Friday, April 27, 2012
Help Desk Hangouts: Getting to know Chromebooks
Editor’s note: Each week on the Google+ Your Business page, we’re putting you in touch with Googlers and users who can help you as a business owner get the most out of our products and features.
In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air, we introduced you to Chromebooks — a fast, secure, netbook (did we mention fast?). During the hour-long Hangout, Google product specialists Adam Naor and Will Paulus walk us through the basics, and Chromebook user Eric Hunter shares his firsthand experience using it at his business. Miss the event? You can watch the whole thing on the Google Business YouTube channel. And, if you’re interested in learning more about Chromebooks, fill out this form to stay up to date on all the latest news and product announcements.
Check out the video description on the YouTube page for a minute-by-minute breakdown.
Some of the questions we answered during the Hangout:
I'm a big Word/Office suite user. How do I make the switch to a Chromebook? Can a Chromebook work with these files?
They can be viewed in Google Docs, or even converted to the Docs native format. Or, if you’d like to run Office on a Chromebook, you can do so through our Citrix Receiver App (and a Citrix server), or try on of the Chrome webstore Apps like InstallFree Nexus.
What's does Google’s support for Chromebooks look like?
If you are a business user, you have access to 24/7 email and phone support. If you’re a consumer user, you can contact a Chromebook ninja M - F between 5:30am - 7pm PST. Here’s some additional information.
What happens with a Chromebook when internet access is limited, slow, or spotty?
The moments when you’re offline are increasingly rare. But with Chromebooks, we wanted to ensure that you're constantly connected with WiFi or 3G. Chrome also supports HTML5 offline functionality that allows applications or websites that support these features to run offline. Hundreds of apps in the Chrome Web Store today work offline like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, NY Times, Kindle, NPR, Angry Birds and more.
Where can I get a Chromebook?
If you represent a Business, School, or Non-profit organization, please fill out the form here, and a member of our team will get in contact shortly. If you are a consumer, you can obtain one here.
How does a Chromebook work with Google Drive?
Google Drive is going to be a core part of the Chromebook experience. We're building it to work seamlessly with your file manager and it will be coming very soon.
Would you recommend ChromeBooks as a software development platform?
Definitely as they have a terminal shell built in.
Be sure to join us for next week’s Hangout at 11 a.m. PDT Wednesday May 2, when we discuss AdWords. We’ll be collecting your AdWords questions early next week on the Google+ Your Business page.
Posted by Toby Stein, Google+ community manager
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Google Apps keeps music companies humming
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Enterprise blog.)
Music is a huge part of our culture at Google, and I’m really excited that the music festival season is just getting started. If you were at Coachella (which we livestreamed on YouTube this year) or have plans to go to go to another festival, you're probably just as excited.
Musicians, record labels, and music companies are using technology to do some amazing things, like producing on-stage holograms or experimenting with new online distribution models. It’s common for artists to launch their careers on YouTube, broadcast a performance on Google+ Hangouts, or connect with their fans using social media. But beyond the tech-coolness we hear a lot about, the music community is also taking advantage of technology behind the scenes - or rather, in the cloud - to develop their businesses.
I’m proud to say that some of today’s musical entrepreneurs are using Google Apps for Business. Whether it’s having the freedom to run a new indie record label, the flexibility to manage up-and-coming music artists on tour, or the ability to collaborate across the globe, Google Apps helps these teams focus on what they love the most - the music. We want to share three stories about awesome music companies using Google Apps to grow and evolve:
Music Clout is a startup formed by a group of guys with a die-hard passion for music. The idea is simple: create an online community that connects independent artists with music industry contacts and opportunities. They launched their company with Google Apps to make it easier to work together internally and with their team of contractors. Since their web development team works from Turkey, the combination of chat in Gmail and Hangouts allows them to instantly discuss website programming and other technicalities, while saving the team from high phone bills.
GHouse, a Boston-based record label, works with musicians from various genres, including electronic, reggae, rock, and country. Beginning as a side project by a college music student, it’s evolved into a full-time business. Initially, the team relied on a remote server and legacy software that were always stalling or crashing on them. They switched to Google Apps so that they could easily work together anytime, anywhere online, and on any device with Internet connectivity. With Google Docs, the team can easily share music tour dates and track all of their profits from the shows.
Founded in 2007, Fly South Music Group is an artist management firm out of Orlando, FL with satellite offices in Nashville and Los Angeles. The company set up Google Apps because it wanted a common platform for company email, calendars and documents that could be shared between all their clients, families, labels, tour managers and promotion coordinators. Today, it’s become essential to their workflow from scheduling to budget management with access to information from anywhere. This accessibility provides a whole new layer of transparency that keeps everyone in sync, especially while traveling around the world.
Google Apps has given these companies the built-in collaboration they need to communicate better, work smarter, and stay focused on bringing new talent and fresh ideas to the music industry.
Posted by Barbara Yang, Google Apps Team
Music is a huge part of our culture at Google, and I’m really excited that the music festival season is just getting started. If you were at Coachella (which we livestreamed on YouTube this year) or have plans to go to go to another festival, you're probably just as excited.
Musicians, record labels, and music companies are using technology to do some amazing things, like producing on-stage holograms or experimenting with new online distribution models. It’s common for artists to launch their careers on YouTube, broadcast a performance on Google+ Hangouts, or connect with their fans using social media. But beyond the tech-coolness we hear a lot about, the music community is also taking advantage of technology behind the scenes - or rather, in the cloud - to develop their businesses.
I’m proud to say that some of today’s musical entrepreneurs are using Google Apps for Business. Whether it’s having the freedom to run a new indie record label, the flexibility to manage up-and-coming music artists on tour, or the ability to collaborate across the globe, Google Apps helps these teams focus on what they love the most - the music. We want to share three stories about awesome music companies using Google Apps to grow and evolve:
Music Clout is a startup formed by a group of guys with a die-hard passion for music. The idea is simple: create an online community that connects independent artists with music industry contacts and opportunities. They launched their company with Google Apps to make it easier to work together internally and with their team of contractors. Since their web development team works from Turkey, the combination of chat in Gmail and Hangouts allows them to instantly discuss website programming and other technicalities, while saving the team from high phone bills. GHouse, a Boston-based record label, works with musicians from various genres, including electronic, reggae, rock, and country. Beginning as a side project by a college music student, it’s evolved into a full-time business. Initially, the team relied on a remote server and legacy software that were always stalling or crashing on them. They switched to Google Apps so that they could easily work together anytime, anywhere online, and on any device with Internet connectivity. With Google Docs, the team can easily share music tour dates and track all of their profits from the shows.
Founded in 2007, Fly South Music Group is an artist management firm out of Orlando, FL with satellite offices in Nashville and Los Angeles. The company set up Google Apps because it wanted a common platform for company email, calendars and documents that could be shared between all their clients, families, labels, tour managers and promotion coordinators. Today, it’s become essential to their workflow from scheduling to budget management with access to information from anywhere. This accessibility provides a whole new layer of transparency that keeps everyone in sync, especially while traveling around the world.
Google Apps has given these companies the built-in collaboration they need to communicate better, work smarter, and stay focused on bringing new talent and fresh ideas to the music industry.
Posted by Barbara Yang, Google Apps Team
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Business April 25th 2012, "THREE YEAR BIRTHDAY!" Edition
GO BUSINESS! IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY! WE’RE GONNA PARTY! LIKE IT’S THE BUSINESS’ BIRTHDAY!Hey Party People: While you were all busy filing your taxes at the last possible second, The Business, San Francisco’s longest running alternative comedy show and foam party, turned a distinguished THREE YEARS OLD on April 15th. We’ve survived our terrible two’s (which were not terrible at all). We’ve made it past the Sophomore Slump (which wasn’t very slumpy at all). And as you know, three is a very lucky number that is very important to comedy. So far this year has been the most fun and full collection of shows we’ve ever put on. THE MAGIC IS WORKING ALREADY! Please come out this Wednesday night and help celebrate with us and our party pals:
Nato Green will be on hand and ready to party like it’s 2012. Known as “The Fifth Businessman” (even though we now are six members strong, so technically he’d be “The Seventh Businessman”) Nato is back at The Biz to help prep for his upcoming FULL LENGTH COMEDY ALBUM RECORDING! Nato speaks truth to power through the international language of love: stand-up comedy. When not prepping for CD recordings, Nato has also been working on a documentary with and about his fellow pinko commies Laughter Against The Machine. This party just became a political party yall!
Party Dog Mike Drucker visits The Biz again to do a keg stand off our pony keg...of laughs! A recent transplant from the Northwest, Mike has already made his nerd dominance felt throughout the Bay. A writer for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, McSweeny’s and Nintendo (that’s right, dorks) Drucker also recently went head-to-head with Businessman Alex Koll during a Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction battle royale at Portland’s The Bridgetown Comedy Festival. How erotic will things get this Wednesday? Probably not much at all!
To add to the party vibe, we will also have The DJ Real Vs. Joe Tobin Experience on-stage as our house band, some party snacks and many more surprises!
All of the regular Businessmen will be in the mix, except for Bucky, who is off pushing his poetry in Portland. But not to worry, we’ve enlisted several holograms to take his place! Come for the comedy, stay for the future technology!
As always, the party starts at 8pm, the party price is just $5 and party supplies are nearby at Taqueria Cancun and other hot party spots in the ‘hood.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!
Monday, April 23, 2012
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and...Re-think
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Enterprise blog.)
There are about 9,000 community curbside recycling programs and 3,000 community composting programs in the United States. I’ve been recycling since I moved to California in the 90's, and in the U.S. we’re lucky that many communities have recycling and composting services. But there’s still more to be done – we only recycle or compost 33% of the 243 million tons of trash generated each year.
I’m encouraged to hear about some of the cool ways that people and organizations are coming together to re-think how we can recycle, reduce, and reuse. In honor of Earth Day, we’d like to share the stories of three organizations that take recycling to the next level, using Google products to help.
Andrew Sell started out as a personal hunter/gatherer of “upcycled” products. There are a lot of companies that manufacture recycled products by recovering difficult-to-recycle materials from landfills and turning them into useful items, and the market continues to grow. Recognizing a need to connect the growing number of manufacturers with consumers, Andrew created an e-commerce website, HipCycle, almost a year ago in Ocean Township, New Jersey with the budget of a typical startup.
Andrew, or Chief Hipcycler, chose to manage his new company with Google Apps due to low costs, ease of set up, and the ability to provide custom email addresses @hipcycle.comto employees, contractors and bloggers. HipCycle also uses Google Docs to track order statistics and share them with manufacturers, Google Calendar to keep the social media team aligned on topics and timing, and Google+ Hangouts to communicate directly with customers. Google Analytics provides data on site traffic and activity.
Not far away in Brooklyn, New York, Eva Radke identified another opportunity to eliminate needless waste. Having spent 15 years working in film, Eva saw two trends: a growing amount of waste and a general desire for environmental responsibility in the industry. After film shoots, large, awkward items like furniture are brought to landfills and Eva became passionate about finding a better way to use the waste.
In 2008 Eva’s passion became a full-time non-profit organization that collects waste from the film industry and sells or donates the goods to students and partner charities. For example, a women’s shelter receives bedsheets and towels from Film Biz, allowing them to free up their non-profit dollars to spend on education and therapy for its residents. Eva says she doesn’t know where she’d be without Google Apps. Since day one, she’s been using Gmail to stay up-to-date while traveling and Calendar to schedule everything from set clean-outs to school trips to donation drop-offs. Google Docs allows her team to edit documents together and they rarely need to use paper, which helps them stay even more green.
As the name would indicate, Cell Again buys and sells used mobile phones. With the rapid proliferation of mobile devices - and trend of consumers purchasing new phones every couple of years - there’s a seemingly endless quantity of second-hand cell phones. Tucker Nielson wanted to keep these phones out of landfills so he started CellAgain with just a few employees in Salt Lake City. The company has been so successful that there are now eight stores and 87 employees, which he expects to double this year.
With rapid company expansion plus growing franchise and wholesale operations, Tucker says that Google Apps has been his savior in terms of staying organized. Tucker set up Google Apps for CellAgain.com on his own and uses Gmail to stay connected to his management team from his own cell phone. He also hosts nearly everything in Google Docs, including company manuals, shift schedules, timesheets, job descriptions and more. And Google AdWords helps CellAgain make sure that consumers looking for a refurbished cell phone can find their local franchise or kiosk.
Each of these companies help keep environmental impact low and Google is working to do its part as well. We’re a carbon neutral company, and Google Apps (and all the products in our cloud) have a "net zero" impact on the environment.
Happy Earth Day.
Posted by: Chris Farinacci, Senior Director, Google Enterprise
There are about 9,000 community curbside recycling programs and 3,000 community composting programs in the United States. I’ve been recycling since I moved to California in the 90's, and in the U.S. we’re lucky that many communities have recycling and composting services. But there’s still more to be done – we only recycle or compost 33% of the 243 million tons of trash generated each year.
I’m encouraged to hear about some of the cool ways that people and organizations are coming together to re-think how we can recycle, reduce, and reuse. In honor of Earth Day, we’d like to share the stories of three organizations that take recycling to the next level, using Google products to help.
Andrew Sell started out as a personal hunter/gatherer of “upcycled” products. There are a lot of companies that manufacture recycled products by recovering difficult-to-recycle materials from landfills and turning them into useful items, and the market continues to grow. Recognizing a need to connect the growing number of manufacturers with consumers, Andrew created an e-commerce website, HipCycle, almost a year ago in Ocean Township, New Jersey with the budget of a typical startup.
Andrew, or Chief Hipcycler, chose to manage his new company with Google Apps due to low costs, ease of set up, and the ability to provide custom email addresses @hipcycle.comto employees, contractors and bloggers. HipCycle also uses Google Docs to track order statistics and share them with manufacturers, Google Calendar to keep the social media team aligned on topics and timing, and Google+ Hangouts to communicate directly with customers. Google Analytics provides data on site traffic and activity.
Not far away in Brooklyn, New York, Eva Radke identified another opportunity to eliminate needless waste. Having spent 15 years working in film, Eva saw two trends: a growing amount of waste and a general desire for environmental responsibility in the industry. After film shoots, large, awkward items like furniture are brought to landfills and Eva became passionate about finding a better way to use the waste.
In 2008 Eva’s passion became a full-time non-profit organization that collects waste from the film industry and sells or donates the goods to students and partner charities. For example, a women’s shelter receives bedsheets and towels from Film Biz, allowing them to free up their non-profit dollars to spend on education and therapy for its residents. Eva says she doesn’t know where she’d be without Google Apps. Since day one, she’s been using Gmail to stay up-to-date while traveling and Calendar to schedule everything from set clean-outs to school trips to donation drop-offs. Google Docs allows her team to edit documents together and they rarely need to use paper, which helps them stay even more green.
As the name would indicate, Cell Again buys and sells used mobile phones. With the rapid proliferation of mobile devices - and trend of consumers purchasing new phones every couple of years - there’s a seemingly endless quantity of second-hand cell phones. Tucker Nielson wanted to keep these phones out of landfills so he started CellAgain with just a few employees in Salt Lake City. The company has been so successful that there are now eight stores and 87 employees, which he expects to double this year.
With rapid company expansion plus growing franchise and wholesale operations, Tucker says that Google Apps has been his savior in terms of staying organized. Tucker set up Google Apps for CellAgain.com on his own and uses Gmail to stay connected to his management team from his own cell phone. He also hosts nearly everything in Google Docs, including company manuals, shift schedules, timesheets, job descriptions and more. And Google AdWords helps CellAgain make sure that consumers looking for a refurbished cell phone can find their local franchise or kiosk.
Each of these companies help keep environmental impact low and Google is working to do its part as well. We’re a carbon neutral company, and Google Apps (and all the products in our cloud) have a "net zero" impact on the environment.
Happy Earth Day.
Posted by: Chris Farinacci, Senior Director, Google Enterprise
The thorny problem of media pluralism
The term pluralism is regularly used in critiques of media and in arguments for public intervention. It is employed so loosely, however, that it allows varied interpretations to be attached and this makes it highly challenging to turn general support for the concept into specific policy. Much of the lack of clarity is the consequence of indefiniteness of the term and because it is used as a proxy for more involved concepts.
The term is derived from “plural”, an indistinct quantitative concept indicating the existence of more than a single thing and plurality itself merely indicates a state of being numerous. This alone allows the term plurality to be used in various ways when applied to media.
For some it means a plurality of media outlets. This is indicated by having multiple types of media and multiple units of each media and the existence of a range of print, broadcast, satellite, and Internet content providers can represent pluralism. For other observers pluralism means plurality in ownership, that is, a range of owners and different types of ownership. For others it is indicated by the existence of public service as well as private commercial firms so some provision is made by an organisation(s) without direct individual economic self-interest(s).
The amount of media, its ownership, and its operation are not in themselves the objects of concern about pluralism, however, and these usages are merely shorthand semantic devices that indicate a collection of political, economic, and cultural concepts and ideologies. Because that collection is not universally agreed, the term pluralism is disparately employed.
The term encompasses fundamental concepts in liberal democratic media ideology and neo-Marxist critiques of media. It incorporates ideas of the benefits of free flow of information, ideas and opinions and the value of a variety in artistic and cultural expression. It recognizes the amount of content that can be offered by any one provider is limited by temporal and spatial factors. It accepts that the abilities of individuals to obtain and attend to content are affected by monetary and temporal limitations. It recognizes that operation of media is accompanied by political and economic benefits such as access, privilege, influence, and power and that those can be used for personal advantage and interests.
Those who accept these concepts underlying the term pluralism differ widely about the proper means for its pursuit, however. They have divergent beliefs about the roles of the state and the market and differ widely about whether policy should promote beneficial outcomes through regulation or incentives and whether—and the extent to which—non-market provision of content is desirable.
The difficulty of achieving the ultimate objectives is further complicated by the fact that public policies promoting pluralism tend of focus on the overt evidences of plurality in media outlets, media ownership, and media operation. Although multiplicity of media outlets, ownership and operation increase the possibility of achieving the objectives of pluralism, they do not guarantee because they are not necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence. Thus ‘external pluralism’ is sometimes not enough. This has led many to advocate for ‘internal pluralism,’ meaning that within a single broadcasters or publisher as variety of content and perspectives are provided. The provision of internal pluralism is typically used to justify public service broadcasting and narrow internal pluralism is a typical critique of private media.
The contemporary world creates lower barriers to participation in communication by making production easier and shifting distribution away from technologies that limited the number of providers and content available—the fundamental rationale for concern about pluralism. In the digital media world, the fundamental challenge involving pluralism is not limitations on producing content, expressing divergent ideas and opinions, or access to distribution systems. The primary challenge is the ability to effectively reach audiences.
In this environment promoting pluralism must focuses on reducing control over what flows through new digital distribution systems so dominant owners of production and distribution systems are not able to marginalize alternative perspectives and make them difficult to locate. And the fundamental content and attention problem remains.
Although digital media provide many more opportunity to be heard, the issue today is not ‘share of voice’, but ‘share of ear’. We need to seek ways to promote knowledge about alternative content and to make it more readily accessible. Otherwise the concentration of where the audience goes—in terms of aggregators and sites—is every bit as damaging to pluralism as limitations on spectrum and concentration of ownership. This is especially true by the Internet service providers, content aggregators, search engines, and video on demand services that pursue their own interests through in-transparent practices and algorithms that skew the access to and distribution of information, even when it is ‘personalized’ by individuals.
Those who hold that pluralism is no longer an issue in the digital world argue that its underlying infrastructures are neutral. That technology may be neutral, but the systems necessary to make them function are under the control of companies with their own agendas and the abilities to limit or direct its use in ways that harm pluralism.
The term is derived from “plural”, an indistinct quantitative concept indicating the existence of more than a single thing and plurality itself merely indicates a state of being numerous. This alone allows the term plurality to be used in various ways when applied to media.
For some it means a plurality of media outlets. This is indicated by having multiple types of media and multiple units of each media and the existence of a range of print, broadcast, satellite, and Internet content providers can represent pluralism. For other observers pluralism means plurality in ownership, that is, a range of owners and different types of ownership. For others it is indicated by the existence of public service as well as private commercial firms so some provision is made by an organisation(s) without direct individual economic self-interest(s).
The amount of media, its ownership, and its operation are not in themselves the objects of concern about pluralism, however, and these usages are merely shorthand semantic devices that indicate a collection of political, economic, and cultural concepts and ideologies. Because that collection is not universally agreed, the term pluralism is disparately employed.
The term encompasses fundamental concepts in liberal democratic media ideology and neo-Marxist critiques of media. It incorporates ideas of the benefits of free flow of information, ideas and opinions and the value of a variety in artistic and cultural expression. It recognizes the amount of content that can be offered by any one provider is limited by temporal and spatial factors. It accepts that the abilities of individuals to obtain and attend to content are affected by monetary and temporal limitations. It recognizes that operation of media is accompanied by political and economic benefits such as access, privilege, influence, and power and that those can be used for personal advantage and interests.
Those who accept these concepts underlying the term pluralism differ widely about the proper means for its pursuit, however. They have divergent beliefs about the roles of the state and the market and differ widely about whether policy should promote beneficial outcomes through regulation or incentives and whether—and the extent to which—non-market provision of content is desirable.
The difficulty of achieving the ultimate objectives is further complicated by the fact that public policies promoting pluralism tend of focus on the overt evidences of plurality in media outlets, media ownership, and media operation. Although multiplicity of media outlets, ownership and operation increase the possibility of achieving the objectives of pluralism, they do not guarantee because they are not necessary and sufficient conditions for its existence. Thus ‘external pluralism’ is sometimes not enough. This has led many to advocate for ‘internal pluralism,’ meaning that within a single broadcasters or publisher as variety of content and perspectives are provided. The provision of internal pluralism is typically used to justify public service broadcasting and narrow internal pluralism is a typical critique of private media.
The contemporary world creates lower barriers to participation in communication by making production easier and shifting distribution away from technologies that limited the number of providers and content available—the fundamental rationale for concern about pluralism. In the digital media world, the fundamental challenge involving pluralism is not limitations on producing content, expressing divergent ideas and opinions, or access to distribution systems. The primary challenge is the ability to effectively reach audiences.
In this environment promoting pluralism must focuses on reducing control over what flows through new digital distribution systems so dominant owners of production and distribution systems are not able to marginalize alternative perspectives and make them difficult to locate. And the fundamental content and attention problem remains.
Although digital media provide many more opportunity to be heard, the issue today is not ‘share of voice’, but ‘share of ear’. We need to seek ways to promote knowledge about alternative content and to make it more readily accessible. Otherwise the concentration of where the audience goes—in terms of aggregators and sites—is every bit as damaging to pluralism as limitations on spectrum and concentration of ownership. This is especially true by the Internet service providers, content aggregators, search engines, and video on demand services that pursue their own interests through in-transparent practices and algorithms that skew the access to and distribution of information, even when it is ‘personalized’ by individuals.
Those who hold that pluralism is no longer an issue in the digital world argue that its underlying infrastructures are neutral. That technology may be neutral, but the systems necessary to make them function are under the control of companies with their own agendas and the abilities to limit or direct its use in ways that harm pluralism.
Helping your business play big on YouTube
With a global audience of 800 million monthly visitors to YouTube, every day can feel like you’re advertising in the Super Bowl, and one video can launch a business. To celebrate a growing number of businesses that have grown with YouTube, we are introducing our first-ever class of YouTube Marketing Ambassadors and making Google AdWords for video available to all.
Our Ambassadors represent a group of 9 entrepreneurs who have used YouTube to “play big” alongside major brand advertisers. By creating videos that demonstrate their products, share what their customers say about them, or simply showcase how their business works, they’ve been able to drive sales and connect with new customers.
Take Rokenbok Toy Company, for example. When owner Paul Eichen noticed that specialty toy shops were shuttering their doors, he started looking for a new way to introduce customers to his construction toy sets. Paul filmed and uploaded his first video to YouTube, and now it’s become his most effective form of advertising with 50 percent of all customers introduced to his products through YouTube.
To help even more businesses play big with video, today we’re introducing a number of new products, resources, and tools:
Google AdWords for video now available to all. Similar to search advertising - where you pay for clicks and set budgets with bids - we created a new model for video advertising. With Google AdWords for video, you only pay when someone chooses to watch your ad and you can create and manage video campaigns from the same platform as your search and display ads. You can create an account and start promoting your first video in less than 5 minutes. With AdWords for video you can:
Our Ambassadors represent a group of 9 entrepreneurs who have used YouTube to “play big” alongside major brand advertisers. By creating videos that demonstrate their products, share what their customers say about them, or simply showcase how their business works, they’ve been able to drive sales and connect with new customers.
Take Rokenbok Toy Company, for example. When owner Paul Eichen noticed that specialty toy shops were shuttering their doors, he started looking for a new way to introduce customers to his construction toy sets. Paul filmed and uploaded his first video to YouTube, and now it’s become his most effective form of advertising with 50 percent of all customers introduced to his products through YouTube.
To help even more businesses play big with video, today we’re introducing a number of new products, resources, and tools:
Google AdWords for video now available to all. Similar to search advertising - where you pay for clicks and set budgets with bids - we created a new model for video advertising. With Google AdWords for video, you only pay when someone chooses to watch your ad and you can create and manage video campaigns from the same platform as your search and display ads. You can create an account and start promoting your first video in less than 5 minutes. With AdWords for video you can:
- Find the right audience: AdWords for video provides a range of options to reach the right audience. For example, you can promote your video by keyword to appear in YouTube search results, or you can choose to show your ad against content your customers are most interested in - such as sports or music. Connect with your audience on YouTube and the Google Display Network, which includes millions of websites. AdWords for video links to your YouTube account so you can easily start a video campaign with your existing videos.
- Measure the effectiveness of your spend: On average, we’ve found that YouTube video ads drive a 20 percent increase in traffic to your website and a 5 percent increase in searches for your business (Google Campaign Insights, 2011). With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel, after viewing your ad.
- Only pay for engaged views: With TrueView video ads you only pay when viewers choose to watch your ad so you aren’t charged when viewers skip your ad if they aren’t interested or have already seen your video. This means your ad budget is focused on viewers interested in your video. By displaying a call-to-action overlay on your video you can talk about a sale or specific offer to your viewers, share more information about your business, or drive traffic to your website.
$50 million in free advertising. We’re giving away $50 million in free Google AdWords advertising to help more than 500,000 businesses get into video. If you are new to AdWords, you can receive a $75 credit when you sign up. To put that into context, with $75 your video campaign can reach more than 1,500 of your most valuable customers on YouTube for one month. Request your free credit here.
Advertiser Playbook and support. To share best practices and tips on how video can be a core part of your business toolkit, we created a YouTube Advertiser Playbook. The Playbook covers everything from creating interesting content to promoting your video with ads. If you need help making a video, our My Business Story is a free tool you can use to create your first video. AdWords advertisers can also call our free phone support line, 866-2-GOOGLE, to get started with AdWords for video.
YouTube Ambassador program. To learn more about the YouTube Ambassador program please visit us on the Official Google Blog.
Hear more from Rokenbok Toys, one of our YouTube Marketing Ambassadors
If you have a video you want to promote, get started with AdWords for video. And, join our YouTube for Marketers page on Google+ to stay up-to-date on our latest video marketing innovations. Posted by Baljeet Singh, Group Product Manager, YouTube
Friday, April 20, 2012
Help Desk Hangouts: Engaging with your customers using social media
Editor’s note: Each week on the Google+ Your Business page, we’re putting you in touch with Googlers and users who can help you as a business owner get the most out of our products and features.
In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air, we discussed how your business can benefit from engaging with customers via social media. A few of Google’s community management superstars — Jacky Hayward, Sarah Price and Brian Rose — shared best practices for building great content, collecting feedback and communicating with frustrated customers. Miss it? No to worry: You can watch the full hour-long Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel:
Some of the questions we answered during the Hangout:
Why spend time using social media?
First, think about your goals. Sarah, who works on the Gmail team, says she doesn’t see social media as “an end in and of itself,” but rather as a tool to help her reach her goal of connecting with users: “I want to help users learn more about Gmail, [so] I use social media as a tool to share information. I have a goal that I want to have relationships with the users, that they have a relationship with the company and each other, so I use social media as a tool to facilitate those relationships.”
How do you attract new followers to your social media content?
There’s no trick or gimmick. Post interesting, useful content. Be real, honest, genuine, open — and the followers will come!
What kinds of content work?
Don’t underestimate fun. Eye-catching rich media (photos, videos) are always engaging. Be mindful of time zones and when you’re sharing (do you usually get more engagement in the morning, at night?). Also, people love having a connection with you and your brand, which you can do with something as simple as highlighting or resharing content by a customer.
Why is identifying influencers important?
Whatever your area of expertise, research who's producing great content and starting conversations among that field’s community. Find out what your customers are interested in and get involved in those conversations. Figure out who the people are that drive those conversations and build relationships with them. Connect your customers to other customers when you can — engaging them with each other will help them learn more and engage more with your product and brand.
Any time management tips?
The stream of social media content being produced every minute is infinite, so again, be sure to focus on your goals. Ask yourself what is most important for you to do first and start there, rather than trying to do everything at once.
Be sure to join us for next week’s Hangout at 11 a.m. PDT Wednesday April 25, when we discuss how to get started with Chromebooks. We’ll be collecting your Chromebook questions early next week on the Google+ Your Business page.
Posted by Vanessa Schneider, Google Places community manager
In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air, we discussed how your business can benefit from engaging with customers via social media. A few of Google’s community management superstars — Jacky Hayward, Sarah Price and Brian Rose — shared best practices for building great content, collecting feedback and communicating with frustrated customers. Miss it? No to worry: You can watch the full hour-long Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel:
Check out the video description on the YouTube page for a minute-by-minute breakdown.
Why spend time using social media?
First, think about your goals. Sarah, who works on the Gmail team, says she doesn’t see social media as “an end in and of itself,” but rather as a tool to help her reach her goal of connecting with users: “I want to help users learn more about Gmail, [so] I use social media as a tool to share information. I have a goal that I want to have relationships with the users, that they have a relationship with the company and each other, so I use social media as a tool to facilitate those relationships.”
How do you attract new followers to your social media content?
There’s no trick or gimmick. Post interesting, useful content. Be real, honest, genuine, open — and the followers will come!
What kinds of content work?
Don’t underestimate fun. Eye-catching rich media (photos, videos) are always engaging. Be mindful of time zones and when you’re sharing (do you usually get more engagement in the morning, at night?). Also, people love having a connection with you and your brand, which you can do with something as simple as highlighting or resharing content by a customer.
Why is identifying influencers important?
Whatever your area of expertise, research who's producing great content and starting conversations among that field’s community. Find out what your customers are interested in and get involved in those conversations. Figure out who the people are that drive those conversations and build relationships with them. Connect your customers to other customers when you can — engaging them with each other will help them learn more and engage more with your product and brand.
Any time management tips?
The stream of social media content being produced every minute is infinite, so again, be sure to focus on your goals. Ask yourself what is most important for you to do first and start there, rather than trying to do everything at once.
Be sure to join us for next week’s Hangout at 11 a.m. PDT Wednesday April 25, when we discuss how to get started with Chromebooks. We’ll be collecting your Chromebook questions early next week on the Google+ Your Business page.
Posted by Vanessa Schneider, Google Places community manager
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