Help Desk Hangouts: Learn how your business can use Hangouts to engage and collaborate

Editor’s note: Each week on the Google+ Your Business page, we’re putting you in touch with Googlers and users who can help you as a business owner get the most out of our products and features.

In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air, we discussed Google+ Hangouts — a topic many of you wanted to know more about (how to get started, ideas for what to cover in your Hangouts, and so on). With special guests Teresa Wu of the Google Docs team, and Hangouts power users Seth David and Tom Rolfson, we talked about how you can use Hangouts to engage customers and collaborate with your teammates. If you missed it, you can watch the full hour-long Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel (really great tips!):

We collected questions via the Google+ Your Business page and tried to answer as many as we could in the Hangout. Here are a few of the questions we addressed:

Yifat: If a business page doesn't have many followers and they open a public Hangout, where does it appear and can anyone join (even people who haven't circled them yet)?

A notification to join the Hangout appears only to those who have added the page to their circles (they’ll see it in the Stream), but anyone with the link can join the Hangout.

Thorben: Are you still planning on making Hangouts On Air available for everybody?

We’re definitely still hoping to make this more widely accessible. Thanks for being patient!

Nadra: I'm looking forward to using Hangouts for event promotion. I'm curious about the different nuances of launching Hangouts before, during and after an event.

Hangouts are a great way to give others insight into an event, especially during the live show (be sure test the sound quality ahead of time to make sure everything’s a-OK). Before an event, you could use the Hangout to start building interest by giving sneak previews to guests, and after the event, use a Hangout to recap the highlights and showcase follow-up interviews.

Eric: How can we embed Hangout info on our website? And help people to pre-register? Can we stream the live Hangout to another web property like our web site?

Embedding a Hangout and streaming on your own web property aren’t possible at the moment, but it’s a common feature request that we get from users and one the team is aware of. As for pre-registering, you can ask the followers of your page to leave a comment if they’d like to be invited to attend, or create a Google form to collect the names of participants.

Barbara: I've been using Hangouts quite a bit but even in smaller groups we've struggled with disturbing noise interferences we couldn't really explain. How can we overcome such seemingly mundane but important difficulties?

Make sure you have a dedicated quiet room for participants in the Hangout. Use microphones and headphones to improve sound and audio quality, and ask participants that when not speaking, hit the “Mute” button at the top right of the Hangout screen.

To learn more about how to get started with Google+ Hangouts, visit our Help Center. And remember to tune in to the live stream of our next Hangout at 11 a.m. PDT Wednesday March 28, as we discuss how you can help the right customers find your business with AdWords. We’ll be collecting your AdWords questions early next week on the Google+ Your Business page.

Posted by Vanessa Schneider, Google Places community manager

Google+ page stories: The Pablove Foundation

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth in a series of posts about small businesses on Google+ and their tips and tricks for managing a great page. Visit our YouTube channel to see all the videos in this series and join the discussion on the Google+ Your Business page. 

Meet The Pablove Foundation, whose mission is to fund pediatric cancer research, educate and empower cancer families, and improve the quality of life for children living with cancer. Watch as Jo Ann Thrailkill, Pablove’s Executive Director, uses Google+ to contribute to the global Pablove movement to fight childhood cancer with love.

Google+ Ripples creates an interactive graphic of the public shares of any public post or URL on Google+ to show you how it has moved through the network. Watch as Jo Ann uses Ripples to discover new supporters of The Pablove Foundation:

Ripples shows you:

• Who has publicly shared a post or URL and the comments they’ve made
• How a post or URL was shared over time
• Statistics on how a post or URL was shared

Want to learn more? Check out our Help Center for specific steps on how to use Ripples, and visit the Google+ Your Business site for more Google+ tips and tricks. You can watch all our small business stories on YouTube.

What interesting people and connections have you discovered through Ripples? Join the discussion on the Google+ Your Business page and tag your posts #mybusinessstory.

Posted by Evelyn Lee, Google+ Pages Associate Product Marketing Manager

Learn how Google can help your business with our new Help Desk Hangouts on Air series

You’re looking to grow your business, and we offer a ton of tools to help you do just that. But sometimes, you need a little help learning all the options and getting started. That’s why this week on the Google+ Your Business page, we’ve launched a new series of Help Desk Hangouts On Air to put you in touch with teams who can help you get the most out of our products and features.

What’s a Hangout On Air? Well, Hangouts are a video group chat with a limit of 10 participants. Hangouts On Air are special Hangouts that allow you to broadcast that 10-person Hangout to many people and record it for future viewing.

To kick things off, we asked Justin Cutroni of the Google Analytics team (and author of the blog Analytics Talk) to show us how business owners can use Analytics to track their advertising campaigns, website performance and see how users are getting to their site (e-mail, social media, referrals). If you missed it, you can watch the full hour-long Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel:

Here’s how the video breaks down:

• Intros - Hi, Mom! (2 mins)
• The basics (25 mins)
• What is Analytics?
• Why, as a business owner, should I use Analytics?
• How do I get started?
• How do I read the reporting information? (Here Justin walks us through the features of an active account.)
• Q&A (25 mins)
• Wrapup (2 mins)

Earlier in the week, we asked you to share with us your Analytics questions — and you had plenty! Here are just some of the questions Justin addressed in the Hangout:

Kenneth: Is there a threat in respect to data privacy?
We take privacy very seriously at Google. The only person that has access to your Google Analytics data is you. You can also grant other people access to your Analytics data, but that’s up to you.

Martynas: Is there a plan to update the administration part of GA? We need more levels: creator, administrator, manager, reader.
Excellent feature request, and it relates to the question above. We get this question often and know that the current model is limiting. We are working hard to figure out the best user model for Analytics.

Lea: When oh when will export to PDF be available in the new version of Analytics?
We hear you! It’s coming back very soon. We’re sorry it’s taken so long to add this feature to the new version of Google Analytics.

Jeremy: What are the plans for integrating Google Analytics with Site Optimizer?
Another great question. For those of you that don’t know, Website Optimizer is a website testing tool. You can use it to test different variations of your website, like landing pages or the checkout process. We’ve heard our users loud and clear that Website Optimizer would be a lot more useful as part of Google Analytics. Stay tuned ...

Connie: Is there a good WordPress plug-in for adding GA code to a blog?
Plug-ins! Justin’s favorite, we learned yesterday in the Hangout. There are some great ones out there, especially for WordPress. Check out Google Analytics for WordPress.

Raphael: Can you tell us more about the benefits of using Analytics for tracking mobile apps?
You can absolutely track apps with Google Analytics. We have two SDKs, one for Android and one for iOS, that make it easy to  track how people use an app. If you’re going to use GA to track apps you should also understand Event Tracking and Custom Variables. These two features are very useful when tracking apps.

Justin shows us a feature that tells you how often you show up in Google’s organic search results and the number of click-throughs that you get.

To learn more about how to get started with Google Analytics, visit our Help Center. And remember to tune in to the live stream of our next Hangout at 11 a.m. PDT Wednesday, as we discuss how to use Hangouts (something a bunch of you guys have asked us to talk about!). We’ll be collecting your Hangout questions today on the Google+ Your Business page.

Posted by Vanessa Schneider, Google Places community manager

Rainbow Headband

Yesterday I was "blog-cruisin'" and I came across a headband tutorial that I thought was super cute and easy...and best of all I had all the materials on hand:o)

Meaningful Mama was the blog. She has some really cute ideas.

I thought the headband was perfect since St. Patrick's Day is coming up Saturday.

Since the kids won't be in school on the actual day, I let them wear their green today.

S.R. insisted on wearing her headband:o)

 Instead of rhinestones, I added some daisy buttons, and a few leaves.

 E gives it a "two thumbs up":o)

 I hope you all have a fantastic St. Patrick's Day. I have a fun-filled day planned for the family:o)

Google+ page stories: Birds Barbershop

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth in a series of posts about small businesses on Google+ and their tips and tricks for managing a great page. Visit our YouTube channel to see all the videos in this series and join the discussion on the Google+ Your Business page. 

Meet Birds Barbershop, a collection of five hair salons in Austin, Texas. Jayson Rapaport and Michael Portman dreamed of reinterpreting the old school barbershop for a new generation through affordable, quality cuts, free beer — and now Google+. Watch this pair of big thinking entrepreneurs as they use Google+ to speak directly with their regulars and create a virtual lookbook using Google+ photos.

Google+ Pages is a great tool for coordinating internal communications. In the video below, see how Michael and Jayson use their page to expand to a new location.

On Google+, users get unlimited photo and video uploads — a great opportunity to show off your business’s space, new merchandise, or a recent event you hosted. Here are some quick tips on how to create albums of beautiful photos to show off your business:

• Edit your photos with basic features like rotating images or using auto-fix. You can use the Creative Kit for more advanced edits like adding effects and text to your pictures.
• Manage your images quickly by using the photos icon at the top of your Google+ dashboard to change the share settings for all of your albums in one place.
• Change the visibility of your albums so you can pick who sees what. For example, you might want to share photo of your products with your customers, and pictures from company events with just your employees.

Want to learn more? Visit the Google+ Your Business site, and stay tuned for more Google+ stories and tips from small businesses. Also check out our Help Center content for specific steps on how to use photos in your posts. You can also watch all our Google+ page stories on YouTube.

How do you use photos and videos on Google+ to better connect with your customers? Join the discussion on the Google+ Your Business page and tag your posts #mybusinessstory.

Posted by Evelyn Lee, Google+ Pages Associate Product Marketing Manager

How I Am Avoiding Using Cooking Spray

Here lately I have been trying to be more picky about what I feed my family. I buy mostly organic when possible, and I have been gradually cutting out  processed foods. We still eat some, but not as many as we used to.  There are so many links to cancer now which seem to be coming from the foods we eat.

So anyway, I have quit using cooking sprays. I haven't read anything anywhere that says we are going to die if we continue to use them, but one of the ingredients is "propellant."...ummm, ick!

So I have been coating all of my cake pans with butter(yum) & flour.

Muffin tins, however, are slightly more tricky because they are smaller. I ran out of muffin cups the other day, and needed a substitute. I felt like I had a moment of genius when I decided to use parchment paper.

I formed the parchment paper around the bottom of one of the muffin cups, and cut out the circle. Then I used that one as a template to cut out the next 5.

 I smushed them down in the cups...not all that pretty, but hey, I was improvising here.

 I spooned in the muffin mix...

 and tada!

I also used it for some make-shift-Corn-Flake-wanna-be-Rice-Krispie-Treats...the kids have been really good today, so I thought I would reward them with these...they have little green candies in them:o) Now these are extra sticky, so I rubbed some Crisco(yeah Baby!!) on my hands to flatten out the treats...like I said I am slowly removing processed foods, but we indulge every once and a while:o)

Well, that's my two cents for the day:o)

Table Transformation for Free

I am slowly getting the house back to normal after the birthday festivities....slowly:o)

 As I was cleaning and doing the 9 millionth load of laundry today, I had the urge to just change something in my house. I am getting the itch to make some major changes in my home, BIG changes...terrible timing! We are doing a lot in the backyard right now, so the inside needs to be left alone.

So to kill the "urge," I went shopping in my garage and created a FREE mini makeover.

This is the table in my living room that is a dust collector. I found this antique table at a yard sale last spring. It desperately needs the paint removed, but I just can't stand the thought of torturing myself like that:o) So there it has stayed..all chippity. Is that a word? Probably not..anyway...

 I was given this table top from my mother's friend. It was once apart of an antique Hoosier cabinet...it had seen better days. She completely disassembled it, and gave me this table top.

I had every intention of putting legs on it and turning it into a sofa table...really I did!

However, me being the "lazy" that I am, just wiped it down and laid it on top of the dust collector table. Now I have an even bigger dust collector table...and I LOVE IT!

 Not bad for free, huh? And now I can go a few more days without having to completely overhaul my house:o)