There’s little doubt that Google+ has had a phenomenal start with over 90 million members and it looks like it’s set to stay. With the launch of Google+ business profile pages, all companies from small start-ups to large corporations will be utilising these profiles to build their online connections. The latest social media contender gives companies a platform to share and connect with  existing and potential customers in more creative ways such as photo and video sharing, blogging as well as status updates.

Circles

Google + provides you with ‘Circles’ to help group together people to share content and engage with based on common interests.  This has a huge benefit for the user as they can divide content between personal and professional interests. From a brand perspective, this is an incredible opportunity — the more specific you tailor your message to a group, the more likely that group will respond and engage with you.

Host a ‘Hangout’ session

Google + allows you to host a ‘hangout’ session in which you can connect with a group via a webcam for feedback or conversations. This interactive option gives you an opportunity to reach your connections on a more personal level.

1+ button

The 1+ button can be added to your websites and blog and is excellent for increasing your ranking in Google search. It is similar to the ‘like’ button in Facebook but with the added benefit that this Google plus one button will help your articles and blogs to rank and come top in the search engine results.

Maximise sharing

Sharing is easier in Google+ so you need to share good quality content in your profile in order to thrive in this social networking site. Share news and information about your company through videos and photos and other engaging formats.

Engaging

Unlike Facebook, Google has prohibited the use of contests or promotions on its business pages resulting in the need for a higher level of engagement. This adds even more value to engagement with your connections, so make sure you interact with your groups.

I have attended two recruitment in social media events recently and although I thought I was fairly social media savvy – I definitely learned some interesting new stuff showing that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks!

The first was the UK Recruiter and  HB RIDA Directors’ Networking Event. The first presentation was from Sophie Relf the Head of Marketing Strategy at Guardian Jobs.  While I didn’t actually agree with a lot of her comments (‘social media is a walled garden, for example’ – don’t get Andy Headworth started on that!), there was one phrase she did use which really struck a chord and that was “mobile is the remote control of people’s lives.”
This was a theme that Andy Headworth of Sirona Consulting picked up when he asked “How many of you have a mobile website”? The answer of course was everyone– it’s just that most look crap!  Andy then went on to (in his own words) take down the wall brick by brick and gave some great examples of how powerful the platforms have become.

Next up was Steve Evans of NetNatives who gave some really interesting insights into how Facebook pages are changing.  Likes will no longer be the be all and endall – but visitors will able to ‘recommend’ or say ‘I work here’ – think aboutthe potential branding for a temps recruiter around that!

Will Winch of Mishcon de Reya scared everyone to death (only joking Will) by giving the legal perspectives around data protection, data theft and cyber bullying

The other event was #RTSM11 run hosted by Recruitment International.  Andy Headworth (yes him again) talked about how Facebook is a content management platform – not a social network and so your content has to be relevant interactive and interesting – not just a page of jobs!  He also told us that Google+ is now the fastest growing social network in history and there are certainly some really interesting applications for recruiters.

Patrick Traynor from LinkedIn highlighted the new company status update function and pointed out how few organisations were using the free
products and services tab on company profiles. And a really interesting nugget – mobile searching on Linked In is up 400% year on year!!

Jorgen Sundberg from Link Humans gave his top five tips on putting together a strategy for your content marketing while Dave Martin from Brave New
Talent told us that mobile will overtake desktops and laptops by 2013 and gave us a brand new buzzword – SoLoMo ( Social, Local Mobile).

Steve Ward from Cloud Nine shared a great story about his social media journey and then Oracle occupied the graveyard slot by aptly telling all
the recruiters how they recruit everything in house through social media !

All in all two great events – and I learned a lot !

Now don’t get me wrong – I am a huge fan of social media and you’ll regularly find me tweeting away, ‘working’ LinkedIn and checking in on Foursquare.  But just recently I have begun to think about all the ‘noise’ and how incredibly disciplined you have to be. If I log onto Twitter, there are so many genuinely interesting articles/links that people are sharing that are relevant to my world that I could spend literally all day reading them.  I get weekly LinkedIn group updates in my in box – sometimes I just have to grit my teeth and ignore them – and then stress in case I have missed anything  important. And, because we are in the PR business and need to keep abreast of all new developments, I have also been playing around with Google +. 

So now I have the drumming back inside my head – what have I missed, what have I missed, what have I missed.

I think it’s time to go and have a drink and try to forget. But obviously I’ll check in on Foursquare in case you want to join me

…you’ll have to get through these interview questions first. These have been doing the rounds over the last couple of weeks, but I thought I would share a few of my favourites in case you had missed them, or wanted to take another look. Some questions are designed to test creativity, others are intended to test your ability to calculate. A handful are simply brainteasers that Google want to hear your responses to. Here are some of the more bizarre and thought provoking questions:

• How many piano tuners are there in the world?
• Why are manhole covers round?
• You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
• How many golf balls can you fit in a school bus?
• Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco
• You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it?

My brain is hurting just thinking about the answers to some of these – and there are plenty more. Have a read of this blog entry about a real life nightmare interview with Google. And click here if you want to read some answers as suggested by Business Insider and its readers.

There are various different interview techniques and debates about the merits of competency based interviewing. What do you think about Google’s ideas? They must work pretty well given Google’s global dominance, but is throwing brainteasers at a candidate really a good indication of how well they can do the job? Or is it just another tool for employers to use to narrow down a shortlist of skilled candidates? What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever asked / been asked?