Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of years no doubt you’ve heard of Facebook Live. However, just to recap Facebook Live is a live video streaming feature on Facebook, that lets you broadcast from your personal page, business page or group. Facebook Live has been around since April of 2016 and it’s appeal is anything but waining.
As video becomes a more predominant way to connect and communicate on social media the move to live video streaming makes sense — social media works best when we’re in the moment. ~ Hubspot
Why you should use Facebook Live
There aren’t many other better ways to connect with your audience than by using Facebook Live. Often I hear people are afraid to take the leap and get started, so hopefully this post will help.
“I see video as a megatrend. That’s why I’m going to keep putting video first across our family of apps.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg
- By 2020 it’s predicted that online video streaming will grow to more than 80 percent of all consumer internet traffic. How crazy is that?!
- Connect with your audience in the most real and authentic way
It’s really difficult to be anything but yourself when you’re in a ‘live’ setting. Your audience will hear your idiosyncrasies and get to know you much more than they would via any other platform.
- Video marketing is effective, Facebook Live videos receive 3X higher engagement than a video that is no longer live. Facebook Live videos also receive 5X more than standard photo posts ~ AdWeek.
- People comment 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on normal videos, according to the network.
- To showcase an event to people
Facebook Live is a great way to broadcast events. This is a great way to highlight the event to people who couldn’t attend and promote it to increase sales for the next event.
- Answer questions in real time
Facebook Live gives you the awesome opportunity to be able to answer questions from your audience in real time. You can also give feedback and advice. I often do blog critiques via Facebook Live.
- Share industry-related updates
As there’s no editing involved in Facebook Live it means it’s a lot more immediate than video. This lends itself really well to being a great mechanism to be able to update your audience on industry news.
- To show off your company culture
Facebook Live is the perfect way to lift the curtain and let your audience get a behind the scenes look at your business. You could highlight your ethos, why you do what you do, how you do it, even highlighting your staff if you have any.
- Boosts organic reach
Facebook favours live video in the algorithm so doing a Facebook Live will give you the best shot of capitalising on organic reach.
How to go live on Facebook
To go live:
- Click Live Video at the top of your News Feed
- Explain what your live video is about (less than 255 characters)
- Click Go Live (yep it’s that easy!)
After you go live on Facebook, the video will publish as a post wherever you went live from. You can then download the video, so you can use it elsewhere.
Encourage your audience to turn on live notifications.
How to turn notifications on or off
- Click the drop-down arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the screen
- Select Settings
- Click Notifications on the left-hand side of the screen
- Click On Facebook
- Scroll down to Live videos, then choose your desired setting from the three options in the dropdown: On, Suggestions off, and All off
How to plan your livestream
It’s important to, at least, roughly plan your live. While you don’t want to script it word for you, you don’t want to completely forget what you wanted to talk about. Always start with an introduction, this is usually what you are going to teach/talk about and how you are. Short and sweet! Then have bullet points and key things you want to discuss.
Remember to tell people you’re going live
Promote your upcoming live broadcast on Facebook and your other social platforms too. Don’t forget to tell your email list too.
Embed your Livestream on your blog
You can embed your live stream into your website. Click in the upper right-hand corner of video and click embed to get an html code that you can copy and paste to your website.
Invite a guest
You can invite a guest to join you on screen during a live broadcast.
Easy to use tools
Please do not let the lack of any special kit stop you from going live. You literally just need your phone of computer.
However, if you want to pick up some things to use when you go live here is what I have;
- Diva phone ring light* – This is a fab, cheap light ring that clips over your phone to give instant light. You can also clip it over your webcam too.
- Logitech C920 camera* – I love my Logitech C90 webcam and I use this all the time for live streaming as I go live mostly from my Mac.
- Tripod* – I have so many tripods, but one of my favourites is my Manfrotto.
Host a variety of lives
It’s a great idea to mix up the types of lives you do. This will mean your audience gets to see a variety of content from you and you get the opportunity to showcase different aspects of your business. Here are some ideas;
- Host an interview
- Q&A
- Product launches
- How to use products
- Behind-the-scenes
- Giveaway/contest
- How to (learn a new skill/increase knowledge in an area)
- Go live at an event
- Breaking industry news
Create a consistent weekly show
Being consistent always helps your viewership grow. Just like set YouTube upload times, going live consistently lets your audience know when they can catch you. They will start to tune in regularly as they fit you into their routine.
Going live on a regular basis is important for Facebook pages too as you need to stay from and central with your audience.
Continue to promo when the live is over
Don’t forget that things certainly aren’t over when the live is finished. The promo is only really beginning! You can reshare your video as a new post to your Page at a later date and get more views, embed them into your blog posts. Share it on LinkedIn, create a series of tweets linking back to it. Email it to your list. Chop up your video and use it on Instagram or other social media channels.
How to schedule a Facebook Live broadcast
- On your Page, go to Publishing Tools
- Select Video Library and then Live
- Copy stream credentials, such as stream key and server URL
- Write your announcement post
- Finalize your scheduled Live broadcast
- Click Schedule
I hope this post has shown you how easy it is to ‘go live’ and how much benefit you could receive. I have a cheat sheets which shows you how to structure your Facebook live and you might like to also check out this video too!
Affiliate links – this means if you make a purchase I will get a tiny commission. I ONLY recommend things I love though.
Comments 4
Super helpful! I’m wondering when doing a Facebook Live – I’d want to turn off my notifications right?
Author
I don’t, I want to go in when it’s finished and respond to the comments to further boost engagement.
Thank you for the links. I love your talk at BlogOn, I’ve worked out my ‘strap-line’ and I’m not going to be so hung up about where I ‘Go Live’, so long as I don’t have clutter.
You have inspired me.
Thank you.
Author
Ah so glad it helped. Thanks for coming x