Last night’s ARIAs marked more than Kylie Minogue’s induction into the Hall of Fame, it was also the world’s first Google+ red carpet Hangout.

Hangouts is Google+ feature that allows users to virtually ‘hang out’ with multiple friends using live video chat.

Virtually hanging out with stars

For the 25th ARIA Awards on Sunday, Google teamed up with organisers to provide coverage that will appear on multiple social media channels.

Presenters on the red carpet conducted video interviews with celebrities and posed questions from fans, who joined the Hangout feature via the ARIA’s website.

The footage will be packaged as a video special that will feature on YouTube Australia’s homepage and global Facebook page.

And the winner is…exposure for Google+

Since opening Google+ to businesses recently, increasing numbers of Australian companies, including Telstra and Vodafone, now have a presence on the social networking site.

Google+ allows businesses to engage directly with their customers via free ‘Pages’ feature.