Use it!

Our first tip for Live videos, is that you should be doing them, regularly! People are following you because they’re interested in you and your brand. No amount of perfectly edited photos and well-designed marketing campaigns will fully satisfy your customers’ desire to connect with a person.

So, give the people what they want. Show your face! Talk to your followers.

The beautiful thing about Live Videos is that their organic reach is greater than a regular post… and sometimes even greater than a regular video! Why? Usually, your followers will get a push notification (pop-up) on their phone telling them you’ve gone live. This means more people will know to jump on and watch your video!

Know, Like and Trust

As with all things in marketing, Live Videos work best when they’re done regularly. Now, we’re not talking about every day… but once a week or so. In some cases, every couple of weeks or so is even enough to get people used to hearing from you. The ultimate goal is that your followers know who you are, like you and trust you. (KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST).

Now, let’s think about that phrase. If your followers are going to grow to know, like and trust you. Then, that means that every time they see you, you shouldn’t be trying to sell something. AMIRIGHT?!

NO ONE LIKES TO BE SOLD TO. People like to be educated, they like to be entertained, they like to feel like they’re a part of a community, but they don’t like to be sold to. So doing a Facebook or an Instagram live and only talking about the latest deal may drive a short-term increase in number but ultimately will lead to less engagement. Now once you’ve shown your followers you care about them by educating them, entertaining them and bringing them into your community… if you want to sell them something every once in a while, they’ll listen! Just like they’ll listen to a friend!

Set Up

Now just like anything, there’s a level of technical stuff to doing a Live Video. Here’s what we consider to be important.

· Make sure you’re in a well-lit area. Make sure people can see your face, without shadows being on your face. The light should be in front of your face, not behind you.

· Make sure you’re in a quiet area. You don’t want to do a Live Video with a loud fan running, near traffic or outside where a heavy breeze may be blowing. Essentially, make sure the TV is turned off and silence your phone before going Live!

What You Should Do

· Eye contact. Look AT the camera. Don’t flicker your eyes around or look at your hands, etc. Eye contact lets people know that you’re trustworthy. Once again, helps with that “Know, Like, and Trust” thing we’ve been talking about.

· Practice makes perfect! I always encourage people to practice! Figure out what you want to say, so you don’t ramble. Record yourself and watch it, check for too many “umms” or nervous ticks. In most industries, a Live Video should be less than 10 minutes. The exceptions to this would be tutorial type videos (DIY, makeup, etc.) or interactive videos.

· Engage your followers. The beauty of live videos is that you can interact with your followers LIVE. It’s a conversation! So as people watch your video, they can comment and you can answer them… LIVE!

Now, with all that being said, Facebook and Instagram Lives are overwhelming. We get it! So if you have further questions, we'd love to hear from you! This is what we do!