Google Plus Integrates with Blogger

Google has been integrating a lot of its web services (like its photo sharing tool Picasa) into its social network, Google Plus.  Recently it added some Google Plus integration with Blogger.

The catch is that to get it, you have to connect your Blogger blog with your Google Plus profile.  Once you do that, here's what you can do to better integrate Blogger and Google Plus:

1. You can "tag" Google Plus friends in blog posts. 
Easily tag your Google Plus friends in a Blogger post by typing a "+" symbol and then typing their name out.  For example, to tag my UNI colleague +Michael Prophet in this post, I just typed the "+" symbol and start typing his first name:

I then selected his name at the top and a link was created to his Google Plus profile.  Notice as I was typed the word "Michael" it also showed me other Michaels in my circles, as well as Michaels on Google Plus that are not in my circles (so I can link to profiles of those not in my Google Plus circles).

2. Use the Google Plus Followers Gadget

The old school "Google Friend Connect" has been retired by Google (though it still works for the time being).  A better tool for listing followers of your blog is now the Google Plus Followers Gadget.  You'll notice this gadget installed on the right hand side of this page.

3. Notify Google Plus friends when you publish a new blog post

When you publish new blog posts, you now have the option of notifying your Google Plus friends - Blogger automatically adds any Google Plus friends you may have mentioned in your post.

Notice that it also put the name of my blog post and "search description" text in the status update.

4. Blog visitors can "+1" content

This is not a new feature, but there is also a gadget available that allows readers to "+1" a blog or blog post.  This is akin to "liking" a page on Facebook.  You'll see a +1 button also on the right hand side nav bar on this page.

For this class, I've considered using a tool such as WordPress for blogs, but with the great integration with Google Analytics and AdWords, I've stuck with Blogger for the time being.  And though I don't use Google Plus a whole lot, perhaps this will be a reason to start.