Make New Friends on Google+

Many people seem to have a problem making new friends on Google+. Google+ is absolutely more of a social network where the main goal is to build new relationships.  I would consider it different than one where you find your old friends or simply just share pictures.  While being on G+, I have made so many new connections with people.  I now have people to hangout with people who I aim to meet personally one day, and people I now  actually consider to be true friends. In this post I hope to help other people on G+ by sharing some of these tip I use to find people.

1. Interact With People on Threads Surrounding Topics You Like:

When I first started out on G+ the only person I knew was family members who were happy to be able G+ with me. So I went to their profiles and looked for others interacting with them on their threads.  When meeting new people try to engage into conversations and replying to them by +mentioning them.  That will bring you into the conversation with them. After going back and forth with someone for a while you can decide if you want to circle them or not, check out their profile, see what types of things they post, see if they hangout, and if you like them, circle them. And if they like you chances are they will circle you back.

2. Look at Other Peoples Circles:

Once you have made a few connections with people and you have circled them on G+ go to one of their profiles and hover over the box that displays who they have in their circles on the right (Only appears if the profile publicly shows who they have in circles). In the upper right of the box it will say "View all", click on that and a larger box will load showing everyone in their circles they are publicly displaying. By default everyone in this box is sorted by relevance and at the upper left you can change this to sort by first or last name (which I never do). Chances are the first people showing will already be in your circles, but if you scroll down there should be some who aren't. By hovering over their name a hover card will display showing how many people you have in common (profiles with private follower counts or more than 14,000 followers won't show who you have in common). People in common are those who you follow that publicly follow this individual. So when I see a large number, like 308 for an individual, I tend to check them out. If you are new to G+ seeing a number around 5-10 people is probably enough to check someone out if you don't already have a lot of people circled yet. The more interesting people you circle, the more people you will have in common with someone along the same lines of interest. Repeating this tip alone can bring to you a nearly endless number of new people to circle.

3. Watch for Recommendations From Those You Follow:

I wouldn't suggest adding massive circle shares from friends, but small ones are okay, but more 500 people are too difficult to go through. Adding 500 people should take place slowly over a month of interacting with people and making the connection.   I encourage circling people who are recommended individually by those you already like. Like when someone shares a post of someone you haven't heard of yet who just so happens to sound interesting. Investigate their profile, see if you like them, and if you do, circle them!

4. Join Hangouts With Some New People:

I don't recommend joining a hangout where you know absolutely no one, but if you see a hangout going on with a friend or two along with some people you don't know, join them. The chances are if they like them enough to invite them to their hangout, you might also like them too. I meet new people like this everyday and I add them to my "New People to Hangout With" circle so they will be invited to my hangouts.

5. Search For People By Topics:

G+ has a bar near the top, it does a lot more than just help you navigate to people you already have circled. You can type in keywords like "photography" and search. By default you will be directed to a live stream of posts under the topic you searched for, you can look for interesting content being posted there, or you can click on the menu below your search entry that says "everything" and when it drops down select "People and pages". You will now have a list of both people and pages surrounding your search. As before, hovering over a name will bring up a hover card that can help you know if you have any people in common.

6. Check Out Who +1'd a Post by You:

By clicking on the lower right side of the post just above the comments where the icons for how many shares and +1's there are you will open the activity tray for the post. Once it is open, there will be two lists, the left one will show who has +1'd the post and the right one will show who's shared the post. Both lists will be sorted by relevance. Like before, hovering over a name will display the hover card that can help you see if you have anyone in common with a profile. If you see some people in common and they are pretty high up on the list, they are worth checking out to see if you will like to circle them.

7. Use Other Sites To Help Find People With Similar Interests:

My favourite site for finding others with similar interests is "group.as" http://www.group.as/ You can find many people with similar interests organized into lists on there.