Broadcast your Business with Google Hangouts

YouTube is famous for enabling millions of people to broadcast themselves through placing the videos they record on their  mobile phones and video cameras, of course. 

What they are less famous for is their new social media platform, namely Google+. It's relatively new to the world but it is rapidly growing its audience. It has a slightly different approach to how Facebook works but one of the most important components of Google+ is its live streaming service called 'Hangouts'. This is a broadcast tool which, through the use of your web cam and microphone on your computer enables you to run your own TV show to anyone on Google+ or who is watching through your website.

Live streaming has been around for a while but Google Hangouts make it that bit easier. The tools available make it very interactive and easy to use to broadcast You can live broadcast while taking chat messages from your audience. You can swap to the web cams of your audience and  listen to their questions and feedback too.

With Google Hangouts on Air, businesses will be able to provide help desks, how-to broadcasts and broadcast journalism anywhere they have internet access, a web cam and a microphone. The almost instant live streaming ability is very useful.

I was recently asked to be part of a BBC show called 'World Have Your Say' where the producer of the show started a Google Hangout asking people to share their stories about 'Dark Tourism'. This came into my stream of updates on Google+ and I responded through the chat saying I had some experience of it. The producer connected with me through their web cam and we chatted about the topic. An hour later, I was speaking on the show. Live streaming like that provides levels of interactivity which, ten years ago, businesses would never have thought possible.

For any business that wants to get to know their customers better, or to provide them with support and help, Google Hangouts are a great way to make it quick, cheap and easy to do so.

There's a good Google video below which explains more about how you can run live broadcasts too and a good post on Fast Company by Amber Mac called '3 Ways To Work Smarter Using Google+ Hangouts' and the Social Media Examiner has a good post about using Google Hangouts here too.