Friday

Google Plus Tips of the Week

Rather than turning over a new leaf


Your Google Plus Tips for May 17

1. Add Google Analytics to G+ Page Dashboard
2. Google Plus Cover Image Templates
3. The Q&A App in HOAs.


Add Google Analytics to G+ Page Dashboard

If you have a website/blog then you know how important it is to check in to your Google Analytics regularly to gain insight on traffic, demographics, post performance etc.

Because I don’t have a flashing light on my screen telling to check my analytics, I sometimes forget to do so for weeks at a time. 

Having my Google Analytics as part of my Google+ Page dashboard keeps it top of mind and provides a convenient way to grab a customizable overview of what’s happening on my site.


Understand Google Analytics (From Google support)

Once you’ve enabled Google Analytics on your Dashboard, you’ll see several types of data:
New visits
A single visitor to your website can open multiple visits. Those visits can occur on the same day, or over several days, weeks, or months. As soon as a single user ends one visit, there is then an opportunity to start a new visit, which is tracked with this metric across the previous 31 days. Learn more.
Pageviews
A pageview is an instance of a page being loaded by a browser. The Pageviews metric is the total number of pages viewed in the previous 31 days; repeated views of a single page are also counted. Learn more.
Unique visitors
The Unique Visitors metric in Google Analytics (GA) can help you understand the number of people that came to your website in the last 31 days. Learn more. To visit Google Analytics and see more in depth information, click View Google Analytics. To read more about Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics Help Center.
You can change the card view by configuring the default view under your Google Analytics property.
For more information on signing up for Google Analytics, creating a Google Plus Page and troubleshooting go to: Add Google Analytics to the Dashboard


Google+ image sizes:



Google Plus Cover Image Size




Cover Image (Desktop)
  • 480 x 270 (minimum) to 2120 x 1192 (maximum)
  • Recommended: From 920 x 250 to 1080 x 608 (to avoid mobile cropping)
Profile Photo: 250 x 250


Shared Image: 497 x 373 (can be uploaded up to 2048 x 2048)


Shared Link: 150 x 150 (thumbnail)

To view full column size, 506 wide and have an aspect ratio no wider than 5:2 (width:height) See last week’s newsletter.




The Q&A App in HOA’S.


Q&A Hangout On AIr App

When doing a Scheduled Hangout On Air (SHOAE) you’ll notice on the bottom of the video screen three buttons:


1. Start - You hit the “start” button to open up your HOA. This does not start the broadcast.
2. Trailer (image) - The “trailer” option can be used to insert a short trailer or promo teaser for the show. You can also insert an image to replace the default blurred image of your profile photo.


3. Q&A - The “Q&A” option opens the HOA in the Q&A environment so when you start the broadcast, the video opens in it’s own window.


As you may know, I host a weekly panel show. The format is conversational with lots of interaction in and outside the HOA. I don’t find this format works very well with the Q&A app.


The Q&A app works best, as its name suggests, for Q&A type shows.
For example if I was interviewing a specialist in a certain field and wanted to open up the discussion for questions from the audience, this would be perfect as I can manage the questions easily from inside the HOA.

Another big advantage is each answered question gets time stamped so a viewer can later go to that particular section of the video replay.


For more details on the Q&A app, go here: Hangouts On Air features and apps
There’s a couple disadvantages to consider:
1. If you can’t get to all the questions inside the Q&A app during the show, there’s no easy way to respond to later as easily can if using the event page for questions or comments.
2. Once the HOA is LIVE, it opens up inside the Q&A UI. This means that people watching cannot see anything on the event page other than by moving the HOA into a separate window. To do that, click on the arrow on the upper right on the HOA video screen. (see screen capture below)
This also means that anyone posting something on the event page once the show starts, won’t be seen seen by people watching through the Q&A app.
QA app detach screenshot.jpg
What happens if we accidentally turned it on?

Before the event, if you’ve discovered that you turned on the Q&A app but don’t want it, simply click on the Q&A button again to disable it as shown in this Ronnie Bincer image from his post: Q&A App and the Scheduled HOA Event – turn it on/off via the Event


QandA app on or off via SHOAE.jpg


“Remember, you can only enable or disable the Q&A App Before you start the broadcast... that is done via the Event Page if you use the Scheduled HOA Event tool from the Hangouts Page.”



And if you haven’t already, join our Google+ Tips & Topics Community.
Your subscription to this newsletter gets you a membership.
You can watch past shows on my YouTube channel or Google+ Page.


Let me know how I can help you with Google Plus.

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