Marketing with Google+ Hangout: 3 Reasons It's a Must

Hangouts have become hot with online marketers these days, with Google+ hangouts being one of the preferred choices to market businesses online. Are you missing out? If you want to do marketing with online hangouts, then you need to know 3 things to get ahead.

Encourages Engagement

There are many ways to get people to engage with you online, and one of the best ways is to use a hangout like Google's. A hangout can encourage your customers to be social on a platform where you get real-time customer views of your products. Research stats from EXPO show that reviews from consumers are 12 times more trusted than descriptions from manufacturers.

You can increase engagement tarting with the title for your hangout which should be interesting enough to be clicked on by your audience. Once you catch their attention, then you can give them a reason to stay or keep coming back. One good way is to schedule regular weekly hangout events such as interviews that revolve around your business.

All-in Presentation Venue

By creating a hangout, you create a place where you can invite an audience to listen to you talk about your business and whatever you have to offer. A hangout can be like a conference where everybody has a chance to speak, or if they choose to, they can simply listen to you deliver a presentation.

You can live-stream a video to YouTube publicly in the Google+ Hangout. This shows how you are not limited by location when you use an online hangout. You can record your hangout session and make it available to be played online. Since studies show that meetings with potential customers contribute to increased sales, then using a hangout can be a goldmine of conversions.

Free Tools to Use

Perhaps the best feature of online social media hangouts is that they are free to use and come with free apps that can help you make the most out of your hangout experience. A good example is the Google Hangout Toolbox app, where you can have part of your screen to display visuals relevant to the topic at hand.

Another free tool in the Google Toolbox is Comment Tracker which allows you to extract comments from social media sites like Twitter. This comes in pretty handy for instant feedback from around the Web.

If you find that creating and using a hangout can be helpful to your marketing, then these three things can help you get ahead in your business. But be sure to test things first and be familiar with the hangout platform you intend to use so you minimize the chances for errors.

Google Hangout Marketing: The How and WHY

4 Tips to Build Online Reputation and Not Break Social Media Rules

Are social media compliance rules getting in the way of your building an online reputation? We all know how social media sites warn us about the posting of certain content that are controversial or sensitive. It’s all well and good, but what if you unknowingly go below the belt? Here are 4 tips to build your online reputation without breaking social media compliance rules.

Common Sense Rules

If you know right from wrong and are guided by common sense, then you would have little or no problem in making sure that your social media posts are not the kind that would bring trouble to your reputation. If you have an unpopular opinion about someone popular, it’s best to keep it to yourself or risk getting flak from those reacting online. Before you type a social media update about someone, think of how the comment will make you react. If your reaction isn’t good, then don’t make the post, because it’s also likely going to be the reaction of other people.

Read the Fine Print

Admit it, you have not really read all there is to read about the terms and privacy issues of social media sites like Facebook Google+ or Twitter. It’s a hassle, but you really need to read those things because you might do something wrong which is visible to everybody and which may reflect negatively on your reputation. There are sites, forums in particular, which prefer to keep promotions out of the conversation, for example, so if you post about your company’s new Mark 2 Iron Man suit replica, you will get into trouble for that one post.

Think about Your Audience

As marketers, we get too eager sometimes to get our message across and we tweet and post to our heart’s content about how great our company is etc. You might believe that there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing, but the thinking is really self-oriented and too much of posts that promote your business or company may get you labelled as a spammer, especially if you post quite a number of times in one day. Spam posts are always unwelcome in social sites. In marketing, speak to your audience. Your messages must address their needs or expectations and should not seem methodical or forced on them.

Engage Communities

Outsourced marketing company Blue Tree Digital's clients, Loudoun Insurance Group (LIG) and Capital Fiduciary Advisors (CFA) have enjoyed success in building their reputation online without breaking social media compliance rules. One tip is to keep tweets and other information posted online focused on the community involvement of clients and not solely on content that you think will be consumed or followed by your audience to the advantage of the business. “Scheduling of tweets and Facebook updates doesn't really help as much in terms of building an audience. It definitely keeps content rolling, but it's not for growing an audience,” says Nicole Skuba of Blue Tree Digital Marketing. So don't just give content. Engage, as Captain Picard would say in Star Trek.

Real-Time Marketing for Business Growth: How to Use Social Media, Measure Marketing, and Create a Culture of Execution by Monique Reece