Google+ Shared Circles

I'm sure this isn't anything new to BHW users, but I thought I'd share it anyway in case it's useful to even just a few.

The convenient thing about G+ right now is that you can not only add as many people as you want without getting banned like on Twitter, but you can add thousands of people and remove them instantly the next day. If you're goal is similar to mass following on Twitter to get as many follow-backs, then you're in luck with G+. Due to the nature of the way G+ Circles work, it's literally an everyday occurrence that users might just delete entire circles altogether. For that reason, Google doesn't see mass removals as the action of a bot.

Having said that, over the past few months I've created a few Circles with 500 users each (Max). The Circles are demographically organized by interests. It's probably nothing useful to you as far as marketing or finding new business prospects, but it could be beneficial in the sense of mass adding others on G+ without having to do all the manual work I did.

The following are links to my shared circles which you can easily add to your own with just a few clicks.
Note: Only users in my circles are actually able to see the urls below. Feel free to PM your profile url and I'll add you.

SharePoint Circle 1
500 Users -
https://plus.google.com/110099838681495349209/posts/dn9hSrgbCmq

SharePoint Circle 2
500 Users -
https://plus.google.com/110099838681495349209/posts/D8iQv3MED4w

SharePoint Circle 3
500 Users -
https://plus.google.com/110099838681495349209/posts/SCT2RpUUhaT

American International University Students Circle
459 Users -
https://plus.google.com/110099838681495349209/posts/GWW2wzhaNYr

Photography Circle
499 Users -
https://plus.google.com/110099838681495349209/posts/CzP9uBeCULW

Another Photography Circle
501 Users -
https://plus.google.com/110099838681495349209/posts/WEqkALXeSD2

An obvious but easy way to find other publicly shared circles on G+ is simply by searching for keywords such as 'shared circle' "#sharedcircle" 'circle share' etc. Here's a few from searching '#sharedcircle'
https://plus.google.com/s/%23sharedcircle

481 Users -
https://plus.google.com/113971638533068962778/posts/G2sWeDMf32Q

36 Users -
https://plus.google.com/102128393200503837526/posts/SzC6vRay6Ay

212 Users -
https://plus.google.com/101626577406833098387/posts/4obiTa7Mij4

393 Users -
https://plus.google.com/111551895671908911144/posts/FyF24xMntNQ

70 Users -
https://plus.google.com/111551895671908911144/posts/Fzpo1EnY2XC

355 Users -
https://plus.google.com/102439166658191778176/posts/WunLhzcFwLW

50 Users -
https://plus.google.com/114485680367777377604/posts/2UP6vCorU6y

89 Users -
https://plus.google.com/108034523287579313156/posts/U7MhNAJ6cUj

81 Users -
https://plus.google.com/109227682559493353301/posts/hgi5Ms2EPEt

501 Users -
https://plus.google.com/115451993522621024283/posts/VfohGFxqrGB

104 Users -
https://plus.google.com/112687569677387190924/posts/C1SQFQGARCq

100 Users -
https://plus.google.com/112687569677387190924/posts/fhkwat3sUsn

55 Users -
https://plus.google.com/108772362192643789935/posts/2xXkoWULr8V

214 Users -
https://plus.google.com/116954710049425703954/posts/cKeaTU6M8vM

422 Users -
https://plus.google.com/102527264114481319906/posts/EUSB1Tgqozu

22 Users -
https://plus.google.com/103481047858421470011/posts/eSfUVQKtaUs

262 Users -
https://plus.google.com/116095639022879898171/posts/PCk42CZzZC9

500 Users -
https://plus.google.com/118067801005308902815/posts/NduBjJZKyLz

386 Users -
https://plus.google.com/118060934321492774758/posts/3TyBVHsud93

250 Users -
https://plus.google.com/104045844362815664699/posts/L5N3q4xMpHB

379 Users -
https://plus.google.com/107552481929780975327/posts/2qG87huyutE

Here's a few decent sites for looking up follower histories or user demographics on G+.
http://www.socialstatistics.com
http://www.findpeopleonplus.com

Keep in mind, the max amount of users you can have on any given profile is 5,000. Google does have limits on how many users you can add from Shared Circles each day. It's not uncommon to get an error when trying to add a third circle that has over 500 users in it. I was able to add thousands per day because I did them manually. Worst case scenario you may just have to add circles till you reach your max, wait till the next day, add more till you get to the max, and repeat the day after. I've done this day in and day out for months and have yet to be banned. You will want to make sure your profile is using a real name though. I setup an account with a name that clearly wasn't an actual person and it was banned within 24 hours. The nice thing though was they quickly unbanned it after I changed the name to an actual person, 'John Smith' lol.

Sidenote:
If you're looking to quickly and easily amass a large list of G+ profile URLs, then Google.com is your friend. Use the following search string to control your results by demographics.

Hypothetical Scenario: You sell camera parts and want to reach an audience of photographers.

Step 1: Go to Google.com
Step 2: Enter Search term sitelus.google.com Photography

Note: Because of the way Google works, you'll be limited to no more than 10 pages of 100 results. 1000 in total. To be the most effective with your search strings you will want to narrow in by region. So perhaps do a search like this:

sitelus.google.com Photography + "Miami, FL"

It's important that you use the quotes because users most commonly type their location in a format like that when first setting up their G+ profile.

Step 3: Copy/Paste your search results page into excel. Sort the column alphabetically. This will allow you to look at just URLs. Ignore any URLs that have /.../ in them. That means they aren't actually a profile, but the post from someone's profile that may contain some of your keywords. Now you have a list of demographically targeted G+ profiles. It's not 100% accurate since you'll still get results from profiles that picked up your keywords from somewhere else in the profile, but it works pretty decently.

Hope this helps with some of your Google+ efforts!