Friday

Google Plus Tips of the Week

Google Plus Hangout drawing app


Your Google Plus Tips of the Week for May 3rd

- Brand your YouTube with intro videos
    -  New mobile apps for Docs, Sheets and Slides—work offline and on the go
      - Hangout drawing tool


      YouTube tips from Peggy K H/T Ronnie Bincer & Scott Scowcroft

      Video branding:

      This may be useful, but 3 seconds isn’t a lot of time. I see this basically as an opening logo as opposed to a lead in.
      It only takes three easy steps to set up:

      1. Upload the three-second intro video you’d like to use to your channel as an unlisted video.

        2. On your channel's InVideo Programming page, click "Add a channel branding intro" and select the intro from a list of eligible videos.

          3. Select which videos you want the intro to appear on. You can choose whether to add it to all of your videos, or just the ones you’ve uploaded after a certain date. You can always remove or change the intro later.


          Note that these intros may not be used as ads, sponsorships, or product placements. We also don't recommend this feature be used by channels using their videos as advertisements.
          You can also add a watermark to your videos.
          Go to your YouTube video manager and select “channel Settings” then “in video Programming”. 
          You’ll be given options to:
          1. Add a watermark
          2. Feature a video pr playlist
          3. Add a branding intro



          Add a Custom Thumbnail to Your YouTube Video



          For the #GPlusLunchBunch show, I usually use my event banner as my custom thumbnail for consistency with the HOA event.
          YouTube custom thumbnail

          There are other times when a screen grab from the show is more compelling.
          YouTube custom thumbnail

          If you want to add a custom thumbnail, YouTube account must be in good standing, and you must have monetization enabled on your channel.
          Check your account's Features tab to see if your channel is eligible for custom thumbnails.

          Google Drive Docs & Sheets Get their own apps


          Google docs sheets app

          via Brian Levee  - GoogleDrive Blog

          With their eye on ever increasing mobile usage, Google has separated Docs and Sheets (and soon, Slides) from Drive and made them their own downloadable apps for iOS and Android.

          I think this is a great idea especially on mobile as it can get tedious (especially on the iPhone) to sort through the Drive folders to find a specific document.  It’S also easy to switch over to Drive at anytime.

          You can get the apps on Google Play and in the App Store. If you don’t have time now, over the next few days you’ll be prompted to download the apps when you go to edit or create a document or spreadsheet in your Drive app.

          Hangout Drawing Tool App

          Finally, after this week of Google Plus is dead rumours and counter rumours, I leave you with a bit of fun.
          Ronnie Bincer brought this to my attention earlier this week. It’s a drawing app that enables us to draw freeform, add text and stamp images of arrows, speech bubbles etc right on our Hangout screen.

          Even if you're not a Picasso (as I'm obviously not) the text and stamps functions are useful.
          For instance, when we want to post a link during a HOA, we can text it on the screen as well as posting in the comments section.
          I haven’t tried it in an actual Hangout yet so if anyone is game to play, let me know.




          Thank you for taking the time to read this.

          Please share if you think it might be helpful to someone.

          Check out our past #GPlusLunchBunch shows on my YouTube channel or Google+ Page.

          No comments:

          Post a Comment