Using Google Hangouts and Google Hangouts On Air To Market Your VA Business

  I joined an online social media summit recently called Social Media Superhero Summit and I was blown away by the branding of the summit and the technology the summit host used to produce the summit.

This online summit was run entirely using Google Hangouts. The first of it kind to run an online video summit using Google Hangouts and not the usual online webinar software like GoToWebinar or similar. It used to be that if you wanted to have a video conference with multiple participants you had to purchase a paid plan.

GoToWebinar costs $99/month for up to 100 participants and that’s the “cheap” plan (gasp!) So how does Google Hangout stack up to GoToWebinar and why is this a game changer? Let’s talk a moment about Google Hangouts are and how it works.

Let’s say that you have a client and this client has multiple team members that he/she has asked you to train on a particular service you offer. Perhaps this services is updating your clients WordPress website. Your client has asked that you teach the entire team how to update the site.

Using Google Hangouts you can video conference with up to 10 people simultaneously. You can easily share your screen with all the participants of the call with the click of a button without having to download anything. Each time someone speaks Google Hangouts automatically pushes their video to the center of the screen and maximizes the video. So you have a more face-to-face experience as you know who is doing the talking and when.

So now let’s move on to something remarkable and really powerful that Google Hangouts offers.

Google Hangouts on Air

A Google Hangout On Air is simply a standard Google Hangout (remember, we have have up to 10 people actively participating in the Hangout) but you have the ability of inviting people from all over the world to watch your Hangout Live as it’s happening.

You have the ability to broadcast your Hangout with a few clicks. When I say that you can share your Hangout with the world I mean just that. All you have to do is click “Start broadcast” to go On Air and then you’re Hangout On Air will start broadcasting on your Google + profile, your YouTube channel and on any website that you have embedded it.

This means that you can lead anyone to your website to watch you live streaming a training video, an interview, or any other video you can think of. Anyone can watch your Google Hangout on Air as it’s happening and what’s even better is that when your Google Hangout on Air is over you don’t need any special software to record your Hangout.

Every Hangout is automatically saved to your YouTube account. Once your Hangout On Air is over, you can get share your content on Google +, YouTube, your Facebook page or profile, embed it into your blog, etc. The possibilities are endless. Because Google owns YouTube and YouTube is the worlds 5th biggest search engine your content gets preference for it’s keywords.

The reason Google Hangouts and Google Hangouts On Air is a game changer is because you used to have to spend a lot of money on a webinar software to host your online meeting using video to hundreds or thousands of participants.   With Google Hangouts On Air – it’s now free.   This is going to kill the business model of some companies once people really start understanding the power of Google Hangouts On Air.   Businesses aren’t there yet but mark my words, people will starting using Hangouts to host their online conferences.  If you can be first in line you’ll beat out the crowd.

So how can you use Google Hangouts and Google Hangouts On Air to market your virtual assistant business?

Here’s an idea for you!   Host a Google Hangout On Air with one other person.   You could train this person on one specific thing that you are a master at.  Perhaps it’s building out a PowerPoint presentation with all the bells and whistles, perhaps you are a social media whiz and you want to show this one person exactly how you vet out content and post this content across social media channels using a social media dashboard like Hootsuite.

Perhaps you could walk the person through how to use DropBox or Gimp or Google documents.   The point is that if you are using Google Hangouts on Air to train someone on one specific skill set you have.  What you’re doing is marketing your virtual assistant business using video.    Create one of these a week and within a couple of months you’ll have almost 10 videos on YouTube that will bring your leads for your business.  Bam!

This training video doesn’t even need to be with an actual client.   It could be your best friend, your mom or your neighbor.   The key is to set up a training session with someone.  You need one person to start a Google Hangout and once you have that one person you can broadcast the session to the world using Google Hangouts On Air.

Now how can you increase your billable hours using Google Hangouts?  

Propose all the above to your clients and get excited about it.   Get them excited about the idea of using Google Hangouts for business and getting a stream of new leads from video marketing.

I have plenty more ideas but I’d love to hear from you! Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments. Let me know how you are using Google Hangouts and Google Hangouts On Air?

I can’t wait to hear from you. See you in the comments!

Rock on,

Reese