5 Reasons you need to be using Google Hangouts

Created November 17th, 2019

Webinars and web-chats have been around for a long time, but many people are still uncomfortable with the use of videos for business or personal purposes. Nevertheless, in today’s digital age, the benefits of video chatting and marketing tools and devices is not lost on us.

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The Google Hangout application is one of the many ways one can explore the use of videos with readily available features and tools to your advantage.

As you probably already know, video marketing is vital in boosting any online brands today, and more and more business owners are becoming open to this form of marketing.

Google Hangouts comes with a ton of advantages for businesses, even though it can be just as useful for personal reasons too. But first, let’s see a brief history of Google Hangouts and why it was designed.

What is Google Hangouts?

Google Hangouts launched as part of a revamp of Google’s services to replace Google Messenger, Gchat, and Google Talk. It is now an integrated service that allows for text messaging and video conferencing.

As a video conferencing tool, you can use Google Hangouts within your company, regardless of the size of your team – large or small to foster communication within your staff as well as to reach an external audience.

It is also frequently used by top brands such as Dell, Topman, Coca-Cola, Google, as well as a lot of small companies and individuals.

What are the Reasons to Use Google Hangouts?

Apart from using Google Hangouts to communicate with members of your team and to hold meetings, businesses can also use it as a form of video marketing, improving sales while saving marketing costs.

In this article, we will highlight five(5) reasons why you should be using Google Hangouts for your business.

1.   Webinars for Product Demonstration to Your Customers

Webinars are a great way businesses can market and sell their products and services, while improving brand awareness.

With Google Hangouts, you can create free webinars where people can interact with your products, and to ask questions for usage clarity. During a webinar, you can demonstrate new products and services to existing users as well as to potential users, giving a chance for questions, contributions, as well as feedback at the end of the presentation.

Using Google Hangouts, you can add photos to your presentation as well as adding other moderators(team members) to help with the presentation. The features are free, easy to learn, and simple to use.

It works on various devices and operating systems, so anyone across the globe can easily view and comment on an ongoing webinar.

The good news is that Google Hangouts enables you to create webinars to accommodate an unlimited number of participants at a time. All you have to do is download the Hangouts plug-in and install it in your browser.

You can share your webinar link on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, to invite more people.

2.   Enhances Your Online Presence

Digital hangouts are the latest form of online socializing, and as a marketer or business person, there are many ways to use that to your advantage.

With Google Hangouts, brands can drastically improve their online presence and traffic generation to their sites. Being able to communicate live with customers gives them the feeling that you are accessible.

If marketers can take advantage of digital hangout tools, viewers are more likely to view related brand content.

Another way to improve your online presence is by linking your Google Hangout activities to a collection of videos on YouTube. You can post videos announcing new products on YouTube, and share them via Google Hangouts.

The powerful thing about video content is that more people are inclined to watch videos than reading an article; this also prompts customers to buy a product after watching a video about it.

You can also use Google Hangouts to hold press conferences, which goes a long way in promoting your brand’s online presence, attracting more clients and customers. Google Hangouts has been thoughtfully designed to expand on your marketing strategies.

3.   Facilitates Employee Engagement

Google Hangouts is an excellent way to promote internal customer engagement within a company. And it really helps, especially with those that work remotely. This way, team members can collaborate on a task and share ideas without relying on third-party applications or tools.

They can organize video conferences to catch up or stay updated on projects without much hassle. The idea of the Google Hangout app is to facilitate communication between two or more parties.

Hangouts do not only offer your employees the ability to chat, voice calls, and video conferences; it can also be integrated with other Google apps like Calendar and Drive.

This way, they can schedule meetings and stay on top of their tasks with daily reminders from the calendar.

The best part is that a Google+ account is no longer required to use Hangouts; as long as you have one form of Google account, you are ready to enjoy its features.

4.   Affordability

Google Hangout is a cheap and versatile tool that will improve communication in your organization.

Its video feature can be used to broadcast live watchers, reaching a far broader and targeted audience. Compared to other means of video marketing, Google Hangouts has proven its worth in enhancing marketing strategies in a cost-efficient way.

It is free and even offers low international rates, so you can send text messages, make voice calls to other Hangout users, and even have video chats from your computer or mobile device, free of charge.

For smaller businesses that do not have enough money to invest in the latest collaborative solutions, Google Hangouts offers a fantastic opportunity to resolve this. In fact, it comes with free-to-access features that make it easy to start collaborating, regardless of the size of your workplace, which is even more cost-efficient for larger office workspaces.

For receiving calls, making calls, and video conferencing, Google Hangouts is completely free of charge. With that being said, Google Hangouts Pricing is about $10 unlimited storage and usage. Overall, the financial requirements to run a Google Hangout account is relatively low compared to similar tools in the market. All you need is a device that has a microphone and a webcam.

5.   Face-to-Face Client Consultations 

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Google Hangouts makes it convenient for you to sit in the comfort of your office and still have face-to-face conversations with your clients or partners. You can hold private consultations and meetings with clients and foreign partners using translation services like The Word Point without the need to leave the office. Even when you are working on a long-term project, you can keep in touch with your clients, discussing business on-the-go.

Hangouts is a user-friendly way to engage in video chats with clients, with added features to record call sessions. This can come in handy for the collation of data and feedback to improve your services and products.

Most businesses rely on customers’ feedback for quality checks, which is why you must use all the available tools to communicate effectively with your customers in real-time. However, most companies encounter a bit of barrier while communicating with foreign clients, but with online translation services like The Word Point, you have nothing to fret about.

Google Hangouts: Teamwork with Ease

Google Hangouts is designed to make teamwork in the modern world seamless and more intuitive. There are numerous ways businesses can benefit from it, and within corporate environments, it can be implemented as a cost-effective collaboration forum for enterprise customers.

One of the best ways to build connections with customers as well as other companies and potential business partners is through video conferencing. Hangouts’ integration with other Google apps means that you will have full access to more helpful features and tools to foster communication within the company and with customers.

When you consider the low cost and numerous possibilities of webinars, there are a lot of benefits in Google Hangouts for businesses – to grow their community of customers, understand their audiences, maintain an engaging and interactive online presence, while developing their brand.

About the Author:

Dominic Beaulieu is a gaming enthusiast turned tech writer who covers an impressive variety of topics like design, development process, game marketing, and helps developers with spreading the word about their creations. He is a fluent French speaker, who also has mastered Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish. He has an experience in software translation, tech counseling, project management and digital marketing tailored for startups.