Twitter and Google+ are both fun, but can’t really be used the same way. Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters while Google is more flexible. Google+ will let you write posts much longer than 140 characters, but will only show the first 400 or so characters before you need to click the “see more” link. I think Google’s attitude about letting you post longer posts adds a lot of flexibility to their social media venue. If only they had the volume of active users that Twitter does (technically they have more active users that Twitter, but it seems like they only have 10% if you look at active members of groups or people who post regularly).
Google+ rewards you more for the words at the top of your post.
This is actually very smart. I give Google points of intelligence. I learned that in Google+’s search results they reward you more for words closer to the beginning of the post. So, if you want to stress one or more particular tags, put them in the first line. I noticed that words near the bottom of my opening paragraph did help me show up on search results, but several notches down — to the point where you needed to scroll a bit to see them. I’m not sure if the necessity to scroll hurts you a lot or a little, but it could hurt you a lot, so keep this in mind!
Google+ tags don’t do much good unless…
If you tag a post with a keyword that doesn’t appear in your verbiage, you might not show up at all on keyword searches. If you have a popular account with many followers, or you pick a very unpopular tag, you might still show up. But, for the rest of us, you need to make sure your keyword shows up in your text, no matter how awkward it is to fit it in there.
Twitter just lets you tag and show up
Twitter lets you write about anything, and put any tag you like. If someone retweets you, especially if it is a retweet from that particular keyword’s tag feed, then you might show up better under that tag. But, the flexibility is much greater with tags on Twitter even though you are limited to very few characters.
What really matters in the end?
I’ve retweeted popular content on Google+ with really mainstream keywords. However, these prominent retweets didn’t get any plusses despite the fact that they were from excellent sources. I retweeted content from Harvard Business Review and many of the prominent players in the social media arena. It seems that proper tagging on Google+ might get you a little bit of popularity, if that. What seems to matter is having people who come regularly to your page, and share your content. What also matters is having high quality original content that people really like.