Your Google Plus Tips of the Week | Issue 118

Your Google+ Tips and Topics for Sept. 13th

1. The Hangout On Air Applause App

2. View and Plus One Photos in Your Community

3. Google+ “It Ain’t Dead Yet!”

Another New HOA App... (cue “Applause!”)

“What is it that we’re living for? Applause Applause!"

I first noticed the new Applause app when the pop up window appeared on my HOA event page.

It's found alongside of the Q&A and Showcase app on the the video place holder. 

These trio of apps, when opened, fill the screen with an expanded video player that hides the event page.

Note that the Applause app is enabled by default.

If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know I’m not fond of these apps. They inhibit social interaction on the Event Page.

What’s Google trying to tell us?

If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know I’m not fond of these apps precisely because they inhibit social interaction on the Page.

As a host, you have to decide your priorities.

Is the immediate interaction important or are you more interested in the YouTube views (which can be embedded anywhere.)

The Event Page is our Live Recording Studio.

The interaction from our audience, be it in the comments or displayed through the Comment Tracker, adds spontaneity and energy to the show.

I think I understand where Google is going with these new apps: Q&A, Showcase and now Applause.

They don’t want to anchor the HOA videos in Google+.

They’re focussed on the YouTube end and want to encourage views and engagement there (or anywhere the video is embedded). 

That’s where the ad dollars are.

Perhaps they should offer this as a YouTube app instead of a HOA one.

You can find details on the new Applause App as well as others on the Hangouts On Air apps Google support page.

When creating a Scheduled HOA Event, be aware that the Applause App is turned “ON” by default.

If you don’t want to use the app for your broadcast, turn it off.

Check to make sure it’s “OFF” before you open (start) the HOA.

As with the Showcase and Q&A app, you’ll need to instruct your audience how to detach the expanded player window from the Event page so as to move it out of the way.

When the App is activated, the host and participants inside the HOA don’t see or hear anything different.

For Viewers:

Only viewers can like or dislike the Hangout On Air through the Applause app. But everyone, including participants and hosts, will see where people liked or disliked different parts of the broadcast. (on video replay)

Below the broadcast window, click the thumbs-up icon to show approval and sound the “applause” or the thumbs-down icon, to indicate that point in the show sucked and release the “Boo’s”.  

People in the broadcast won’t hear either, so don’t worry about hurting their feelings.

They also won’t know who applauded or boo’d (unless you’re the only person in the audience.)

See what people like or dislike

You can see what other people liked or disliked during the broadcast through the graph below the Hangout On Air.

Green area: This shows where people liked what was said or shown in the broadcast.

Red area: This shows where people disliked what was said or shown in the broadcast.

Click the circles along the line to go to that part of the broadcast to see what people liked or disliked.

Or you can click a specific point in the broadcast's timeline to see what people's opinions were for that part of the Hangout On Air.

Do you plan to use the Applause App?

View Community Photos On Single Page

H/T Danielle Buckley

This is pretty cool especially if you have a Community that is very visually oriented: photography, science, nature, art...cats.

At the bottom of the left menu is a new icon that when clicked will open a single page where you can browse, plus one and comment on photos.

Google+ Is Still Very Important To Being Found, Followed & First (among your friends)

I want to leave you with another terrific excerpt from Mark Traphagen from his Stone Temple article: Google Author Authority in Search Gets Personal.

The article is about authorship, authority and the how Google is making search more personal.

“If you have worked hard at building a significant following on Google+ and have been posting well-optimized content there that is likely to be relevant to topics for which your audience searches, you may gain a significant advantage in search exposure to that audience.

Continue to build your authority in your niche via your content, your social web presence, and your real-life opportunities. Google is working on ways to figure out who matters in topical areas. You want to be one of those people.”

Have a great week and don’t forget to drop by our HOA lunch Table Tuesday as the Lunch Bunch returns after it’s summer siesta.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

If you found it helpful, please share with your friends.

Check out our Google+ Tips & Topics Community and catch up on past LunchBunch shows on my YouTube channel or Google+ Page.

Your Google Plus Tips Of The Week | Issue 114

Google Plus Tips for Aug 16th - issue 114

1. Improve chances of getting your Comment Featured in a HOA
2. Want a little privacy on Google+?
3. How to Get More Interaction on Google+

Improve chances of getting your Comment Featured in a HOA

As an audience member, this is great not only because you can interact directly with the HOA host and filmstrip guests but, if featured by the hosts, your comment and profile photo will be part of the video and so seen whenever and wherever the video is viewed.

To help chances that your comment will be featured, I found a couple great tips from Ronnie Bincer and added a few.

1. Make your comment “stand alone". Don't refer to a previous one as there's no guarantee that the earlier comment was featured.

2. Keep your comments short. This makes it easier to read by both the audience and HOA host. This will also prevent the comment from being cut off mid sentence.

3. If your comment is directed at a particular filmstrip member, indicate that at the beginning of the comment so it gets noticed by the host or "comment wrangler". (someone who manages the comments for the host).

4. Think of making your comment "Twitter friendly". Keep it under 120 characters to make your contribution to the conversation "tweetable" and memorable.

5. Having your comment with profile photo included in someone else’s video is a super way to extend your reach. Make sure your photo is well lit and friendly and check to see that your profile page is optimized for all those new visitors that will be dropping by.

Want to be more private on Google+?

Do you feel your G+ Profile page is an open book?

Want to remain a little mysterious?

While not generally advised as a way to make friends and influence people, you can limit what the public can see on your Google+ Profile.

When you look at your Profile Page as “yourself” you see all the tabs under the cover image:

About - Posts - Photos - YouTube - +1’s - Reviews  

You have the option to hide all or some of the last four tabs.

Go to your Google+ Settings then scroll down to the Profile section and choose which tabs you want to show.

This is what my Profile Page looks like after choosing to not show the profile tabs to visitors. Select: View profile as “public” to see the public view of your page. 

You can also customize it to see how a specific person sees your page. (Option found directly over your profile photo.)

Everything on your Profile page can be been hidden except for the About and Posts tabs.

Hide number of "views".

You can also hide your "view count" which is beside your follower count.

(Views represent how many times your content has been seen by other people, including your photos, posts, and profile page since October 2012 )

This is done on the same Profile section in your Settings.

Deselect: Show how many times your profile and content have been viewed.

If you don’t want your G+ profile to be indexed by Google (not that there’s anything wrong with that), you can 

Deselect: Help others discover my profile in search results.

Hide number of "followers".

If you want to hide the number of followers you have, go to the About tab.
On the bottom left corner of the People Card, click EDIT.

Deselect: Show people who have added you to circles.

You can edit each card on your About tab by selecting the level of visibility you want for each category.

Before retreating completely into the Google+ closet, be aware that most people will choose to circle you based on the information they find on your Profile page.

If accumulating followers and building networks isn't important to you, then be as secretive as you like.

But if you want to build connections, meet new people and certainly, if you want to do business here, then the more open you are, the more rewarding your experience on Google+ will be.

How to Get More Interaction on Google+ [Infographic]

by Irfan Ahmad and Chris Macidis of CircleCount.

Summary:

1. Avoid link dropping since it is an obvious pitfall showing low engagement figures across the board.

2. Share photos with more than 100 characters to get the most interaction

3. Text only posts are worthwhile for both +1s and comments but not reshares

Before you go on to peruse this great infographic, I want to thank you very much for sharing your time with me.If you found this newsletter helpful please share it with your friends.

Ray's LunchBunch HOA is returning in September with the same "Bunch" but new format. Until then, you can catch up on past shows on my YouTube channel or Google+ Page.

http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/08/how-to-get-more-engagement-on-google-plus-infographic.html

Did any of these findings surprise you?

Your Google+ Tips of the Week | Issue 111

Google+ Tips of the Week - July 26/14 issue 111

• Hangouts Events SEO - 10 Video SEO Tips
• Grow Your Following on Google+
• Showcase App for Hangouts On Air

Google+ Hangouts Events and SEO

Ronnie Bincer posted the news last week that Google+ was rolling out an experiment allowing us to find YouTube Live Events or Hangouts On Air on Google search.

For example, if I created a HOA Event featuring Ronnie talking about his Hangout Mastery Community, you could do a search for "Ronnie Bincer" and  find my event. Then you'd be able you to click the "watch live event" icon and watch it live.

Watch a live event

A live event will start to show up in search up to 3 hours before it starts. Here’s how to watch a live event:

1. Go to google.com and search for the event or the name of anyone in the event.
2. Click Watch live event to be taken to the event page.

If the event is happening now, you can touch the play on the video to watch the event live.

If the event is happening later in the day, click Yes under "Are you going to watch?" to add the event to your Google Calendar.

There’s not a lot of information as to what ranking and authority determines your ability to show up, but optimizing the Event and YouTube video certainly can’t hurt.

And regardless if this experiment rolls out in your area, good SEO practices will help your HOA be found in regular search. (Especially personalized.)

Event and Video SEO tips:

1. Optimize the title of the Event/Video for relevant keywords.

2. Keep the title short (within 70 characters) and the most important, at the front.

3. Be sure the title reflects the content.

4. Write a detailed description and include keywords.

5. Keep the first line of your description brief as it will appear as a snippet.

6. Before your Event goes live, go to your YouTube Live Events and enter same details .

7. Add annotations and CTAs (call to actions) .

8. Use tags that are referred to in the video.

9. Add the video to a playlist on your channel. Mine is G+LunchBunch Shows. 

10. Embed the video on your blog with a summary or time stamp and share on social.

  

Grow Your Following on Google+

And this just in….

Showcase App for Hangouts On Air (pdf)

(click above link for PDF)

This news caused a ripple in the G+ stream on Thursday when Google rolled out this much anticipated HOA app.

I much prefer “showcase” to  “shopping” as it was called in beta as the latter brings Chiapets and Chop O Matic to mind.

“Using the new Showcase app, hosts can now direct viewers to websites, merchandise, YouTube videos, your Google+ profile and Google Play content, all in a rich display on the right-hand side of the Hangout broadcast.”

I ran a bit of a test with it and am including some screen captures here to give you an idea of what it looks like.

I'll checking it out in more detail soon, but from what I see, it behaves much like the Q/A app insomuch as it appears on the HOA Event page video placeholder along with the  Start - Trailer - Q/A icons.

Video placeholder on Event Page

Will open side "showcase" panel

Once you click on the Showcase App icon on the left menu bar, a side panel opens where you can enter a link to a website.

For this test, I included links to: my Subscriber Opt-In form, Website and G+ Community.

edit image slideshow

If you have multiple images on your site, they will scroll on the sidebar in slideshow format. You can edit which will show.

Pre Broadcast view on Event Page

As with the QA app, this works only for hosting a SHOAE (Scheduled Hangout On Air Event).
Once you create the event:

1. Activate the Showcase icon

2. Click Start and enter the HOA, 

3. Enter the links you want to appear in the Showcase panel. (You might need to activate it from the side apps menu - writing this on same day it rolled out. :-)

4. Images on site you linked to will appear in slideshow. You can edit images and text you want to appear. 

5. Click on "Show item" save. Only those items you choose will be seen by viewers.
Note; on replays, all items you've shown are displayed.

6. Exit the HOA environment

7. Good idea to deactivate the Showcase app (list will be saved) This allows people to leave comments on the event page if they've hit the start arrow on the video.
If that happens, a new window opens which will hide the Event comments. 

From Showcase App for Hangouts On Air PDF

Getting Started

• Click on the Hangouts icon in the navigation bar, then click “Start a Hangout On Air.”
• Click the “Showcase” icon on the Hangout Event Page, then click “Play.”
• Enter the desired website URLs. Click ‘Show item’ to check URLs have autosaved.
• Note that if your Hangout is scheduled for a later date, you can disable the app
• until right before your event and it will save all of your cards.

Tips

• Link to websites with multiple images to showcase a slideshow of images
• on a card.
• Click “Edit” to remove images or edit text within the card.
• Use the toggles to hide and unhide the card from your audience.
• Leave the Showcase App (not the HOA) by clicking on the “X” in the top right corner.

Use Cases

The Showcase App can help create a more engaging experience during your live 

broadcasted Hangout.

You can:

• Sell merchandise

• Reveal new video content using YouTube 
• Promote a film or album release with links to ticket sales, trailers and
• Google Play content
• Rally constituents or build awareness for key causes and issues by linking to 
• relevant resources and websites 

plus:

• Link to your Subscriber or Webinar Landing Page
• Link to a previous HOA or your HOA YouTube Channel
• Link to websites/articles of your guests

How do you see using the Showcase App?

Thank you very much for sharing your time with me.

I hope you found this helpful and that if you did, you'll share this newsletter with your friends.

Although the LunchBunch show is taking a summer holiday, you can catch up on past shows on my YouTube channel or Google+ Page.