This week we hosted our second Google+ Hangout and it was quite a success. Our discussion for the month was on the topic of “How to use social media well in ministry, including: Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.” While nothing new was brought up as ideas for how to use social media in ministry, the people had some great questions that I was able to answer for them that really allowed them to feel more comfortable with how to use social media.
Google+ Hangout is a completely new concept not only for Google, but for social media in general. There is minimal experience among social media users with being able to have a video chat with multiple people. So with two hangouts under our belt, we want to offer four guidelines to you if you plan to host your own guidelines so that you can have as few hiccups as possible.
- Do not schedule for it to be too long. We plan for our Google+ Hangouts to be 20 minutes in length. That is about the perfect amount of time for podcasts and so we have tried to implement that for our video chats. Many people need to know how long these things will take, so a defined ending is necessary. Of course, what you schedule for and what really happens are not the same thing. The 20 minutes was the perfect amount for the number of people we had in the hangout, but future ones may need more time.
- Have enough questions and content to fill the full amount of time. Hopefully people will come with some of their own questions that will fill up the majority of the time, but if not, you really need to bring several questions with you to ask everyone about the topic. Ensure that your questions progress well, have several open ended questions that lead to thought-filled discussions, and content to “teach” if need be. This pre-planning and structure allows for little dead air and awkward pauses.
- Leave all expectations at the door. The previous guideline to have questions and content that flows well is essential, but do not expect for the discussion to be so linear. People will have their own experiences and questions to bring to the hangout and so there is a huge unpredictability that comes with every hangout you will host. I had expected to find out some new things we could do with social media for youth groups, but instead I did some consulting with helping them grow more comfortable with using Twitter.
- Let the conversation be organic. This may seen contrary to the structure that I suggest you have with the questions and content to fill the time, but in fact I believe that this is the heart of Google+ Hangouts. Schedule for it to last a certain amount of time, schedule for specific content to be presented, and ensure you have several questions to ask, but allow the conversation to go wherever the people lead it. If your structured hangout that you took 30 minutes to plan for never happens, take it as a compliment that you can lead a video chat well. That being said, do not short the viewers at all by not planning just because it might not be used. Always be prepared.
Have you hosted a Google+ Hangout before? What guidelines would you add to this list?
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