Marketing your Google Hangout

We recently explained on our blog what a Google Hangout is and how this free video conference tool can be an asset to your company. Now that you’ve learned the basics of setting it up, you’re ready to go live, right? Wrong. There’s one more step you need to do for your Google Hangout: market it. A Google hangout isn’t like the baseball diamond in the movie Field of Dreams “If you build it, he will come”. You’ll need to drum up some people to attend and watch your program. Once you create the Hangout page, you’ve got a great start, but no one will know it’s out there to view until you spread the word. Here’s some tips on how to promote it to your customers, prospects, and to the public.

YouTube and Google Plus

Since these networks are directly tied to your Google Hangout, they should be the first place where you notify people. Upload a teaser video of some of the content you will cover to your YouTube page. Promote it on Google Plus to your followers and find similar minded networks on Google Plus to advertise to as well.

Promote in your Email Newsletter

Include an invitation to attend your Google Hangout in your email newsletters. Let your subscribers know the date, time, and a description of what will be covered to pique their interest. After the Hangout is over and if it has been made public on your YouTube channel, you can encourage newsletter subscribers to view it at their leisure.

Advertise via a Blog Post

Your blog post mentioning the Hangout can be simple with details and a link. You can include a screenshot from the video if you have pre-made content. If you allow commenting on your blog, you can encourage people to reply with questions they would like to see covered during the session or other topics they would like to learn more about in the future. Check out the blog post done by Triangle Eye Physicians for an example of advertising a Hangout via blog.

Social Media

Facebook and Twitter are a great way to inform people about the topic you’ll be presenting in your Hangout and about the speaker. Be sure all your posts link back to the Google Hangout page itself. Market your event visually on your Pinterest page. You can pin screenshots of your video, profile pictures of the speakers, or images about the topic you’re going to cover. Bake Space has a dedicated Pinterest Board they advertise all of their Hangouts on, which they have labeled “Bake Space TV”.

Events

Invite your Facebook followers to attend via an event. If your Hangout is recorded, you can try scheduling it to run at two different days and times during the week to see what gets the biggest response. Eventbrite is another option to create an event promoting your Hangout. Google Hangout can be a way to get more attendees at your Meetups as well. You can live stream the physical event using Google Hangout on Air, and share that link with people in your Meetup group so they can virtually attend if  they cannot do so in person. The Raleigh SEO Meetup group does this as a way to increase attendance at their events.

Tags: Digital Marketing • Google