Google+ Hangouts: What Marketers Need to Know to Get Started

Do you use Google+ hangouts for your marketing?

Are you wondering how hangouts can help your business?

To learn how to get started with Google+ hangouts, I interview Brandee Sweesy for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Brandee Sweesy, who is a Google+ hangouts marketing expert. For the last 20 years she has been helping entrepreneurs grow a following with video.

Brandee shares how you can use hangouts to promote your content.

You'll learn the different techniques to help brand your hangouts and the best ways to promote attendance.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Google+ Hangouts Marketing
What is a Google+ hangout?

Brandee states that first of all, it's free. Google describes it as a unification of their video, chats and messenger service all in one place. It was a replacement for Google talk and Google chat.

Hangouts can either be private or you can stream live to your YouTube channel with Hangouts on Air.

Brandee explains that if you're a consultant or coach, you can use hangouts like you would Skype. The quality of the video is amazing.

If you want to record your private hangout sessions, then you will have to use Camtasia or ScreenFlow. These hangouts are great to use for team meetings, consulting, coaching or when you privately advise people.

With a hangout on air, you can host yourself and up to nine other people. You can all be on the video at the same time, where you can chat and give a presentation. This can be done with private hangouts and hangouts on air.

You'll discover why you need to keep control of the sound-activated screen and what you need to do.

Hangouts on air stream live to your YouTube channel. It's linked to your Google+ page. If you have a Google+ profile or a Google+ business page, you link it to your YouTube channel.

You need to have your YouTube channel verified for uploads of more than 15 minutes and most hangouts run longer than that.

The great advantage when you stream live to your YouTube channel is that at the end of the broadcast, you have unlimited YouTube content. You'll find out what you need to add once you have finished the live stream to be able to optimize your video marketing.

When you stream live, it also runs on your Google+ profile page at the same time. Once you start a hangout on air, you can take the embed codes and share them on a Facebook tab, website or blog post. You can then direct people to watch it there.

There's also a Hangouts on Air page that lists all of the hangouts that are currently on air.

Listen to the show to learn about how you should name your hangouts to grab people's attention.

How does a hangout differ from a webinar?

Brandee first saw hangouts as a possible replacement for webinars. A lot of the webinar platforms are expensive and if you only do a few, it can be hard to justify the cost. Many webinar platforms base their price on the number of viewers. But with a hangout on air, you have unlimited viewership.

Brandee explains how she has done webinars by herself with a slide presentation embedded on a website that has unlimited viewers.

With hangouts on air, you don't need to buy expensive plugins for your website. People can enter their email address and then flip over to a Watch Live page.

You'll discover the best option to help build engagement and keep viewers from getting distracted. The advantage with hangouts is you have the opportunity to share an image wit...