Getting Started With Google Hangouts

What Are Google Hangouts?

Google Hangouts is a free video chat service from Google, which lets you have one on one chats or chats with up to 10 participants at a time.

In fact you can even have a hangout with just yourself, but more on that later.

Hangouts can be accessed from desktops, laptops and even mobile devices. And as well as video chatting you can share documents, images and YouTube videos too!

Google Hangouts also has a feature called “Hangouts on Air” which allows you to broadcast live video which is accessible to anyone with a web browser, so you can have an audience too!

Why Use Google Hangouts?

The benefits of using Google Hangouts are many, and when I list them below you will see why this is such an exciting opportunity for us.

Here, in no particular order are the benefits:

1. Hangouts are super simple to use and they are free– once you’ve done one Hangout you’ll be an old hand at it.

2. Google Hangouts allow you to record your screen for free – Yep you heard me right. That means no more expensive screen capture software like Camtasia or Screenflow, this baby lets us do it for free!!

3. There is absolutely no time restriction on recording – unlike some free screen recording software that limits the amount of time you can have, Google Hangouts is unlimited. Want to record for an hour? No problem!

4. Hangouts automatically uploads your recording to your YouTube channel – no need to save it to your desktop and upload it yourself, it does it all for you.

5. Because Google owns G+ Hangouts and YouTube it automatically favours any recordings that are uploaded and ranks them highly – no messy boring SEO needed here!

6. Hangouts are mobile friendly so you can Hangout on the go.

7. Hangouts can reach an unlimited audience for free - In fact president Obama used Google Hangouts to address the nation!

What You Need To Get Started?

Another really cool thing about Hangouts is that they cost almost next to nothing to get started with.

I would suggest using the Chrome browser to do the following steps because guess what. Yep that belongs to Google too!

The first thing you will need is a Gmail account. Most people already have one of these, but if you don’t just go to Gmail.com to sign up for free and follow the steps to set your account up.

Next you will need to go to Youtube.com and sign in with your Gmail account login details. Once inside you can edit your profile and set up your channel. This is the account that all your Hangouts will be uploaded to.

Finally while you are logged into your Gmail account go to Google Plus+ and there you will find your Google+ account. This is where the magic happens, this where the Hangouts are.

Inside Google+ you can add your profile picture, tell people about yourself and customize the way things look.

Most importantly you can begin adding people into your circles. You can add anyone that has a G+ account and you can have as many different circles as you want – for example friends, family, work, gym etc...

Now you may have noticed that I said the Hangouts cost almost next to nothing to get started with.

While it is true the Google Hangouts themselves are absolutely free to use, there are a couple of other things that you will need in order to get going.

The first is a webcam and the second some sort of microphone.

Most computers have a built in webcam these days but if yours doesn’t they are fairly inexpensive to buy starting from about $10-15

Similarly most computers have built in microphones but that said a lot of them aren’t much good. I use a Logitech headset but if you look on Amazon you will see all kinds of microphones suitable for both pc and Mac starting for about $15 upwards.

Both webcam and mic are something I consider to be a wise investment if you want to be an online marketer.

Setting Up Your First Hangout

Setting up your first Hangout couldn’t be easier.

Firstly go to your Google+ account and click on the Hangouts icon which is located either in the upper right hand corner or in the drop down menu on the left (see image below)

When you have opened up the hangouts tab you then need to click on “Hangouts On Air”

And then click “start a Hangout On Air”

From there you will need to fill in some details.

Give the Hangout a name. Use any keywords here that you want to rank for such as a product name etc.

Give a brief description to tell people what your hangout is all about.

Decide if you want your hangout to start now or later.

Choose who you want as your audience. Remember you can Hangout all on your own, but if you do want to invite people they will need to have a Google+ account so that you can add them.

You can add up to 9 other people to join you on your Hangout.

See from the picture below I chose to add family as my audience. I have no one in my family group and so therefore I will have no audience and will be hanging out on my own.

Once you’re done you can click share.

On the next screen under “Your Events” you will see your Hangout ready to go, all you have to do is click the start button (don’t worry it won’t start recording right away)

Your hangout can be live or recorded and it will be uploaded directly to YouTube.

Once it is uploaded you can then go to your YouTube channel and set the video to unlisted or private if you wish.

This is especially helpful if you are recording coaching or training calls for paying customers, and you don’t want the world in general to be able to see them.

Finding Your Way Around

The next screen may take a few moments to load so be patient.

Once inside you will be presented with a couple of control panels, so lets run through what all the different icons mean.

First The Side Panel

➤ Chat – Everyone on the Hangout can use the chat feature and it will be private as the audience will not be able to see what is being said. This is good for communicating privately during a call.

➤ Screenshare – This feature is great for demonstrations and for recording product reviews for affiliate marketing.

➤ Audience Q&A – This feature enables you to see and answer questions from audience members from within the hangout. Just requires a simple plugin to be installed when prompted at the start.

➤ Capture – Lets you capture pictures of people that are on the Hangout with you, which can be great for social media purposes.

➤ Cameraman – With this you can control who is visible on the hangout and you can also just zoom in and concentrate on just one person if required.

➤ Control Room – The control room allows you to do a multitude of things with Hangouts. You can brand yourself, add your company or website name, add a logo, keep track of YouTube comments …..

➤ Google Effects – This is a really fun little app that’s lets you do some silly stuff like putting hats, glasses and mustaches etc on other participants of the hangout.

➤ YouTube – This app allows users to watch videos together within the Hangout.

The Top Panel

Here, fron left to right you can see invite people, mute microphone, camera on/off, adjust bandwidth usage, settings, leave call and to the far right on/off air.

Bottom Panel