Born of and Made for Google Plus – Story of an Infographic
Posted on November 18, 2014
Can you name a network that promotes collaboration, and global collaboration at that, more than Google Plus? I can’t, and this project that myself and graphic designer Elena Montes were involved in with Martin Shervington prove it definitively. This is the story of an infographic which was born of and made for Google Plus. Read on!
A few months back, after our first serendipitous infographic, Martin got in touch to see if we’d be interested in helping him out with a new infographic which was based on an infographic that Barry Feldman had done for branding, Martin wanted to give it a G+ twist and the title of “The A – Z Guide to Personal Branding Using Google Plus” was decided upon. That was the easy part :)
The first phase of the project was to get all the text content lined up. Again, using the tools that Google provides, a collaborative Google Doc was set up where Martin gave the first draft of the text. I then parsed this to edit the copy a bit and come up with some graphic concepts for Elena. Then Elena started on the first draft of the actual infographic and this when added to Google Drive. From here Martin and myself were able to give feedback as we iterated thought the 26 letters.
Once the text content and visuals were in place on the infographic it was now time use the Google Plus as an incubator to finesse and caress the infographic to its finished form.
Remember I said that Google Plus was good for global collaboration? Well the few names mentioned thus far in the post hail from Wales (Martin), Spain (Elena), USA (Barry) and Ireland (me, Paddy last, ba dum tish) but as we entered this phase we really see how Google Plus can be used for global collaboration.
Martin shared the draft of the infographic to his stellar Plus Your Business Level 3 community to get their feedback on it and to help with proof reading and typo spotting. This process was also co-ordinated with the help of Teodora Petkova (Bulgaria) This yielded excellent feedback from all over the globe with special mentions going out to Mick Sharpe (UK), Troy Mc Laughlin (USA), Ana Hoffman (hailing from Russia) & Monika Schmidt (Germany) for their suggestions and typo spotting. As the infographic was entering the final stages Reymalyn A. (Phillipines) then got involved to make sure the graphic was ready for web and to add to PYB site. After that the first wave of shares came. And what a wave it was.
Born of and Made for Google Plus – Story of an Infographic
The screenshot of the ripple shows you how far just the first share of the infographic went with the likes of Rebekah Radice (USA [West Coast]) & Linda Dee (USA [East Coast]) sharing it on. It also opened up a new way of viewing the infographic and sharing it and so it was decided to carve the infographic into 3 chunks A-J, K-S and T-Z. This idea came from Irfan Ahmad hailing from Pakistan as that was the twist he put on the graphic when he shared it.
The net result of all these shares and this collaborative approach using Google Plus is that a great resource has been compiled that will be useful to people for years to come. On top of that, there is a lot of good in those plus 1’s and shares as the screenshot below shoes. In logged out search using Internet Explorer (which I never use) on Google.com the search for the term “A-Z Guide Google Plus” shows that Martin’s post is no.1 for the query with the other results pointing to Martin’s post, all in all SERP glory.
As well as that by taking this collaborative approach to the infographic a lot of other people got to benefit and learn more about the actual Google Plus strategy that the infographic describes. And, I guess, that is one of the key things that holds (and held) the whole project together – behind all the fancy graphics and collaboration there was some substance, some bona fide good, actionable useful content that people will benefit from and share on. The proof of that pudding is that some commenters on some threads about the infographic have suggested that it might look great as poster. I’m not sure if a poster will materialise but if it does rest assured you’ll hear about about it in a post along the lines “Born of and Made for Google Plus – Story of a Poster” or similar ;)
Anyway, you can check out the full infographic and accompanying video on the Plus Your Business site and if you’ve any tales of Google Plus collaboration then feel free to comment below, would love to hear them. And, at this juncture if you’ve read this far I think it’s worth pointing out that you should join my mailing list, just scroll down and sign up – it’s free today ;)
Also, if you’d like to collaborate with me on a project then get in touch!
Theo
November 18, 2014 (7:46 pm)
The power of G+, great read and yes “Google Plus” is “good for global collaboration”
Robert Ryan
November 19, 2014 (11:52 am)
Cheers for reading Theo and I agree, great tool for collaboration..
Ana Hoffman
November 19, 2014 (4:06 am)
When community gets behind a project, it always makes it all the more meaningful.
Thanks for all your hard work on it, Robert!
Robert Ryan
November 19, 2014 (11:51 am)
And cheers for reading Ana :)
Ana Hoffman
November 19, 2014 (4:09 am)
FYI: your tweet length is a bit too long.
Ryan Biddulph
November 20, 2014 (1:50 pm)
Robert, collaboration is the juice that fuels the G Plus engine. Or any engine for that matter. G Plus seems to lend itself nicely to a collaborating. People can connect more easily. I also see less spammy salaciousness – I had to :) – on the network too.
Congrats on your accomplishment! As I see names from the comments section – aka Ana the G Plus Queen – and other folks in your post, yet, it’s the usual suspects. Crusaders for collaborating. Leveraging champions. Working together makes the job easier and more meaningful as Miss Hoffman points out.
Thanks for the neat share on the power of community :)
Ryan