Google Helpouts: The Perfect Adaptation to Smart Marketing
Today, Google released a new virtual video web service, Helpouts, which provides real-time help for just about anything. Google has taken its success from search, email, maps, and other tools, and turned it into a more interactive and useful platform, expanding its service base and increasing market share.
Whether its seeking help for a craft project or learning a new yoga pose, there is a Google Helpout expert waiting on standby to help you. This video gives a brief overview of the new service.
The beauty of this new service is two-fold. For small business owners looking to market their services, this provides another avenue to do so by providing expertise and achieving a high rating from a Helpout experience.
For example, if I am looking to create a WordPress blog, but don’t know quite how to do so, I can simply do a search and the category of Computers & Electronics unfolds a menu of “Helpers” listed in order of “Best Match.” You can also change the order based on “Soonest available, Lowest Price, and Best Reputation,” depending on your need.
WordPress- Google Helpout
A beneficial feature to point out is the person-to-person bio and background features. For the WordPress example, I feel like I “know” Joshua because of his headshot, and the “Meet Joshua” section allows me to explore and research Joshua’s creditials before hiring him for a Helpout.
The ability to research a person, company, or service prior to usage is Google’s way of utilizing Jay Baer’s concept of Youtility. In his book, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype, Baer discusses why self-serve information such as Joshua’s ratings and reviews provide greater insight for the user and credibility for Joshua. This also gives individuals that are experts at teaching a skill or technique the opportunity to share their knowledge and information.
Meet Joshua
According to Landon Robinson of Best Techie, Google Helpouts will work with large companies such as Weight Watchers and Rosetta Stone to provide assistance with specific products and/or services. Another feature of the service is the ability to share screens with the Helper, edit documents, and record the Hangout (Google’s video-conferencing platform) for playback at a later time.
It can be anticipated that the service will build momentum over time as users become more comfortable with the platform and usability. It will be exciting to see the progress and improvements as users begin to adapt to the new web service.
For additional information, please visit the Google Helpouts page.
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