To all of you reading this in the United States, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for reading. And to all of you around the world, we'd still like to say thank you for being loyal followers of our Daily Golden Nuggets.
According to recorded network traffic from the past few years, today will be the lowest volume of internet usage during the holiday season. Christmas Day is the next lowest traffic volume day followed by Daylight Savings, which happened for the U.S. back at the beginning of the month.
It's pretty early in the morning here on the East Coast of the US and we have to get our own turkey in the oven soon, so we'll make this Nugget very short.
The Google+ project is very young; in fact it's still in beta testing with frequent bugs. There are several user forums where feedback is given to the Google programmers and they frequently implement the feedback as new features.
Over here we've started to realize just how flexible Google+ really is. The built-in features seem very basic, perhaps almost worthless; that is until you really start to think outside the box.
On Facebook it took a while before they gave the ability to create a voting poll. But on Google+ they probably will NEVER give us a dedicated voting poll feature because, well, when you think outside the box they already have.
Here's how to use the G+ Stream to create a poll on your +Page.
Step 1:
Log in to your +Page account and go to your Stream.
Step 2:
Start typing in the Share box a message like this one...
*[Jewelry Store] Google+ Poll*
Please click the +1 button on the corresponding comment to vote. Which of the following is the most important item from your jewelry wardrobe:
Step 3:
Select the Public option from the "Add circles or people" box then click the green Share button.
Step 4:
Immediately post a comment for each voting option. For this example let's add 3 comments: Earrings, Necklaces and Rings. In the "Add a comment" box just type a single word and click the green Post comment button.
NOTE: When you add more than 3 comments, they will collapse from view, forcing your users to take an extra step before they can vote. Keep it to 3 choices for the greatest impact.
Step 5:
Once your question and options are set up you need to disable any more comments so your options don't get buried. To do this look at the top line of your post where it shows your +Page name and the time. To the right of that you will see a little circle with a down arrow in it. Click that and select "Disable comments."
Abracadabra! You've just changed your post into a voting poll. Your users cannot add comments but they can still click the +1 button for each option.
As people vote, you should add their names into similar Circles. Perhaps call them "Likes Earrings," "Likes Rings," "Likes Necklaces." In the future you can create additional polls to sub-categorize rings further, but only share that future poll with the "Likes Rings" circle.
If you're starting to think outside the box, you will realize this is another way to build targeted lists that can also be used for future special or general messages.
Click this link to see this Nugget as a live example: https://plus.google.com/116127358746529375660/posts/Y95kLfEy72S
That's it for today. Once again we'd like to wish all our readers in the United States a Happy Thanksgiving.
