Sharing Your Google+ Posts with Specific People

By Jesse Stay from Google+ For Dummies, Portable Edition

Posting on Google+ is quite easy, and you can post text, links, photos, videos, and even your current location. The most difficult part of posting on Google+ is choosing whom you want to see your post.

Google+ uses your circles to determine who can see your posts; circles are a little simpler than lists because they are in your face every step of the way and are required to choose and set up before you can even post your first status update.

After you compose your post, click Add Circles or People to Share With — or if there's already a circle indicated, click Add More People — underneath your post. The following are all options you can choose from:

Public: When you choose public, anyone in the world can see your post, and Google can also index it. If you're doing this for business reasons, the posts that you want to keep and remain visible to anyone should be marked as Public. Just keep in mind that everyone, even those not in your circles or even on Google+, can see it.
Your Circles: By choosing Your Circles, only those people in the circles you have assigned people to are able to see your post. This is a great way to limit your content to just your own network.
Extended Circles: Choosing this option makes your post visible to everyone in your own circles, in addition to everyone in those people's circles. This means the post is not quite Public, but it's getting closer!
Custom circles you created: You can also limit your posts to specific circles you've created. For example, if you just want your post to be seen by family members, you can select your Family Circle, and only your family will see your update.
Specific users or e-mail addresses: You can also limit your post to specific users or e-mail addresses. This is a great way to choose a quick list of people to start a conversation with, or maybe to just have a one-on-one conversation with another person.

Remember that anything you post on Google+ can be shared, at a minimum to the circles and extended circles of the people you are sharing with. Never share anything you don't want to risk others sharing. (Or maybe you'll just want to remind them in your post that you don't want it shared, assuming you can trust them.)