Much ado has been made of Google’s new offering, Currents, which is a Flipboard-like mobile app that presents you the news. What’s not been made mention as much is how powerful this app is for consolidating your personal brand as a publisher and blogger. You can do much more than just publish your blog through it.
Here’s a few power tips I’ve found that might prove helpful.
1. Unless you’re someone who already has a recognizable logo, use your head for your edition icon – literally. It instantly draws recognition and action in the mass of Currents icons.
2. Turn on and set up your Google Analytics. Currents shows up in your Analytics as a pathed page, so go to Content > Site Content > Pages and filter for the /currents path. You’ll see exactly what people are viewing and using in it.
3. Bring in your social! Did you know you can include Google+, Facebook, and Twitter feeds? You can. Look for the RSS feeds for each service and then use Publisher to bring them in as social feeds. For example, I wired up Google+, Facebook (page), and my #the5 tweets. Important: if you use the feed selection, you will be required to verify ownership, which you can’t. If you use the social updates selection, it won’t force ownership verification.
Facebook RSS Feed
The Social Feed option
Power tip: Twitter still has RSS feeds, but they’re hidden. Premium content subscribers to my newsletter should hit the back issues and grab the tutorial for installing these manually. I’ll re-publish that tutorial this week, so if you’re not subscribed as a premium member, now might be the time.
4. 302 redirect Google’s ugly URL. No one wants to try to remember that. I redirected mine through cspenn.com/currents for easy sharing. This puts handles on it that you can easily carry around.
5. Make it obvious on your site. Currents will display it in Search, but to make sure people are getting the right edition, promote it on your site and in your social outlets with the direct link.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a marketing post if I didn’t pimp it. Please subscribe to my Google Currents edition.
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Hi Christopher! Thanks for sharing your great ideas and tips. I am waiting for these type of tips for long time. Good informative post. Keep updating.
Thanks for the awesome info on Google Current, Chris. You always provide
such detailed info on the latest innovations and what to do with them!
I had to look up why you used a 302 redirect vs. a 301 since I had
always heard to use 301 redirects, but Matt Cutt’s blog post explained
it http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-discussing-302-redirects/