Google Plus has added its own version of Facebook and LinkedIn Groups with the introduction of Communities.

Creating a Google Plus Community

Google Plus Communities can be created for both personal and business Google Plus accounts. From the left sidebar of your profile, click on the green circle to get started.

This is also where you can visit to find and join existing Communities.

A Few Notes about Google Plus Communities

• Communities can be public or private.
• Communities integrate with Google Hangouts.
• You can choose to share a Google Plus update with 1 or more Communities, just like you choose which Circles to share that update with.
• Each Community has a name, photo, tagline, About section and location (if desired).
• “Discussion Categories” can be created and work much the same as Categories in WordPress. Each new update can be categorized, and discussion archives can be searched through the Category list on the left sidebar.

When you compare a similar type of functionality across multiple platforms, the front runner to emerge will be the one with that added extra the rest simply don’t have. Having been a part of several active Facebook Groups, I can personally attest to how confusing and frustrating it can be to weed through the updates posted to find ones you have yet to read and ones you care about reading. The category tagging and archives is – in my opinion – one huge advantage of Google Plus Communities over Facebook and LinkedIn Groups.

Have you already started or joined a Google Plus Community? What do you think so far?