A Guide to Google+ Communities

Google+ Communities

A community is a group discussion similar to a forum, where members are free to express their ideas by posting/sharing whatever they like, on the Community page.  Members are free to express their ideas, ask questions, post images, etc. about the particular topic/interest.

Privacy

A Google+ Community could be a Public community or a Private Community. Once the Community is created you cannot change the Privacy of it; that is from Public to Private and vice versa.

PUBLIC
There are two types of Public communities
[1] Anyone can join
[2] Needs approval to join


PRIVATE

There are two types of Private communities
[1] Hidden from search
[2] Shown in search

Community Etiquette(s)

The name of your community need not be a unique one. But, it is good to stick to one community of the same interest or subject. Therefore, before you create your own community, make sure you search for existing communities in that name. Visit them, and if you think you don't like the type of interaction or the type of people, then you may create one.

And, if you think your community is not getting any new members maybe that subject has a better community than yours. So, it is better if you delete yours and start interacting with an active community. (This is NOT a rule. :-P )

If you are creating a Public community, better not you make it to 'Request to join'. Shouldn't it be open? Anyway, it depends on the subject of your Community. ;-)

Name of Your Community

Make sure your Community has a General Interest name. And, communities are meant for discussion purposes. So, please don't create Communities in the name of your Business. For that, you need to create a Business page, and work on it in interacting with your customers. Because, a community is NOT 'Your company & your customers' OR 'You & your friends'.
NOTE: The name of your community cannot be changed after you reach 500 members in it.

Categories on Communities

Categories listed under the Name & Picture of a Community makes users filter discussions.
Owners/Moderators can edit(add/remove) categories by moving to the EDIT COMMUNITY option under ACTIONS.
DELETING a category from a Community also deletes the Posts under that category, and cannot be UNDONE.

Posts on Communities

The posts (links, images, videos, etc.) you post on Community pages also appear on your Profiles. Also, those posts appear in the main stream of the members of the particular Community. Your posts to Public Communities can be seen by anyone who visit your profile. But, your posts to Private communities are only seen to those who are in that community.
You can re-share a post of a Community to your Circles or Public depending whether the Community is Private or Public.
The posts you make on a Community also have the same options as on your Stream. You can Edit, Disable Comments, & Lock Posts.

Each members' post on a Community has the following options.

• Mute posts (no notifications about its activity)
• Remove posts
• Remove members from the community (Removed members can join or request to join again)
• Ban members from the community (Banned members cannot join or request to join again)

Events
These are community specific Events.

Search Community
This helps users to search and explore withing the particular Community.


Owners/Moderators

An owner can;

• Promote a Member to a Moderator,
• Promote a Moderator to Owner, and
• Demote a Moderator to Member.

A Moderator can;

• Promote a Member to Moderator
• Downgrade himself/herself from Moderator to a Member

An owner and a moderator will be able to:
-- Add and edit categories
-- Remove posts
-- Remove members from the community
-- Ban members from the community
-- Add additional moderators
A moderator will be able to do everything an owner can do to manage the community, except delete the community.

Communities vs Pages

Communities are meant for general interest discussions or conversations; whereas Pages are meant for certain Organisations, Programmes, etc.Communities should be used to carry-out a discussion about a topic(s) or problem.


Notifications

• Google sends you a notification when someone adds you to a Community, or sends you an Invitation to join.
• Users are able to MUTE email notifications from Communities. But, UNFORTUNATELY you cannot stop notifications related to Communities on the Google Bar.
• Every Community has a Notification feature which notifies its members when a new post is made on it. Users can enable/disable this option.P.S. If the Community has more than 10,000 members, the Notifications are disabled.
• Email notifications for Invitations to New Communities are ENABLED by default. (See image below)

Google recommends the following DOs and DON'Ts
   >> DOs
      -- Promote your community as a place where people can have conversations and share ideas
      -- Participate in conversations by posting, leaving comments and +1'ing posts
      -- Celebrate and engage with your members
      -- Add moderators and invite them to manage content and share regularly
      -- Add categories to help guide discussions
      -- Listen to and learn from your community's members

   >> DON'Ts
      -- Just broadcast information
      -- Only pose broad questions in the hopes of discussion and engagement
      -- Invite people to join an empty community — write an initial post to set expectations and welcome new members
      -- Leave your community unmoderated — check in on your community daily to make sure that the right kinds of conversations are happening.

• Learn More: www.google.com/+/learnmore/communities/ 
• Official Support: http://goo.gl/sdRwt 
• Video: Google+ Communities: A place for whatever you're into 
• My Other Tutorials: http://goo.gl/PfqqK
• Google+ "F1" Directory: http://goo.gl/3YyFv 

#Communities   #ddstips   #googlepluscommunities   #googleplustips  #googleplustutorials