Google+ now allows users to transfer their connections they have built up between their accounts. Say you are a web developer and have a lot of professional friends and you finally create your business Google+ page. Now you don’t have to re-create the wheel and you can transfer the ones you want from your former account to the new Google+ account.

To start the process of transferring Google+ circles and other connections between accounts, you need to click Google+ circles transfer tool at the Google Takeout. The tool transfers your Google+ circles and connections from the “source” account to a “destination” account. It replaces your source profile with your destination profile in other people’s circles. The circles, connections, members, “your circles” settings, people, and pages you’ve blocked/ignored will stay the same within the transfer.

Requesting a transfer

To request a transfer you must follow these steps in the Google+ circles transfer tool.

Wait for the 7-day waiting period before your transfer begins.

You can cancel the transfer before it starts. Just sign in to either account on Google+, and then click Cancel transfer at the bottom of the page (this is not available on mobile interfaces).

If your source/destination accounts are managed by an organization, the account administrator can restrict your ability to transfer your connections and/or use Google+.

You cannot use this tool with these accounts for 6 months.

Once the transfer begins it cannot be cancelled or undone.

Limited Google+ functionality during transfer

When in the progress of transferring your accounts, you will have limited functionality on Google+ from both accounts. The restrictions will be:

You will not be able to share content on Google+

You will not be able to add or remove people to and from circles

You will not have the ability to lock or ignore people

If you have added the account profiles to their circles, you won’t be able to add, remove, block or ignore that profile during the transfer. The transfer will take about 48 hours to complete.

Post-transfer

When the transfer is complete, circles, blocks, and ignores are copied from the source to destination account. Your content from the source (profile info, posts, or comments), authorship information, and Google+ pages that you manage with your source account will not be transferred to the destination account.

Your source account profile will still exist in your source account; however, it will be replaced with your destination account in other people’s circles. You will now notice that the number in the “Have you in circles” feature still shows that people have your source profile in their circles, the count may take a few days to update. If you don’t need your source account profile you can downgrade the profile and then select your Google+ data from your source account.

When the transfer is complete, your circles, blocks, and ignores are copied from the source account to the destination account. Circles in the destination account with the same names are merged. Content from your source account (such as profile information, posts, or comments) is not transferred to the destination account. Similarly, authorship information and Google+ pages that you manage with your source account will also not be transferred. However, this content, pages, and authorship information still exist in your source account.

If you decide to keep the source account profile, you might want to delete any content like posts, comments, and photos that were posted by the source account. This allows less confusion on the previous content and information for your connections. And you can uncheck the option that helps others to discover your profile in search results.

Increase your Online Marketing exposure in 2012 with the above tips and contact us if you need assistance.

Eric is a online marketer and search engine optimization specialist (SEO). In his free time, Eric enjoys exercise, motorcycles, technology, and spending time with family and friends. Connect with him on Google+

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A recent Facebook update makes the site look a lot more like Google+. The update in question? Changes to the popular photo viewer feature. This particular update places comments next to photos instead of forcing the user to scroll down to view them, which according to a company representative, helps increase visibility. What we have here is another case of Facebook one-upping the competition. Will Google+ be able to compete if the social giant keeps this up? It’s a tough call, but one that may be possible if Google stays focused on three key areas.

1. New and Unique Features

Google has rolled out a gang of exciting features since releasing Google+ last summer. From optimizing photo tagging functionality to the ability to customize streams, these features have enhanced the platform and made it a worthy contender in the fiercely competitive social space. The one element that Facebook still has not been able to match despite trying is Hangouts, the

video group chat component that accompanied the initial launch. This all good, but in order for Google+ to stay competitive, it must continue to drop new features on a consistent basis.

More importantly, it must deliver functionality that clearly distinguishes it from Facebook

2. Business Users

Back in November of last year, Google+ introduced its long awaited Business Pages, the feature that made it more comparable to Facebook than ever before. The launch of this feature was hailed as a big deal for the simple fact that up until then, brands were forbidden from using the site for marketing purposes at the discretion of Google itself. Google+ could enjoy a sizable advantage over Facebook by taking a small note from LinkedIn and making the platform appealing to brands beyond the new pages. At this point, the only question is whether its previous stance permanently turned off a large number of potential business users.

3. Privacy

In the end, the ability of Google+ to compete with Facebook may lie in its privacy policy. Privacy is a major issue in the social realm, and not even the mighty Facebook has been immune to the backlash that results from introducing changes that make the user community feel uneasy. Google recently announced a major update to its privacy policy, one that will consolidate its dozens of existing policies into a single policy. And while the announcement was met with tons of criticism at first, observers have started to sing a different tune after realizing that the new approach actually has some benefits. With a few tweaks, Google’s privacy policy could prove to be one of its greatest attributes.

Google+ is in a good place right now, but competing with Facebook to the point where it is poised to surpass the social behemoth may be something that never happens. However, that does not mean that it cannot thrive and be a dominant force in the industry.

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Brands have rushed to claim their piece of the action, and FuelYourBlogging is no exception.

Connect with +FuelYourBlogging over at G+ if you’d like to stay connected not only with the content from the blog, but also with the conversation and people just as passionate about blogging as you are.

They’re calling it, Google+ Pages, and it’s a wonderful addition to the Emerald Sea.

I just published a tutorial on how to create your own Google+ Page over at CreativeBlogger, so if you’re interested in catching a glimpse of what all the hype is about, or you need to create your own page for your brand, whether it’s a business, org, or blog, take a look and let me know what you think about the feature.

More to come later … time to explore!