UXG+: Google+ for Blogging

+Demian Farnworth comes up with some sage counter-arguments to +Mike Elgan’s exhortations that we should make Google+ our blogging platform: 8 Reasons You Should Never Give Up Your Own Blog for Google+

Disclaimer: I am participating in the latter’s Blogs of August experiment; as much as I’ve enjoyed the experience, the discussion that’s come out of it continues to emphasize why Google+ isn’t a replacement for blog software. Nor does it need to be. Let’s use the right tool for the right job. Let’s use more than one tool. Abandon the idea that one-size-fits all. One size fits one and everyone else has to alter themselves to make it work. That’s nonsense.

The ninth reason to keep your own blog is that a blog can be anything you want it to be. You are in control. Although many people initially perceived blogs as public journal, nothing about blogging software constrains the presentation to the chronological nor the content to the personal. Blogs can publish collections (recipes), be image-based (photo galleries), have multiple authors, can be fact or fiction, current or historical, original content or links to other content.

So the main difference is that with blog software you have control over both the content and the presentation. With Google+, you must force your content into Google’s (ever-changing) mode of presentation. In the early days of Google+, it felt like a post could be anything but as the team has pushed for a “more beautiful and simpler Google+” much of the flexibility has disappeared.

What Google+ is good at is enabling interaction: discovery, commenting and sharing, and moderation (muting, blocking) are all much easier on Google+ than on blogs.

Don’t feel pressured to choose between two tools that do different things. That’s like saying you can only have a refrigerator or a stove. They don’t do the same thing. Use them both, each for what they do best.

Bottom Line

Use the tool to achieve your purposes; don’t bend your purposes to suit the tool. That’s the first indication that you are using the wrong tool.

GPlus Discussion

Raymond Mendiola IV – 2013-08-19 14:55:34-0400

+M Sinclair Stevens You are indeed right along with +Demian Farnworth . For instance, I think Google Plus should be used alongside Blogger rather than instead of.

Demian Farnworth – 2013-08-19 16:08:43-0400

This is the money line: “What Google+ is good at is enabling interaction: discovery, commenting and sharing, and moderation (muting, blocking) are all much easier on Google+ than on blogs.”

And that’s exactly Elgan’s point. G+ makes these things easy … but nothing else. Thanks for sharing, especially for someone in the August challenge.

Meirav M. – 2013-08-19 21:58:00-0400

So glad to see others saying this. I’ve posted about this several times. Google+ isn’t a blogging platform – sure, you can use it to blog but why restrict yourself when there are better, dedicated blogging platforms which are free? And yes, G+ is really good at enabling discovery and interaction, which is why I post links to my blog posts here. But not everyone is on G+ and I don’t see any reason to limit my readership/commenters to only plussers.

dawn ahukanna – 2013-08-20 14:48:26-0400

Blogging,for me, simply is your own content served your own way(visual layout, interaction design, etc) in your own time. For the individual or specific group of individuals. These are not necessarily about making money.

Social media is about mega broadcast of content from a mass of people. Some individuals may stick out but it is all about mass appeal in everything, including any features, updates and/or changes. The main reason is data to target ads which is where the money is.

By all means, use a social media platform to disseminate your content but understand what control and choices you do or don’t have.

Gina Fiedel – 2013-08-20 19:09:56-0400

M Sinclair Stevens

Don’t feel pressured to choose between two tools that do different things. That’s like saying you can only have a refrigerator or a stove. They don’t do the same thing. Use them both, each for what they do best.

THAT.

I like that and agree. And I also like having both available at my discretion. I have no interest in choosing between the two.

nomad dimitri – 2013-08-23 04:01:51-0400

+M Sinclair Stevens i am sure you are both completely right. what i don’t get: how do people find time to maintain all these online presences, including tweeter, buzzer, feeder, yanker, sharer and all these facebooks etc
i have huge trouble just keeping a simple g+ presence alive with a modicum of quality…

dawn ahukanna – 2013-08-23 12:10:32-0400

+nomad dimitri, thought your comment was hilarious and apt. {>_<}

Alex Schleber – 2013-08-27 14:40:07-0400

Here is a comment I made on +Max Huijgen’s post surrounding the same/related Elgan “G+ Diet” discussion:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/112352920206354603958/posts/VaG2NA6MKUn

Alex Schleber Aug 19, 2013 +1

OK, sorry, but the Elgan example is as disingenuous as they come. It never made any sense as a poster-child… ever…

He was a widely-published tech blogger well before G+, and he never stopped writing articles for the multiple outlets he had written for. So much for “the G+ diet”… “do as I say, not as I do” comes to mind.

Christina herself, after her rapid initial rise on G+ (sans SUL if I recall?), smartly parlayed that into a Social Media job for larger(ish) preexisting brand. After the onset of which she was rarely heard from over here (probably also smart, since G+ AKA unpaid-by-other-greater-fools-SMM is among other things a vast time-sink).

Kudos to all of that, but is there a basis of far-ranging advice to the general SMM public?