
- Are you sharing at the peak posting times (9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. on Google+)? The tool uses a 24-hour clock so you’ll need to brush up on your military time
All My Plus is a powerful tool and one that can easily be utilized for gathering actionable data. For more information about features and functionality of the tool, check out Jonathan Chung’s write-up here.
Circloscope: Become A Master of Circle Management
Circloscope is a Google Plus circle management, task, and analysis tool. The tool works by pulling data from a Google Plus profile?or?page and provides you with a variety of filtering options and data about users in your circles or the circles for any Google Plus pages that you manage.
Why Would I Need to Manage My Circles?
Google Plus is truly a social network and is all about building relationships with other users. The quickest way to start having fun and making friends is to find other users with similar interests and start to engage! Once you’ve found other users who share content you find interesting, you’ll want to add them to one of your circles.
Managing your circles is an effective way to limit or increase the amount of posts you see in your home stream from users in your circles. ?It’s possible that you’ll eventually want to see more or less of a specific circle’s content and limit the amount of posts you see in your home stream from another circle. Another scenario is that you may eventually reach the 5,000+ user limit that Google Plus puts on the number of users you can have in circles, and may need to remove certain users to make sure you only have your most relevant or important in circles.
How Do I Get Started With Circloscope?
To get started using the tool, you’ll need to install a Chrome plugin which can be added to your Chrome browser here. Once the plugin is installed, you can start your free premium trial (which is quite robust) and includes the following circle management features:
- Access a list of everyone you have in a circle
- Access a list of users who have engaged with a post (+1’d, commented or reshared a post)
- Find out how are the most relevant people in your circles are
- Discover who you follow but has yet to add you to a circle
- Find people in your circles who haven’t shared in a while
- Get a list of users from any Google Plus community
How Is Circloscope Actionable?
First and foremost, Circloscope allows users to make changes to their circles directly from the tool based off of information you can get from filtering and grouping users in your circles into a variety of different segments. One filter I found useful was the Relationship filter which allows you to find one-way relationships, or users you have circled but have yet to circle you back.
This specific filter tells me that I may need to spend more time engaging with the users that I have circled but have yet to add me to one.
Filter And Segment Users In Your Circles
The feature that makes Circloscope so powerful is the ability to segment using a variety of filters. One filter I found actionable was the ability to filter users in my circles by where they work. The below screenshot is a filter for users who have Google listed in their “Works at” section of their Google Plus profile. While my results are mostly accurate (users who actually work at Google), the tool also pulls back results for users that list Google Plus or have the word “Google” in this section of their profile.
Because I’m interested in Google products and services, I can create a new circle consisting of just these users.
Segment, Discover And Network With Other Users In Your Circles
Another useful feature that you could apply to your circles is the Lives in filter. If I’m traveling and want to connect or meet-up with any users that live in the area I’m visiting, this segment will provide me with a list of people that meet this criteria.
I’ve only mentioned a handful of the features you’ll have access to with the free trial version of the software. You can purchase?the software for $47 and the company is getting ready to release a new version in the near future. For a detailed reference guide on how to utilize features from the tool read Jaana Nystrom’s post on Circloscope
Wildfire: Social Media Monitor Tool
Wildfire is paid social media marketing software that helps businesses build social campaigns, measure ROI, run contests,?promotions and integrates with Google’s advertising solutions. Wildfire?was purchased by Google in July of 2012 and was it was rumored that the tech giant purchased the company to gain access to all sharing activity on networks like Twitter and Facebook. While the software is paid, they do offer a free social media monitor tool that lets you track social media activity against competitors or other users on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.
In the below image, we see four Google Plus profiles from users I consider to be influencers on the network.
Using this feature, I can see the percentage of growth each user has seen in the number of users that have added them to circles. After selecting or using the default data range, I can see this growth over the past 7 days, 1 month or 3 months’ time.
How Is The Data From Wildfire Actionable?
If you notice a user who shares similar interests that has seen a significant increase in the number of users that have them in circles, it may be beneficial to look closely at the the types of posts they are sharing and how they interact and engage with their audience.
The below image shows a Twitter comparison graph from the tool between four influential users.
Based on the data provided in this graph, we can see that ?Jeff Bullas?and Jay Baer have seen the largest increases in the last 3 months for number of followers on the social network.
It’s worth mentioning that the social media monitor tool in Wildfire also has a free leaderboard feature which shows the top brands on Facebook who have the most Likes and Check-ins, and brands on Twitter who lead with the most Followers, Following?and Tweets.
CircleCount: CircleRank, Google Plus Statistics & More
CircleCount is a Google Plus analysis and statistic tool that provides you with a variety of data about your own profile as well as statistics for other users on the network.
How To Get Started With CircleCount
Out of the gate, CircleCount provides a search feature available to anyone that allows you to search for a name, profile or page URL or location. ?To access all of the cool features on CircleCount, you’ll need to sign in.
The tool will ask for permission to display on your profile that you are using the tool (you can set this option to private) and also allow the tool to see who is in your circles (sharing circles is only needed for the features that need to know the people in your circles including “Your Birthdays” or “Your Circles Map.” You do have the option to unselect all circles in the sign in process and load them later when you want to use the features that need them.
The sign in is indeed needed, but you don’t need to show that you are using it on your profile for any feature (you can set this option to private). Sharing circles is only needed for the features that need to know the people in your circles (like “Your Birthdays” or “Your Circles Map”). But you can also unselect all circles in the sign in process and load them later when you want to use the features that need them (you will get a button on these pages).
CircleCount: Search By Location
The below image is a result for a search by location for users in Salt Lake City. The tool returns users in the order of most to followers to the?least.
Because Jesse lives in Salt Lake City and is involved with marketing, he’ll be someone I’ll want to connect and engage with on Google Plus.
CircleCount: Your Year On Google Plus
One feature I found interesting was the ability to see statistics for my 2013 year on Google Plus. This report shows me my total number of posts for the year along with the total number of +1’s, reshares and comments those posts received. The chart also includes a follower history which shows me a growth trend for the users who have added me to circles over the year. ?To get your own year on Google Plus report, you’ll need to log into the tool, scroll over to You! in the top navigation and click on the Your 2013 option.
CircleCount: Using The?Custom Ranking Feature
One feature that sets CircleCount apart from other Google Statistic tools is the ability to create your own custom ranking feature by setting importance preferences for a variety of user, location and engagement metrics. Setting a custom ranking feature will allow you to find profiles or pages that meet this criteria.
As with the other tools I’ve discussed, I’ve only covered a small portion of the features available in CircleCount. My hope is that this brief introduction to these tools will assist you in finding new and actionable ways to use the data and features in all of them. I’d love to hear about your experiences with any of these tools and how you are using them to make your time of Google Plus more efficient and effective.
