Exploring Google plus - How to search even better using filters

This is Martin Shervington. And in this video, we're going to cover everything you need to know about searching, using Google+, for content that you relate to. We'll also look at notifications and sharing and profiles in a little more depth. Let's now venture beyond home and explore more of Google+. To do this, we can search in this top bar for things that we have an interest in. You can search for words or phrases. You can search for specific phrases by putting speech marks around that phrase. Or you can search for hashtags when people have used a hashtag in a post, or it's automatically been hashtagged by Google. Each of these methods are likely to bring up different results. But each result creates its own stream. Now depending upon how you filter - by everything, people, and pages, communities, Google+ posts, photos, or by clicking on more - you can actually tie it down to hangouts, events, from your circles, from you, or to you on that particular subject. Whichever way you decide to filter the search results, you can then click on an image and be taken to, for instance, a community. And then consider joining. Or if you filter by people and pages, you might decide to add an individual to a circle that's related to that particular content matter. Or for a page, you can follow, and just add them to your following circle. You can also choose between best of or the most recent. And because it is a stream, you can click and you can get the latest content. If you think you'd like to do the search again, then click "save the search." And to remove it, just click the button again. Throughout Google+, you'll find suggestions of people and pages for you to add in, the communities that you may like to join, and also a book that says trending. This gives you an indication of the content that is being talked about on Google+ at a particular time. And you can see by the arrows that it's going up or that it's going down, or the dot means that it's staying the same. And there's a mix between text and hashtag links here. If you click on one of the links in trending, it will take you to a stream for that search term, whether it's a hash tag or the words. You can then filter that by choosing whether you want the content from yourself, from your communities, people or elsewhere. If you want to find some popular content, then go to "what's hot." On "what's hot and recommended," you can click on the cog and decide how much content you receive in your home stream. Whenever you see a video in a post that you like, you can click to watch it, or you can click to watch it on YouTube, or on full screen. Click on a hashtag to find more content by flipping over the card and by navigating. And also then you can click on the hashtag above and that will take you to a dedicated stream where again you can filter the content, as if you've done a search in the Google+ search bar. Another thing with the search within Google+, if you look for a term and then circle, you'll find circles that individuals or pages that have shared that are related to a subject matter. If you want to add one in, you can click on add people. And this in turn will add people to your circles and content to your stream. And you can either create a new circle or you can add to an existing circle. Choose the circle and then click add to circle. Taking a deeper look at notifications, if you click view all notifications, you can then filter either by all of the posts, your posts, other people's posts, or when there are mentions of you. And if there are mentions of you, that's very often an indication that people are asking for your engagement. So notifications indicate a post that may require our attention. If I look at this one, for instance, and somebody's put a comment, I can +1 their comment, and click on reply. It automatically adds their name to the comment. And I can then leave a message. I can also + other people into that post, and I can then press comment and they will receive those notifications. (That's assuming of course that I haven't been muted or that they haven't muted that post.) As you can see, this was an event, so to mute would have actually muted the event, meaning, I no longer receive notifications from that common thread. Quick tip: if you see a foreign name and you can't simply reply, then do a plus sign, and copy and paste their name. And then straightaway, you'll be able to add them in. If however, it is a private post and the reshares have been disabled, when you try to + a person's name in, you'll see that you're not allowed to mention a person unless you re-enable reshares. The post that we see here is the same post as we have a notification on, and we're able to do very similar things. If we click down, I could mute John Cowden, which would mean that I no longer receive notifications from him. I could link to the post. I could report abuse. Or I could mute post, which would mean that I don't get notifications from this post again. Looking at this post further, we can see it says "read more." If I then scroll down, I see where it says I was mentioned, and that's why I received the notification. If I like the content, I might decide to share it. So I click on the arrow, which will bring up a box, and I'll then decide with whom I want to share it. On this occasion, if I do a message, and I've +'d the person's name so they know they've received a notification. And also I've decided to share it publicly. When I'm ready, I click "share." As with all posts you share, it will appear on your profile. And whoever you have shared them with will be able to see them there. Notice what's happened when I've shared that last post. My image and the text that I've written now appears above the post. But the image of the original author of the post has disappeared. So I now have taken up authorship of that content. Just to recap, I can see the images of activity on the post. Also if I click that, I can see who's +1'd, commented, and shared, and the numbers. And I can hover over and add those people in, or go straight to their profiles. If I want to flip it back, I can then come to the comments. And if I hover over, I can click to delete a comment or to flag a comment either as spam or to report it. When somebody else shares a post with you privately, which just means it's not public, which could be to circles or it could be to you as an individual, you won't be able to share it publicly. When you try, a message will come up to say that it was shared to a limited audience and the only options available are going to be your circles, extended circles, or individuals. You can, however, share your own private posts publicly. Okay, when I start searching for a person's name in the Google+ search bar, it will bring up options. If I already have them in circles, it's likely they're going to be near the top. When I then go to that individual's profile, I can see whether I am connected with them. If there is a two-way link, it means that I have them in circles, and I am in their circles as well. Next to it, you see that this person has a verified name. And you see here they have a custom URL with their name on it. As well as that, we can see that you can email this user. Just click to bring up the box. If you click the speech mark, you can hangout with them. And it brings up a hangout box. And if you want to send them a message, click to bring up a post box. If you wanted to mute a person or to report or block, you can do it from this dropdown. When you mute an individual, even if they try and send you a notification, you won't receive it. If you block the individual, they can no longer see your profile. And you also have the option here to report them. Not everyone will see the same options when looking at a person's profile. The individual will customize who they want to have contact with them. And you can do the same. If you go to your account settings, which is the cog on the left hand bar. Then you come to the section called profile. You can decide who can send you message or email by choosing the options in the drop down, and even whether they can find your profile within the search results. It's important to note that you will need this box to be ticked in order to have the opportunity for your image to appear alongside search results in Google search itself. Returning to the profile, under the about tab, if you click to the bottom of the page, you can add your own contact details about an individual. When I find the post that I want to share that has already been shared, as in this situation, when I click the share button, the person who has last shared it disappears from the top, and I take up that authorship. So one of the things that you might like to do is say "thank you" to that original sharer. You're also likely to see people use "h/t," which means "hat tip." This is another friendly way to say that you appreciate the content that person has found. The same way that I can visit an individual's profile by clicking on their name or their image, I can click a page, and that will take me to the equivalent of their profile, but it's called a page. From there, I have options. I could if I wanted to, do the same things - mute and report or block. Or I could share this page. Where I share this page, people have the option straightaway to be able to follow it. The number of +1s you'll see on a page are a combination of the individuals that have clicked that page, that have that page in circles, that have clicked a +1 button on a linked website and the number of people that are in a community that is owned by that page. Depending upon settings, when an individual +s the page name, it's likely that they will automatically be added to circles. And this will be the same for the pages that you run and the other people + mention in comments. You will find your own pages, of which you are a manager, if you have them, by clicking on your image in the upper right, and then selecting from the list, or by going across to pages and clicking that icon. This is Martin Shervington. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for a lot more handy hints, tips and tricks. And click on the annotations. And that will take you to the next videos in this series.