The College of Charleston is one of the first 100 universities in the nation to launch a page on the Google+ network. The College’s page can be found by clicking here, at go.cofc.edu/google or enter +College of Charleston in the Google search box.
Google+ is a social network, and similar to Facebook, users can post information, photos, videos, and send messages to one another. What differentiates Google+ from competitors is the ability share different content with different people using circles. Users can place people into circles based on their relationship, so friends see some posts, co-workers see other posts.
Google+ is growing in popularity with 40 million users and 3.4 billion photo uploads at the end of the third quarter of 2011. Already, Google+ is referring more traffic than better-established social sites. According to Net Applications, Google+ sends more visitors to websites than Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Mashable.
“People use Google billions of times a day to search for universities and we expect the College’s presence on Google+ will help us to connect with those users,” says Michael Haskins, executive vice president for external relations at the College of Charleston. “Our goal is for Google+ to provide us with unique opportunities to connect our audiences through features like hangout and circles.”
In the coming weeks, the College of Charleston will be using the hangout feature, which is basically a video chat on the page. It is an opportunity for professors to connect with current and prospective students and also for prospective students to connect with current students and find out what life is like at the College.
The College of Charleston will still use Faceboook, YouTube, Twitter, and Foursquare as ways to connect with people interested in the College.
Connect with the College by adding yourself to one of our circles to receive the most relevant information through the Google+ platform. It is important to note that unlike personal Google+ profiles, pages, like the College of Charleston, cannot add a person to a circle unless that person has already added the page or mentioned it.
For more information about the College’s presence on Google+, contact Melissa Whetzel at whetzelm@cofc.edu or Larry Stoudenmire at stoudenmirel@cofc.edu.
