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Facebook Live is an incredibly powerful and engaging platform that marketers can use to share their brand stories in real time. With its simple yet effective broadcasting capabilities, it gives users the ability to reach a broad audience and build relationships with them. However, just like anything else worth mastering, there’s a plethora of tricks and techniques to get the most out of the platform.
For instance, you have to keep viewers engaged visually, which means moving the camera around and using other features to make the video look more interesting. Furthermore, Facebook is now factoring video engagement into their algorithm, so if you make a video that people interact with in meaningful ways — like turning on audio or going full-screen — your broadcast will be ranked higher in News Feeds. Ultimately, taking advantage of these capabilities will help you maximize the reach of your live streams.
When your own small to medium-sized business joins the growing ranks of Facebook Live corporate users, like Chevrolet, Disney, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Target, your streaming video will show up live as your friends, clients or followers scroll, and the recording will save automatically to your news feed, to be viewed or shared later. Even Santa used Facebook Live last Christmas, so viewers could track his holiday journey.
As an infinite number of words and images are vying for everyone’s online attention, Facebook Live video is winning with increased reach, visibility, and interaction in a fresh and exciting way. Here are 6 ways to create, share, and discover with Facebook Live using its proven and newest features:
Address blog comments and answer questions
Another way to use Facebook Live video for your business is to discuss a topic that your audience is interested in. For example, maybe you’ve written a blog post on a subject that you know your readers will have questions about. Sure, you can answer readers’ comments on your blog, but it’s much quicker (and more efficient) to schedule a Facebook Live video session where you can answer many of their questions at once. And it’s a whole lot more fun and involving because it encourages your fans to tune in for the live video session rather than wait for a replay. Answering questions this way positions you as a confident, knowledgeable, go-to resource. (Another tip: you can even turn proven, popular blog posts into live videos.)
To increase the likelihood of a higher relevancy score, encourage viewers to comment on your broadcast and make sure to respond to them. Not only will this promote more comments overall, but it’s also a great way to engage with your audience and make them feel part of the live experience. And if you take the time to mention commenters by name, they’ll be thrilled to be acknowledged!
Provide a peek behind the scenes
People love it when you pull back the curtain and provide a peek behind the scenes of your business. Give them a glimpse into the daily operations and processes you follow, show them what it really takes to run your company, let them see your office, or take them along while you’re on the go.
The purpose of taking them behind the scenes is to create a casual sense of intimacy so that they have the opportunity to begin to know, like, and trust you more.
Promote your upcoming event or live stream an event
One of the primary ways Facebook evaluates a post’s rank is by the amount of Likes and shares it receives. If your video post accumulates plenty of both, then it’s more likely to appear in people’s News Feeds. But while people are watching an online video, they may not be as inclined to Like or share it compared to a text- or photo-based post—something that Facebook identified early on and addressed by monitoring other engagement metrics such as volume.
Facebook Live is a great way to announce an upcoming event. Once you’ve planned the event, create a post to let fans know you have a special announcement to make. Then, share specific details about your event on your Live video. When announcing an event on Live video, be sure to have an easy-to-remember URL that you can share with your viewers. Post this link in the video comments as well, in case viewers don’t have a chance to write it down. You can use a tool like Bitly to create a URL that you can track. You can also use Facebook Live video to stream a live event and make viewers part of the experience.
Conduct Interviews
Interview people that your audience will want to learn more about or learn from, such as influencers in your field, professionals with expertise who work alongside yours, or even interview your clients. A good interview always reveals just as much about the interviewer as the interviewee, so use Facebook Live interviews to dive into some worthwhile topics, associate yourself with interesting people, show off your personality, and present yourself as relatable.
Introduce new products or services
Another way to use Facebook Live video is to give your fans a sneak peek of your products or services…maybe even before they’re announced on your website.
Want to tap into the growing audience for Facebook Live video…and increase your market reach? Simply give our social media experts a shout.