Several of my clients come to me confused about Google+.  Should they have a page?  Is it worthwhile?  In a word, yes, if for no other reason than the fact that Google loves Google+ and tends to rank its pages quite well in search results.  So claiming your piece of Google real estate and posting content regularly is important.

Google’s entry into the social networking world debuted June 2011. One of the features of Google+’s service is the Google+ Circle, similar in design and purpose to Facebook’s Lists or Groups. Because relationships are at the core of any social networking service, Circles aims to make sharing with the people in your life (or business) as intuitive as possible. Users can create Circles based on their connections, and then choose which content they want to share with those Circles.

For example, say you have three groups of followers: Family, Work Colleagues, and Clients. You can create a separate Circle for each of these groups, and share what you want with each of these groups. Your Work Circle doesn’t see what you are sharing with your Client Circle, and your Client Circle doesn’t see what you are sharing with your Work Circle. This is one way to make your content as relevant as possible to the ones to whom it will matter most.  Simply put, Google+ Circles help you organize your  list of contacts in a more meaningful way, based on how you interact with those people in daily life.

Google+ Circles can be as targeted as the audiences with whom you want to communicate, making their experience with you all the more personalized.