By 
Mark Traphagen during the live Hangout broadcast at Google Fiber Center in Kansas City
Hangouts are almost without a doubt the most touted feature of Google Plus, especially when it comes to business use of the platform. So if you follow my Google+ for Business column here, you might be wondering why it’s taken me so long to write about them. I’ve had two reasons for holding off until now: I wanted to bring you vital tips and information that you won’t find everywhere and anywhere, and I was convinced that many improvements and new features that I’d want to include were yet to come for Hangouts.
Well, “yet to come” is now here: Google Plus Hangouts has indeed become a feature-rich and versatile platform in its own right, one very worthy of your consideration for expanding the reach and influence of your business.
Let’s start with an overview of the features and variations of Google+ Hangouts.
Hangouts and Hangouts On Air
Hangouts were originally introduced as a feature of Google Plus that allows up to 10 people to participate in a live video chat. When we use the term “Hangout” (as opposed to “Hangout On Air” which we’ll discuss below), we are referring to this “small group” version. Hangouts can be either private or public:
- Private Hangouts are by invitation only. One person initiates the Google+ Hangout and then invites others, either by name or by Circle(s). Only the invited participants can enter and see the Hangout (although once in, any Hangout participant can invite others in, up to the capacity of the Hangout).
- Public Hangouts are visible to and may be entered into by anyone who has you in their Google Plus circles or who happens to be watching your public Google+ stream at the time you activate the Hangout.
Later, Google Plus added Hangouts On Air (HOAs). At first available only to selected brands and celebrities, Hangouts On Air is now available to all US Google+ users, and other countries are being included regularly. A Hangout on Air adds a couple of key features that greatly expand the usefulness of Hangouts:
- Hangouts On Air are live-stream broadcast, both within Google Plus and on YouTube, so they can be watched by any number of people. In essence, an HOA is like a live TV program, but with much lower production and distribution costs.
- A completed Hangout On Air can be automatically turned into a permanent YouTube video. So you end up with instant content that keeps on being valuable long after the original broadcast.
- Automatic Main View Switching: The main view window in the Hangout automatically switches to whomever is currently speaking.
- Screen sharing: display anything in a window on your desktop to the other hanger participants. Anything you do in that window, they see in real time.
- Edit Google Docs: Do live edits of Google Apps documents shared by the group right in the Hangout. Great for collaboration!
- Watch a YouTube video: Start a Hangout from any video on YouTube while logged in to Google+, then invite others into the Hangout. You can discuss the video as you watch it.
- Lower Third Banner: This app allows you to create a branded name banner that sits below your face during a Hangout, just like the name banners TV news shows use when interviewing someone. You can even add your company logo, or go full tilt and design an entirely custom banner that you can load in any Hangout with one click.
- Text Chat: click the Chat button at the top of the Hangout screen and you can chat by text with the other Hangout participants. This Chat is not seen by anyone outside the Hangout participants, even if the Hangout is “On Air.” The chat can be useful for such tasks as asking someone to mute a mic that’s causing too much background noise when others are speaking, or cueing up who gets to speak next in a panel discussion.
Each of the types of Hangouts can be used in a number of ways to build your business. Let’s explore some of them.
Business Uses of Regular Google Plus Hangouts
Businesses are successfully using non-streaming Hangouts for:
- In-house company meetings: Have a multi-location business or a far-flung sales staff? Hold your staff or department meetings in a private Hangout. (Pro Tip: Businesses with Google Apps for Business accounts can now get their own private Google+ network that includes increased privacy and security features).
- Client meetings: With screen sharing and document editing, you can do full presentations to clients or prospects, or collaborate on your latest project with them.
- Crowd Sourcing/Focus Groups: Invite some of your customers into a private Hangout to get a sneak peak preview of a prototype product or idea, in order to get their reactions and suggestions.
- Customer Service: Though Hangouts are designed for groups, there is no reason they can’t be one-on-one. Have a customer whose problem is too difficult or delicate to handle over text messages? Invite her into a Hangout. The face-to-face contact will greatly heighten the personalization of your service, and you can take advantage of tools like screen sharing to better diagnose and solve a problem.
- VIP Customer Perks: Invite your most valuable customers to exclusive Hangouts where they can get to meet with you and get special attention. Or set up a private Hangout meeting with a respected expert or celebrity as a perk for those customers.
- Help Desk Hours: Publish regular hours when your staff will be available in public hangouts to answer questions from customers or prospects.
Business Uses of Google Plus Hangouts On Air
When you broadcast your Hangouts in live streaming form, you extend the power of Hangouts exponentially, as your potential audience is as large as the Internet itself. Try out some of these ideas (and don’t forget: each can become a permanent YouTube video!):
- Panel Discussions: Bring together a group of experts in your field and produce a live Hangout show centered around a topic of interest to your customers and prospects. Even better if you make this a regularly-scheduled show that your audience can look forward to. For example. I’m a member of the weekly TekPersona Power Panel, a group of seasoned business and marketing professionals who discuss a relevant business topic each week.
- Ask the Expert: Bring in a recognized expert or put one of your own “on stage” for a public Hangout. Allow participants to get their toughest questions answered.
- Quiz Show: This one is more on the entertainment side, but can actually be quite educational as well. Invite a panel of experts in your field to a live quiz about topics related to your area of business. Make it fun with lively competition and prizes (even if the prizes are just goofy), and use tools like screen sharing to enhance the visual aspect of your questions.
- Product Demo/Introduction: Introducing a new product? Want to show off creative uses for an existing product? Do it in a live Hangout On Air. Similarly, you could conduct a live training session. Don’t forget that you’ll also have a live video to which you can refer future customers to help answer questions.
- Testimonial Interviews: Have a customer who’s crazy about your product, or has a creative use for it? Arrange to interview her in a live Hangout. Don’t forget to embed the resulting video on your site so it keeps on selling for you!
Pro Tip for Hangouts on Air: Practice with a private hangout of friends or colleagues before your first “live” show. Get familiar with how Hangouts work and with the various tools available to you. Hangout expert Ronnie Bincer has a great list of best practices and moderator tools for Hangouts On Air.
The World Wide Web opened up the possibility for everyone to be a publisher. Now Google+ Hangouts enable anyone to be a broadcaster. The possibilities are as wide as your own imagination. What are some creative uses of Google Plus Hangouts that you’ve seen, used yourself, or would like to try out?
This monthly Google Plus column is contributed by Mark Traphagen. Mark is Director of Social Media Marketing for Virante. A former teacher, Mark has worked directly in Internet marketing since 2005, but has been involved in social media and online community formation since the mid 1990s. When not helping Virante clients improve their online presence, Mark participates in competitive storytelling, plays with a Dixieland street band, and (surprise) spends more time on the web.
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[...] Google Plus Hangouts for Business: Customer Contact on Steroids jQuery(document).load(function(){ stLight.options({publisher:'a3cce920-3a6b-47a8-a890-d27d55cbc9e8'}); });emailvar dd_offset_from_content = 30; var dd_top_offset_from_content = 0;Share this:FacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditStumbleUponEmail Filed Under: Social Media Mark TraphagenMark is Director of Social Media Marketing for Virante Inc. Adept at using all forms of social media for marketing effectiveness, Mark has gained a special reputation as an expert on Google+. A former teacher, Mark has worked directly in Internet marketing since 2005, but has been involved in social media and online community formation since the mid 1990s. When not helping Virante clients improve their online presence, Mark participates in competitive storytelling, plays with a Dixieland street band, and (surprise) spends more time on the web. Cancel Reply [...]
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[...] Google Plus Hangouts for Business: Customer Contact on Steroids jQuery(document).load(function(){ stLight.options({publisher:'a3cce920-3a6b-47a8-a890-d27d55cbc9e8'}); });emailvar dd_offset_from_content = 30; var dd_top_offset_from_content = 0;Share this:FacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditStumbleUponEmail Filed Under: Social Media Mark TraphagenMark is Director of Social Media Marketing for Virante Inc. Adept at using all forms of social media for marketing effectiveness, Mark has gained a special reputation as an expert on Google+. A former teacher, Mark has worked directly in Internet marketing since 2005, but has been involved in social media and online community formation since the mid 1990s. When not helping Virante clients improve their online presence, Mark participates in competitive storytelling, plays with a Dixieland street band, and (surprise) spends more time on the web. Cancel Reply [...]
Natascha Thomson
Mark,
I wish I had found your blog before painfully researching all of the above over the last few weeks.
Since you posted, Google also added an improved G+ hangout invitation function that I tested yesterday. You probably have already tested it. I hope so, as I have two questions nobody has been able to answer:
1. Can you leverage the list of people attending your G+ hangout (private or public) to communicate with them afterwards? This comes down to “can you use hangouts for lead gen and follow up”. I have a client who would like to do “webinars” via G+ but I have not seen how I stay in touch with my event attendees, or even see who attended. Do you know?
For proper lead nuturing (and yes, it’s not a lead but an opportunity at this point), I need to have access to the information of the participants/registrants or my only avenue is to a) point them to another place to register (why not use another tool right away?) or b) communicate with them via G+ only (if I can actually put all the people who attended in a circle easily). Ideal scenario: get the list of people’s emails, at a minimum.
2. Google says you can have ten active speakers at a hangout and then I think up to 200 (I read that but you are saying via streaming the number can be unlimited?). Are those 10 people fixed or can this list of speakers change during the hangout? My point: can you do Q&A on a hangout via video/voice with hundreds of people vs. just chat.
Best,
Natascha
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nataschathomson
Mark Traphagen
Hi Natascha,
My sincere apologies for this very late answer. I didn’t get a notification of your comment at the time. I hope this will still reach you; I’ll try to connect via your LinkedIn as well.
1. There is not at present any way to capture emails directly in the Hangout itself. You could, of course, add all the participants to a Circle and keep in touch that way.
Another strategy would work only for a private Hangout. Embed the YouTube link in a private page of your web site with a gate on it that requires entering an email address for admission. If you make the video private and don’t share the URL out to the public, the broadcast (and later recording) of your Hangout would be visible only to those who have “paid” for admission with an email address.
2. A Hangout and Hangout On Air are both limited to 10 participants in the Hangout itself (i.e., able to talk to each other live in the Hangout), the creator of the Hangout and nine others. Google Apps Enterprise customers now can have up to 15.
It is possible to shuffle people in and out of the “filmstrip” (as we call the group of participants shown in thumbnail size across the bottom of a Hangout), but would take some management. You’d have to ask some participants to voluntariy drop out (so others could be added), or if they won’t, boot them (which the creator of the Hangout has the power to do). Many HOA producers use the HOA app Pro Studio which, among many other features, gives you the ability to track comments in both Google+ and YouTube so viewers can ask questions that a moderator would then relay into the Hangout.
And finally, yes, if it is a public HOA, although only 10 people can participate inside the HOA at a time, any number can view it live either on G+ or YouTube, and of course any number can view the permanent video that results.
Natascha Thomson
Mark,
I really appreciate your taking the time to provide me with this extensive answer.
Do you mind if I reproduce our conversation on my blog at http://www.marketingxlerator.com?
You are VERY knowledgeable and kind to share the knowledge.
Best,
Natascha
Mark Traphagen
Natascha, I’m sure that would be fine. I’d love to have a link to that when it is completed. You can send it to me at mtraphagen@virante.com
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Dallas McMillan
Mark, please tell me! If we have a personal G+ do we use that or the business one for these hangouts? Maybe it isn’t a problem if you don’t have a personal G+ or don’t use G apps for business
Thanks
Mark Traphagen
Dallas, great question!
For now, if you start a Hangout On Air from a G+ business page, the resulting video will go into the YouTube channel of whoever the Owner of the page is. There is not yet any way to link a business page with a business YouTube account, though we were told in December that that was “coming.”
If you start it from your personal account, obviously it will go to the YouTube channel linked to the same email address.
Dallas
Thanks Mark – wishing there was more control and better integration for businesses.
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Andrew Park
Hi Mark,
Your explanations are greatly appreciated. Would you mind explaining the following? I would appreciate it greatly. I am a teacher; this new GOA features may help my students tremendously. Andrew
Hangouts and Hangouts On Air
Hangouts were originally introduced as a feature of Google Plus that allows up to 10 people to participate in a live video chat. When we use the term “Hangout” (as opposed to “Hangout On Air” which we’ll discuss below), we are referring to this “small group” version. Hangouts can be either private or public:
Private Hangouts are by invitation only. One person initiates the Google+ Hangout and then invites others, either by name or by Circle(s). Only the invited participants can enter and see the Hangout (although once in, any Hangout participant can invite others in, up to the capacity of the Hangout).
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