How To Use Google Hangouts To Help Your Business

At the I/O developer conference last week, Google announced that it had made a flurry of updates to its features, sites and services. One of the big changes was made to Hangouts, which has evolved from the Google+ feature it started out as into a cross-platform messaging, video call and conferencing service, replacing Google Talk on mobile devices. Anyone with a Google+ account can now call or video call their friends, colleagues and acquaintances for free, on both mobile and desktop devices. 

Before the updates were made to Hangouts, it was already a potent communications service with numerous applications in the business world. Now that it has itself become an application, its versatility and accessibility make it a brilliant tool for anyone with a business. It is so easy to use that it may replace some of the services you use already, but if not, you can be pretty sure that creative business owners will find innovative uses for it.

Social Media Is Changing How We Do Business... Are You Ready?

It’s not unheard of for an SME business owner when asked who manages their social media to reply, “One of the team”.  Often, that management of social sites is secondary to the role the team member was hired for e.g. sales or customer service.

Facebook Admins Can Now Create Unpublished Posts On Their Page

Facebook administrators now have the option to create unpublished posts in the compose box on their page, instead of having to create them using Facebook’s Power Editor or the ads API.

Unpublished posts are hidden from the news feeds of a page’s fans. Instead, administrators can target specific groups of fans with unpublished posts by promoting them using adverts.

To create an unpublished post on their page, administrators first have to click on the tiny clock symbol to the bottom left of the status box. An option to “+ Add year” will then appear – an option administrators should take. After an admin has selected a year, a tick box will appear beneath, ticking this box will allow them to “Hide [the post] from [their fans’] news feed”.

Pinterest Adds More Info To Pins And “Pin It” Button To Certain Apps

Pinterest has partnered with a number of brands to add more information to certain pins. Product, movie and recipe pins pinned from certain sites will display more information about their subjects to save users having to search off-site for it. Also, certain apps now have a “Pin It” button to make pinning on mobile devices easier.

Pinterest Now Lets Users Send Pins On-Site

Pinners can now send individual pins to their friends on-site as long as they both follow each other – before, pins had to be sent via email. Pins can be sent on both desktop and mobile devices, to both desktop and mobile devices.

Social Media Promotions Of The Week: 17/05/2013

Every social media promotion in this week’s SMPW has a video: two use a video alongside a larger campaign while one makes clever use of YouTube’s features. In fact, YouTube itself has a promotion out this week for an event they’re holding very soon. Here are the top five:

1. P&G – ‘Thank You Mum’

Will Google’s Updates To Google+ And Hangouts Attract New Users?

At the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco yesterday, the internet search giant announced numerous changes to its products, including updates to the social network Google+ and the messaging and video VoIP service Hangouts. Google has also made updates to Search, Chrome, Maps, Android and Play.