Many businesses have already realized the value of Google+ in their marketing efforts, especially since it’s owned by the world’s most popular search engine company. As part of the Google+ platform, users have access to Google+ Hangouts, which enables videoconferencing capabilities for up to ten people.
Google+ seeks to create a social media community where groups of people meet to interact, whether through status updates or video chats.
Instead of hosting one-on-one video chats through Skype, professionals can invite clients, colleagues, or potential customers to join them in a Google+ Hangout. When used properly, this tool can be used to improve a business’s online visibility as well.
Let’s explore some ways how Google+ can be used to improve online visibility, branding, and content marketing campaigns.
1. Boost Your YouTube Channel
Each of your Google+ Hangouts can be saved to your YouTube channel, allowing you to effortlessly build your video library. Even better is a new feature that allows Hangouts to be streamed live to YouTube, which can open up the possibility for reaching a wider audience.
The process requires a few extra steps, but YouTube still has a wider membership base than Google+ Hangouts, so many businesses will find it’s well worth it. Additionally, once you begin broadcasting live to YouTube, you’ll be able to invite more than ten members, making it perfect for webinars and larger company meetings.
YouTube is a large part of content marketing, especially if you create stellar video descriptions. Comments and viewcount will also help move your video up the YouTube search rankings, so you can use Google+ Hangouts as part of your strategy to build your YouTube audience. The new connections you make on Google+ can be encouraged to check out your YouTube channel to see past videos, giving you a potential increase in subscribers and views.
2. Involve Others
One way to bring even more people to your Hangouts is to host Q&A sessions. These bring your audience together and provide personal interaction, making them feel closer to your brand, which also helps to humanize your brand. They’ll also be more likely to share the video link with their own social media audiences, resulting in increased reach for each of your Hangout sessions.
For even better results, pull together a panel of experts in your field to answer questions from audience members. These experts will, in turn, likely promote the event through their channels, expanding your reach through other industry influencers.
3. Establish Yourself As A Thought Leader
Demonstrating expertise in your field is invaluable to building and differentiating your brand. You should have a unique value proposition or perspective from which to add value through your publications.
When hosting a webinar through Google+ Hangouts, you can spend the weeks leading up to the event promoting it. This provides a great opportunity to create content like press releases, articles, social media promotions, and newsletters that tie into the upcoming webinar and encourage registrations. As you begin to generate buzz for your upcoming event, your business will enjoy increased exposure, attracting and building your audience.
If it’s your first time establishing yourself as a Google+ Hangouts host, you may need a little help. Often, you’ll find that many other industry influencers in your space would be happy to make a guest appearance on your Hangout; not only because they’re honored to be asked, but they also see it as a great way to expand their own audience. Focus on influencers who have a large following, and you’ll gain exposure to a new, wider audience. Furthermore, you’ll build new relationships with influencers in the meantime, which will assist your overall marketing and branding goals.
Once the webinar is over, use the information from it to create a comprehensive report, eBook, or whitepaper on the subject; repurposing content is an important part of maximizing the effectiveness of your overall content marketing strategy. Your content should direct people to the video you created on YouTube, encouraging even more people to watch it. Over time, your combined activity on certain topics will work to establish you as a thought leader in your industry.
4. Promote Your Hangouts
Whether you have an upcoming webinar or you just want people to join you for an occasional conversation, promote your Hangouts through social media, your blog, and email newsletters. A great way to build an audience for your Google+ content is to announce a regular Hangouts series that you promote through these channels. Give it an interesting name tied to a day of the week, and host them regularly. It doesn’t have to be every week, but choose a consistent date your audience can remember, such as the first Monday of each month.
Over time, as you build up published content, consider creating a library on your website for new visitors to easily access all your previous webinars. Include brief descriptions of each video to maximize SEO potential and entice visitors to watch. If you’re feeling especially ambitious, consider having each video transcribed and offer the transcription beneath each video. This will help populate your site with text-based content, which search engines love, while also giving visitors the option of reading the content rather than watching it.
For increased reach, convert the audio from your Hangouts sessions into podcasts. This will give your content even greater reach, enabling you access to the many Apple device customers who search for podcasts to download and listen to.
Conclusion
Because it’s a Google product, Hangouts is a great way to gain search engine visibility while also building your audience and establishing your brand as an authority in your field. Not only will you meet new people and develop strong business relationships, you’ll learn from others and provide value to prospective customers with an invited audience watching.
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