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Anatomy of a Google Plus Hangout

September 18th, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Anatomy of a Google Plus Hangout

Google Plus Hangout is a Google product that allows groups of people to “hangout” over the Internet. Google Plus Hangout may very well be a parent’s best friend, especially if you are the parent of teenage kids who like to sneak out at night to hang out with their friends in the park. Oh, but, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The purpose of an online, planned or unplanned hangout makes a lot of sense. How many times have you wanted to chat with a group of your colleagues or friends but didn’t have any way to do this because of distance or a central place to meet? After all, we are social animals and have a need for human interaction.

Google Plus Hangout is a great start for that central hangout location. Think of it as Skype on steroids. With a Google Plus login and password, Internet connection and a now ubiquitous computer with webcam, you are ready to interact with friends and colleagues far and wide. Today’s limitation is that Google Plus Hangout can only support up to 10 real-time connections … that’s you and 9 of your friends or colleagues.

I had the opportunity to try out Google Plus Hangout with one of our clients, Grammy winner Patti Austin. The first live event was With Patti singing in a studio to a live audience of 9 fans. Woo Hoo! The quality of the video and audio was surprisingly good, especially considering that we were using a laptop computer hooked up to a high definition webcam. Both the artist and the fans LOVED the concept and wanted more.

Just a scant 2 weeks later, we gave them more. This time we decided to make a full on production out of this event. Not only did we have a Google Plus Hangout session, but we also had a live audience in studio with Patti Austin. And, because of the 10 person limitation of Google Plus, we decided to run 3 concurrent sessions. This was going to be sensational!

And so it was. There were a few glitches, of course. 1st, one of the laptops we were using for the event crashed the Google Plus Hangout session. Our conclusion is that the laptop just did not have enough processing power / memory combination. It was a Mac after all. The other 2 sessions on laptops with at least 4 gigs of memory ran like a charm.

Since we lost one of the hangouts we decided to stream it live on one of the other laptops on Ustream. This also added to the “cool factor” of this event. Now, we were not limited to just 27 people, but anyone with the Ustream URL could view the live concert with Patti Austin and “friends.” Over Facebook, we updated everyone in real time about the live Ustream feed.

Now, this type of production is not for the weak of heart. Not only did we have a live audience in studio, but also a live audience only IN ADDITION to a professional 3 person camera crew filming the whole event. Needless to say this set up was a thousand times more complex than most people will ever get in their own hangouts.

Back to Google Plus Hangout being a parent’s best friend. If you can convince your teenage kids that it’s better and SAFER to hang out with your friends virtually rather than in the park at 4am in the morning, you’re guaranteed to sleep much better at night.

Filed Under: Google Plus, social media marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Social Media Marketing Can Help You Get Your Money Back!

June 1st, 2011 By Leave a Comment

social media marketing
by Zooey_ under CC BY-SA  with adpublishing
How to get your money back with social media marketing!

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Because I’m in the business, I’m often asked if social media marketing really works. There are plenty of skeptics amongst the crowd. There are also plenty of people who don’t know how to leverage the media to their best advantage. I’m going to give an example of both positive and negative social media marketing from my own experience.

Three weeks ago I was driving to San Francisco on a beautiful sunny day. As is customary on these types of days, I opened my sunroof so that I can enjoy the warm rays. As I reached the Bay Bridge, it was getting a bit chilly so I proceeded to close my sunroof. Big Mistake! It got stuck in the OPEN position. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t close it. Worse … the forecast for the next day was anything but pleasant. It called for rain and rain for several days thereafter. What was I going to do?

Once I reached SF, I immediately went to the Toyota car dealership and asked for their help. I was told by the service department that it would cost $600+ just to open my car up and check it out. If a part was needed, it would only be about $800 or so. I figured at that point it was worth it. Several hours later, I was advised that the sunroof mechanism couldn’t be fixed. Worse, they couldn’t even close it for fear of breaking the glass. The only alternative was a new $3,000 assembly plus labor. I said no thanks and to please give me my car back. At the end of the day, they “only” charged me $160 to check out my car.

After sealing my roof with Plexiglas (thanks, ACE Hardware!), I started shopping around for an alternative. After 2 weeks, I finally found a great, honest place – Vallejo Sunroof and Auto Upholstery in Vallejo, CA. The young proprietor didn’t promise me he could “close” the sunroof but he said he’d try his best. Not only did he close it, but he FIXED it. The price tag? $475!

How did social media marketing play out in this scenario? I decided to post a very disappointing Yelp review about my experience with the Toyota dealership. Remember now, an online review is there for ALL to see. Within a couple of hours I got both an email and a call from the customer service rep. He apologized profusely for the inappropriate treatment and offered to reimburse me for my $160.

On the flip side of the story, I gave a positive review for Vallejo Sunroof and Auto Upholstery. I even offered to help him with his marketing for free.

The moral of the story? Social media marketing works … if nothing else but to help you let off steam. Better yet, you might even get lucky and get your money back.

I’m still waiting for the “check that’s in the mail”, though. Until then, I’m sticking to my story.

Filed Under: social media marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Reputation Management Is More Important Than Ever

April 2nd, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Free Reputation Management Seminar by David Chan of ADPublishing.org on April 6th, 2011, UC Davis Hart Hall, Room 1150.

Reputation management is more important than ever these days because of the amount of information available on the Internet. This is true for both individuals as well as large and small companies. Consider some of these staggering statistics and you’ll quickly realize that trying to manage what you have posted or what others have posted about you can easily become overwhelming. There are over 1.8 billion global Internet users, 200 million blogs, 600+ million Facebook users, 5 billion+ images, and over 1 billion videos being served up YouTube every day.

What are some of the ways that your reputation can be compromised? Let’s take a simple example of something you might have posted on Facebook and did not set your privacy filters correctly. Perhaps one day you went out on a date or with a client and things did not go well. In frustration you decide to post a comment on your wall that was disparaging to your date or the client. Every person who is your friend on Facebook or likes your fan page (if you have one) will immediately be able to see your pos. This seemingly innocent post could easily be propagated to people you don’t know or directly to the client for your date. It’s not too hard to see how damaging this could be to your reputation.

Another example of reputation management has to do with images posted on the Internet. You may be posting images to sites such as Flickr, Facebook or even other “open” blog sites. Without realizing it, these images could easily have been tagged with your name. Compounding this problem is that others could also be uploading images that are tagged with your name. All of these images are indexed by the major search engines and can very well be “served up” when your name or company name is entered into the search bar. Imagine that some of the images were not too flattering or even downright disparaging.

You can extrapolate that potential problem even further to include videos that are posted on YouTube, Vimeo, and other video sharing sites. And, what about people who might be blogging about you or your company without your knowledge? This happens every day. It’s called freedom of speech. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that what’s up on the Internet stays on the Internet – good and bad. There are, of course, rare instances when posts / images are taken down and de-indexed, but the damage has already been done.

One of the fastest growing sectors of marketing is online reputation management. There are a number of ways to monitor what is being said about you and your company. And, there are also many ways in which to protect your “brand equity.” Make sure you consider what you are posting before pressing “enter.” At the end of the day, you are what people “perceive” about you based on what they discover online.

Filed Under: reputation management Tagged With: , , , ,