Last week I gave you all a rundown of Google+ tips for those who hadn’t yet had the chance to really dive-in and get their hands dirty or for those who had yet to receive an invite.  However, what I am finding is a bigger advantage to Google+ is that it is offering up some prime opportunities to not only rekindle, but build online relationships.

Early on Google Engineer Matt Cutts posted this in his stream on Google+

The feeling of building new friends and catching up with old is something I haven’t seen happen on a social network in a long time.  Sure, we connect with hundreds, if not thousands of people via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. on a daily basis.  But with Google+ I feel more people are getting an opportunity to be seen and heard where on other established networks they are often drowned out by noise.

Part of this, in my opinion, stemmed from the fact that only an elite few got in at first and then Google quickly halted invites.  You had an opportunity those first couple days to really engage the people in your circles and create conversations that might easily have been ignored on something like Twitter.  With less saturation the platform created a stage for users to not only rekindle old online relationships, but also to create a great first impression.

Though I feel some of this opportunity may have passed (I had 4 rows of “People you may know on Google+” the first night and this has since increased to 76), the network is still new enough to put yourself out in front of your peers and both develop and strengthen your online relationships.  I know I have personally interacted with Local SEO Andrew Shotland on Google+ far more than I ever have on Twitter or Facebook, and he is a fellow SEO whose work I have admired and followed for sometime.  He even went as far to share info regarding our search for a developer in my new startup venture Foodskout.

Take this opportunity to mold the relationships that matter to you most.  It’s not often that a new social network comes along that the masses flock to and actually like.  The real plus to Google+ is that it’s new, people are still finding their way around, the number of users is far less than Twitter or Facebook, and there is still a lot of time to build your influence within the network.