Virtual Book Tours and Google+ Hangouts on Air
With Google+ Hangouts making a big splash on the social media scene in 2010, many are starting to add it to their social media strategy. In adding it to your strategy, you can conduct press release announcements or interviews that stream live to Google+ and YouTube. You can also use it for private meetings such as team strategy sessions or one-to-one interviews for potential staff members
For an example, Google Play held a virtual book tour interview via a Google+ Hangouts with Author Toni Morrison. Those in the hangout had the opportunity to ask her questions about her latest book, Home. During the interview, I and my peers were given the opportunity to ask Ms. Morrison questions. At the end of the hangout, Ms. Morrison digitally autographed book covers for each person who was in the hangout.
Tips about using Google+ Hangouts for Virtual Book Tours
Key to hosting a Virtual Book tour interview and using Google+ Hangout is having a plan in place for the entire interview. Some of the things that you need to keep in mind are:
- Make sure to schedule a pre-hangout with each participant to ensure that their internet connection, webcam, mic, and environment is good for the hangout.
- Each hangout participants should have a quiet environment without noise for the official hangout.
- The lighting for each participant needs to be clear and easy to view the participant.
- During the pre-hangout, make sure to check the speed of connection for each person . They can use a website like http://speedtest.net for the testing and then they can email the results to you beforehand. The ideal speed is at least 16 Mbps upload and 3 Mbps download.
- On the day of the hangout, you should have everyone join your hangout at lease 30-45 into a green room setting. This will allow you to make sure that everyone has a good connection and the right background.
- To have the digital signing viewable, you will need to have one of the hangout participant spots connected to a computer that will display the digital book cover being signed. Below are resources that explain how to setup for digitally signing a book.
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