Google Hangouts: An Innovative Tool for

Healthcare Marketing

oogle Hangouts can prove to be an excellent marketing tool for your medical practice. G Technology enables you to connect online with your staff, associates, and patients employing calls and videos. It also provides you the flexibility to connect from fixed or mobile devices with equal convenience. You can offer webinars, conduct staff meetings, stream live broadcasts, and share files through Google Drive during the course of your chat.

Improving Accessibility with

Hangouts

f your patients view your practice as accessible, it will go a long way in enhancing patient I satisfaction. Google Hangouts are a very good way to connect with patients and position your practice as friendly and accessible. You can conduct weekly, or monthly meetings, webinars, Q&A sessions, and invite potential and existing patients in the local area to share their concerns, queries, suggestions or other types of feedback.

This approach will not only make patients happier, but will also provide you first-hand responses and insights directly from them. You can incorporate these into your professional practice and marketing strategy for the future. Hangouts can also serve as an effective networking tool to connect with your peers in the profession as well as influencers, PR experts and others who are related to your practice in some way or another.

Hangouts on Air:

How to Get Started?

angouts on Air will let you broadcast your live meetings, webinars and conferences through H your Google+ home page as well as YouTube. It also allows you to record your broadcasts, and share an abridged or edited copy with the rest of the world. To launch your medical practice on Hangouts on Air, you will need the following two basic accounts:

 YouTube Channel: You can create a dedicated YouTube channel for the purpose of broadcasting your Hangouts on Air, or you may use your existing YouTube channel, if any. Make sure that you follow the procedure to verify your YouTube channel for Hangouts.

 Profile on Google+: Create a Google+ profile and provide valid, professional information about your practice. Ensure that your Google+ profile is connected to your existing YouTube channel. If you create a new YouTube channel, it will be automatically connected to Google+.

Certain restrictions may apply on your broadcasts of Hangouts on Air. If your YouTube channel has any active copyright issues or global blocks on videos, you may not be able to broadcast the Hangouts:

Check your

System Configuration

efore you can begin your Hangouts on Air broadcasts, you need to ensure that your B computer processor, operating system, browser and bandwidth meet the system requirements of Hangouts. To begin with, you should download and install the most recent version of the Hangouts plug-in.

Check that your webcam is functional and the webcam drivers are up to date. Make sure that your headphones are connected to your computer device. Your video call experience can improve significantly if you use headphones with a built-in microphone.

Notable Points

for Broadcast

 You can invite up to 10 people at once for a Hangouts on Air broadcast, including yourself. It is not possible to reserve a seat for other users.

 When the broadcast is finished, it will be automatically posted to your Google+ profile page as well as your YouTube channel. You can edit the broadcast copy from there, and make these edited versions available to anyone with whom you share them.

 The maximum length of a single Hangout on Air can be up to eight hours. The recording will be of the same length as your broadcast.

 General public can view your broadcast only after you click “Start Broadcast” from within the Hangout on Air. You can see the number of viewers watching your broadcast displayed at the top of the video call window.

 Before you enter the Hangout on Air, the program will prompt you to invite your friends or Google+ circles. General public cannot be invited to join a Hangout on Air, but the broadcast can be opened for public viewing once you click the “Start Broadcast” button.

 When you invite people to join your broadcast, the invitees will receive a post on their Google+ home page informing them about your Hangout on Air. The post will also provide the list of the people who have already joined. The invited people will have the option to join the Hangout on Air. Those who do not join in will not be able to watch it until you start broadcasting.

Key Features

oogle Hangouts on Air include a few interesting and user-friendly features to help you G promote your medical practice more effectively via this tool.

ll Hangouts on Air, by default, operate an app called “Cameraman.” With this innovative A app, you will see a video recorder icon when you roll the mouse over someone’s thumbnail in the filmstrip. As the host of Hangouts on Air, you can toggle this icon to show or hide each of the persons in your broadcast.

A hidden person’s audio or video will not appear in the broadcast. Other participants in the Hangout will still see the hidden person within the Hangout, but the person’s thumbnail will appear in grey on the filmstrip. You will also have the option to hide the film strip and record and broadcast only the main video feed.

ou can embed the live player of your Hangout on Air into another website easily with this Y feature. When you are in the Hangouts on Air, you can click on Embed and copy the HTML code or the YouTube URL. Once the Hangout on Air is embedded, it is possible for a viewer to watch the broadcast directly from your website.

his app encourages interaction between the host and the viewers. If the viewer has any T queries prior to or during the Hangout on Air, they can put across the queries through the Q&A app. The app can be turned on only if the broadcast host chooses to do so. Once the Hangout on Air is over, you can also view the questions and the answers of the host by playing the video.

angouts on Air allows you to have control over the participants in your broadcast. To use the H Control Room app, just roll your mouse over the Apps toolbar on the left side. It will show you the following options for each participant on the right side of the Hangout on Air:

 Mute/Unmute a person’s audio  Mute/Unmute a person’s video  Control a person’s audio level

You can also delegate or share the control for the Hangout on Air with another participant. Just click the dropdown button to the right of the participant’s name and select “Give Controls.” This will give that participant the same control as you throughout the Hangout on Air. You can even remove a person from the Hangout on Air by using the same process and selecting “Eject.” It will instantly remove that participant from the Hangout on Air.

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Ekwa Marketing Educational Resource www.ekwa.com