Using Google+ and Hangouts for iStudyEBS – Part 01

Now that you’ve signed up for a Google+ account, you are now ready to get on the Hangout and join the online Bible Study. But first, here are a few more steps to jump start your process.

Of course, don’t forget to go to https://plus.google.com and use your email and password (the one you created during the account setup) to login.

First thing you have to do is to add your group leader (or participant if you are the group leader) to your circles. In Google+, circles are a way to manage the grouping of your connections. Treat it as labels for your connections (family, friends, co-workers, etc). You can create as many circle you want and name it the way you want. You can add one person to multiple circles or move them from one circle to another. If you want to learn more about it, head over to Google’s page.

Adding people to your circles.

There are a few ways how to add a person to your circles. First, if your group leader sent you the link to his G+ profile (e.g. https://plus.google.com/u/0/110060771077445716282 which is a link to the Google+ profile of iStudyEBS). If you received it via email, you can proceed on clicking it and it will go to the persons profile. You can then add them to your circles.

The other way is to search for the person you want to add.

Frist enter the email or name of the person you want to add on the search box.

search for people on Google+

Usually, Google+ will instantly find the person you are looking for and will show it on the instant results. Click on the name of the person on the instant results and you will be directed to their profile page.

adding to Google+ Circles

Once you are on their profile page, you will see a red button that says “add to circles”. hover you mouse on that button (no need to click it) and a small box will pop up giving you options on which circle you want to add them.

create a new circle

In this guide, we would assume you haven’t customized any circles yet (but if you do, you just simply look for that circle and check it and the person you are adding will be on that circle – you can check multiple circles). So click on the “Create new circle” link and type in the name of the circle you want to create. I would highly suggest to name it in a way that you will easily know who are in those circles. For our example, we will be adding people for the Mark Bible study, so we will name our circle “iStudy-Mark”.

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Click on the button “Create” and the circle will be created (the person will also be added on it).

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Once you’re done, the person will receive a notification that someone circled him/her.

Adding people who circled you.

Now that you’ve searched and added a few people on your circles, what do you do when someone adds you. Usually you will receive and email that someone added you and a button to add them to your circle, or you will see a mark on your notification bell (upper right portion).

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Click it and it will show you notifications (like people who added you, Hangout invites – which we will discuss later, and others).

Click on the specific notification and click “Add” button on the next screen to add them on your circle. Note that you are not required to add them back unless you really want to connect with them (you’ll definitely would want to add your group leader and other group members).

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Now that we’ve added people on our circles, it’s time to go to a Hangout.

Click here for the Hangout guide.