5 Steps to Live Streaming Success
Live Streaming is the fastest, quickest and easiest path to success for your business. (Once you get over your fear of video!) Which we will talk about next week!
Live video is more appealing to online audiences and 80% of people would prefer to watch live video than read a blog.* Viewers are 8 times more likely to ?watch live video than recorded videos.*
After all, isn't it more fun to see someone live than watch a pre-recorded, scripted and edited video?
You just never know what will happen!
# 1 Have a Clearly Defined Strategy
Brainstorm your ideas of what you want to discuss prior to going live.
- Why do you want to live stream??Determine your main purpose, first & foremost! Do you want raise awareness of your brand or product, share your story, increase sales, share your knowledge, grow your list? You will want to clearly define your purpose for going live before you hit record.
- Choose a format which works for you and your industry. There are a variety of formats to choose from. Here is a live streaming formats post with ideas and examples for live streaming formats.
- Choosing the ‘Right' platform can be challenging for most business owners. There are numerous live streaming platforms available, but certain platforms are more effective depending on what your main goal is for the live stream.
- Facebook Live – want to reach your loyal fans, friends and family. Facebook Live is the place to be! Plus, it is simple and easy to go live on Facebook with a lot lower risk of dealing with trolls. Nobody likes a troll, unless they are the cute ones from the movie!
- Instagram Live – Do you have an engaged following of fans on Insta? Then by all means go live here!
- YouTube Live – Same goes for YouTube – if you have a following on this platform than by all means share your live video here. You do need to have a verified account and no live stream restrictions in the past 90 days.
- Periscope – The platform dedicated to Live Streaming and it is connected to Twitter. Have a large Twitter following? Then this is the place for you! Beware when going live on Periscope of trolls. They tend to hang out here & harass live streamers.
Tell your viewers what you want them to do. What is YOUR CTA?
Determine Your Call to Action (CTA) which is directly related to your main purpose for going live. If you are looking to increase awareness about your brand or product you may ask viewers to share out the broadcast. Want to grow your mailing list? Ask viewers to download a free eBook or handout which takes them even further into what you were discussing on the live video by sharing their email. Is increasing sales your main goal? Offer a discount or special offer for anyone who uses a discount code, which will help you with tracking return on investment (ROI) after the broadcast.
- Promote Your Broadcast?on all of your social platforms. Tweet when you will be live. On Periscope? Consider going live before to announce you will be live on Facebook and you may even gain new followers on Facebook at no cost. Priceless! Share on Instagram, Instagram Stories and Instagram Live. Or if you are feeling courageous try your hand at dual-broadcasting. What is dual broadcasting? It is when you go live on multiple platforms at the same time. This allows you to reach a larger audience with half the effort. We love saving time and energy!?
# 2 Have a Plan
- Develop Your Plan!?Go back to your primary purpose we discussed in Step 1. Develop your content to support the plan and write it down in outline form. This will help to keep you on-track during the broadcast.
- Determine the length of the broadcast & test.?You may want to test out what works best for your audience. Typically anywhere from 15-30 minutes is best, but some people are able to keep people entertained & engaged for up to an hour.
Be sure to have an outline for what you will discuss prior to going live.
- Prepare your content prior.?Especially when you are beginning with live streaming you will want to have notes and key points you want to be sure to share live. If they aren't written down you are likely to forget to mention them. Be sure to include any links or discount codes, dates, times, locations.
- What do you want your audience to do??We talked about the?Call to Action (CTA)?in Step 1. Be sure to include this in your key points. You don't want to forget to tell the viewers to share this video with their friends or where to download your awesome corresponding worksheet for what you have been sharing with them. They will be asking you how to get it if you don't tell them how to get it, right?!
# 3 During the Broadcast
Thanks for being here. Tell us about yourself?
Welcome your viewers! Hello, Ciao, Hola, Bonjour, whatever language say HI! If people are coming on to the broadcast slowly you can ask questions and have them tell you where they are watching from in the world. Have they joined your live broadcasts before? How did they hear or find out about you? This sparks conversation which is what you want.
- Tell them what you are going to tell them – key points – best practice limit key points 3-5. People have short attention spans – keep it simple.
- Encourage Engagement and Conversation – make use of the comments and encourage viewers to interact and engage with each other & ask questions. Let them know if you will answer questions live or save them until the end of the broadcast. If you can't get to all the questions advise them you will respond individually.
- Ask questions to increase engagement – best practice to have them put a 1 or 2 or emojis – you want to encourage people to comment – this helps with your reach.
- Tell them – share your prepared content with them
- Give them a clear call to action (CTA) – this is what they should do next – share this video, download a cheat sheet, visit your blog post, stop by the store.
# 4 Closing the Broadcast
Give your viewers an overview of what you shared.
- Review/Summarize what you told them. Give them a brief overview of what you just
discussed. This is especially beneficial for those that don't get on to the live broadcast until later. This will help them decide if they want to take the time to go back and listen to the entire broadcast OR complete your CTA. - Mention the CTA again & that you will post the link in the comments. The CTA is the most important part of the live broadcast. Be sure you tell your viewers multiple times what they need to do in order to take the next step – whatever that is.
- Thank Everyone for being there!?You pretty much can't say thank you enough. It lets people know you appreciate them. If you can call people out by name because they have been there the entire live stream or have been commenting and sharing – BONUS POINTS!
#5 After the Live Stream
- Save, Download & Share Your Video.?This will allow you to edit and repurpose this video across other platforms. You can tweet it out, add to YouTube (if you didn't go live there), add to your website, or other platforms you use.
Answer, Engage, & Respond to your viewers.
Answer, engage and respond to comments and questions. This is what helps people to stay tuned in to your live videos. It's the interaction with YOU! That's why they started watching in the first place, right? They were interested in what you have to say.
- Edit Video & Add an Acknowledgment to?replay viewers. Many people won't be able to view live & will be watching the replay. If you have the time to edit the video you can edit out the beginning of the live video and welcome the replay viewers and thank them for being there.
- Analyze your own performance.?It's hard to watch yourself on video, I get it! However, you need to do it to see what you need to improve on. Every time I'm live I see something I can improve and slowly, but surely it gets better. Consider what went well? What didn't? Be Honest!
- Ask for feedback.?Consider asking others in your industry, partners, friends to watch and give you open, honest feedback.
- Check your stats.?All the platforms offer stats after you've gone live to see who watch, for how long, did they share, comment, like? Check out your views, reach, engagement, and the actions taken. Start a spreadsheet of what is most important to you and compare how this improves or changes every time you live stream. Be sure to note the day of week and time you went live to see if you notice a difference.
- Analyze Lead Generation or Sales.?Take a look at how many viewers actually took action on your CTA. Were you selling a product or service? Did you see a spike in sales or inquiries? Awesome!
We'd love to hear your successes from Live Streaming! Feel free to email and share. Maybe we can feature you on a future live stream sharing your success!
Cheers to YOUR Live Streaming Success!
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*Video Stats Source: Livestream.com
