Google Plus is evolving at an incredible rate. As a result, things change quite frequently. Here are five quick tips I’ve learned that I didn’t know last week.

1. Keep Track of Who Added You

I recently noticed that the “Incoming” tab had disappeared from Google Plus. This tab was useful as it gave you a list of everyone who had circled you, but you hadn’t either circled them back, or ignored them.

The good news is that there’s another way. Follow these steps:

• Click the “Circles” button at the top of any page on Google Plus.
• Click “People who’ve added you”.
• Under the “sort by” option, click “Not yet in circles”.

As you go through the list, you will eventually reach people who are in your circles. Look for the little circle icon in the corner of their profile info – this will show they’re in your circles.

2. Hide Circles From the Main Stream

Sometimes you want to circle someone, but you find they flood your stream with a lot of content. I find it’s not so common for just one person to flood my stream, but there are people who post things like funny videos and images quite frequently – and sometimes that’s the only thing I can see on the main stream. As a result, I may miss comments from other people.

I have a circle called “Sharers” for people who fall into this category. I do still want to see what they’re posting – I just don’t want it to take over my stream.

There is a way to get around this:

• Add the people to a circle. Make sure they are not in any other circles.
• Go to your main stream and click the name of the circle in the left-hand navigation, so you only see posts from that circle.
• Above the stream, you should see the name of the circle and a slider. Slide it all the way to the left, and the updates from this circle will no longer appear in the main stream.

I don’t recommend using this to circle anyone and everyone, and just hide their updates. If you never want to see someone’s updates, remove them from your circles. This tip is good for people who you want to circle, view their updates in a specific circle, but not in the main stream.

Remember - this will not work if the people in the hidden circle are also in any other circles that are not hidden.

3. Bold Your Post Titles

You could write something like this:

*Blogging Tips to Make Your Blog Stand Out*

This is the new tagline for Quick Blog Tips.

Note the asterisks (*) surrounding  the first line. The result would look like this:

I’ve heard this is good for SEO – but aside from that, it looks good! If you’re writing a longish post, having a post title is a good idea.

4. Use Hashtags

We can now use hashtags on Google Plus. Just type the hash symbol (#) followed by the word you wish to use. Do not put a space after the hash symbol.

Try clicking on the hashtags!

5. Find People

You can find this under Circles – Find People.

On other social networks, this is a feature that I don’t find useful. However, even without uploading my address book or connecting to other sites, the Google Plus “Find” page has brought up some people I already know.

Maybe it uses my Gmail contacts… or maybe it “just knows”. Either way, this is a great way to expand my current circles.

Bonus Tips

Here are some basic tips that you might not know, but that really go without saying for most social networks:

• Follow interesting people.
• Write useful, thoughtful, funny and/or original comments.
• Reply to people – don’t ignore them.
• Promote other people’s stuff – not just your own.

If you don’t already know these, don’t worry – you do now!

Discussion

Do you use Google Plus? Did you already know these tips? What other tips have you found recently?

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