Blog

Mountain View, California 94043

I was actively established  with a #Gmail  account, along with #Yahoo, #Aol and #iCloud.  With my interest in posting my article in a blog format, I googled:  How to create a blog :  By no accident, sure nuff!! #Blogger topped  the search results.  Twelve posts  later my readership has topped 1800 views.  Woot!! Woot!!

On Facebook I have 347 friends of which, I know at least one third is family.  I have linked my #Twitter account to Facebook so I have multiple posts simultaneously.   But here is the separation of the goats and the sheep.

Between #LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter there are defined tenets of market strategy and personal branding.   Here is my observation and personal assessment.

Resumes are posted to LinkedIn and you invite friends to connect.  You and your connections share posts and submit endorsements of each each others skills, knowledge and aptitude.  You get to follow leaders and comment on posts. You get to see former colleagues and companies advertising and hiring for positions.    In LinkedIn you are a guest, and not a participant. Until you are a designated leader in your particular sphere of expertise and have garnered a large following, the doors to connection remain open, only to a closeted few.  There is no visible cross utilization and cross pollination of circles to engage with each other on an active call and response basis. #Google+ masters interactive community engagement

Facebook and Twitter are the social marketplace for personal curiosities, interests and most often abstract sharings.  Facebook analytics should identify that their tween to thirties populations have migrated  in large numbers to the super instantaneous Twitter and Instagram platforms.  Google+ communities are vibrant, engaging and robustly populated with interactive participants ranging in ages from early twenties to seniors like myself.  

Just for example, these are the communities that I have joined  and now potentially have the visibility of thousands for my following, and viewing my posts:

#How to write better  195 members
#Blogging  2506 members
#Social Media Marketing  6458 members
#Google+ Helper Community  1768 member
#Google+ Updates 42619 members
#Caribbean Cooking and Culture  515 members
#Buddhism and Meditation  27619 members
#Entrepreneurs, Self Employed and Small Business  17883 members

With less than six months of active posting and sharing on Google,  I am connecting with the pedigree of circles, the people who recommend the best talents to each other, starting with Chef  +Larry Fournillier , a fellow Trinidad and Tobago national.   Larry, who has amassed a very large and dedicated following has shared introductions to communities,  helped me with navigating the connections with the best of circles, and  has been a most instrumental connection for me,  as a new google+ sharer.    I have continued  to see a growing and nurturing expansion of followers, friends, circles and acquaintances from every walk of life and to people in world locations I would never have known.  Among my best of circles are the most experienced and most sharing collaborators +Michael Bennett +Karin Sebelin +Martin Holmes +Mark Traphagen +martin shervington +Jason Hurtado Daniels +Jacob Travis +J.C. Kendall +Ronnie Bincer , just a few of the brilliant engagers who teach, instruct and educate on all levels of social media inter activity.   +Tazein Mirza Saad is a  regularl poster, who provides gifted thoughts in prose and poems of inspiration to her large following.

The grasp with which Google has gripped the social media global landscape is gargantuan.  There are features that for the novice user, are most complex.   It will take repeated exercises and exhaustive usage to become a competent and  advanced practitioner   I installed +Google Chrome  on my desktop. I have since downloaded app extensions for +picasa web and other tools for sharing slideshows and video streaming on my profile pages. I have  +google translate , where both readers of my posts or when I read others’ posts, the work is translated to the language of preference.   I am in the process of developing my personal website using the +google site development tools. I have attended +Google Hangout featuring a live Caribbean Cooking show, all done in real time with virtual hosting collaborators.

After researching international calling rates, I am now touting the advantages of +Google Voice to all my families, friends and colleagues who have families living abroad.  This is a fact check.  The +Comcast service rate for calls to Trinidad and Tobago is 33 cents per minute.  The rate for the same international call with +Google Voice is one third less. Beam me up Scotty!!! Save me 20 cents per minute on my calls to family abroad.

Will Google be paying me for mentioning them in my blog may be a good question to entertain?  I am eager and very interested in exploring how the +AdSense Dashboard will approve my pages for monetization. Luckily +Skimlinks an earnings qualifier program, has allowed me to be on their platform.  I still don’t yet know how the actual results are generated to provide income from my blog posts.

This Google galactic technology frontier is volcanic and explosive in the penetration of world destinations.  Can we as a community really comprehend the monopoly that is permeating all spectres of social communications at warp speed?  Although space travel has not yet commercially materialized,  with the demanding Google update activities of +Richard Branson tweets and  posts, in all social media , about trans Atlantic engineering flight feats, it will be no surprise that +Virgin Galactic  will the leading pioneer in this realm.

What’s on your mind asks Facebook status updates?  I posted:

Whether you write, cook, train, or are in business to grow and expand, if you are hesitant about social media, you are missing the opportunity… I have been intrigued by this phenomenon… especially being a 55+er… From my posts, like the song says “if you don’t know me, / about me / by now, you will never ever know me….ooooooh.” .. As a video on one of my blog posts says, Social media is relationship.

Facebook was the entry for people to air with their body of friends what they chose to share… Google is where communication and building networks of thousands is happening and the best example is from my posts here I typically see the 4 or 5 like….on Google+ my posts have been seen by 1700… Now you do the math…and I started to post blogs because there was a Huffington Post on Linked In that asked How does the Internet give you a voice.. and I crafted a blog response…

I know we are always skeptical to unknowns and change, but stay abreast…. Here is another reason to check out Google… any language is available to you with Google Translate So you can read my blog posts in French English, Spanish Swahili just as an example

Well, it will be no surprise that very soon,  my Facebook status update will  show this as my profile: