Alliance between Umundze and Impact Hub Bogotá
February 2, 2018
1. Plan ahead – content of the live streaming
In opposition to a post-produced video, live streaming tends to be long and has several boring moments. So it’s important to prepare yourself and keep it dynamic so you won’t loose viewers:
- Set the goal and the call to action.
- Create a structure for the content and interaction of the live streaming.
- Identify possible questions from the audience and have prepared answers.
2. Optimize your live streaming – technical details
In order to guarantee a smooth streaming, get the maximum amount of views and don’t loose any viewers due to technical details, make sure that you:
- Define the best time to make the live streaming, according to your target audience.
- Get to the location early, to check out the conditions, light, sound, …
- Check out the internet connection (if you have access to a WiFi signal, getting closer to the router is ideal! If you don’t have access to it, make sure you have 4G).
- Define a target in Facebook Live (your personal network or the fans of a your business page, group, or event).
- Edit the metadata in order to help your video get discovered (the thumbnail, location and date, a good description with effective keywords, a category, …
- Test it with a small group first, in order to identify potential problems and have backup solutions.
3. Promote the broadcast
Let everyone know that your are going live! Make sure that your fans, friends, email subscribers, partners and donors, know that you are doing a live streaming.
Let them know about your upcoming live video through the Facebook news feed posts, a couple of weeks in advanced (as if it was an event), with a pre-recorded video and some image posts, and with the creation of a Facebook event.
If your live streaming is important enough to you, boost your announcement posts as paid Facebook ads. Just remember to focus on your target audience.
4. Make it visually engaging
Many users have Facebook autoplay in mute. This means you have to make the video visually engaging (through all the broadcast) in order to capture and keep them. And remember that Facebook also monitors video engagement signals (like turning the audio ON, switching to full-screen mode, and so on) to rank them in the news feed. So the more engagement your video gets, the higher will be its rank.
So, use graphic overlays and smooth camera movements to keep it more dynamic.
5. Make it spontaneous
What makes a live video its the spontaneous and interactive nature of it (where anything can happen). So, make sure that you balance the preparation with the possibility of spontaneous moments and interaction with the audience.
These are the moments that make a live video special and they’re precisely what differentiates them from a scripted, edited and pre-recorded videos.
6. Engage with viewers and participants
Interacting with your audience can be one of the best ways to gain viewership. So encourage your viewers to comment, and engage with them.
In the beginning of the video introduce yourself and say what the video’s about. And don’t forget to keep doing that through all the broadcast, to make sure the new viewers know what they are watching.
Also, feel free to say hello to some of the new viewers or commenters by name, as they join or comment on your live streaming.
If you can, have someone else watching and responding to comments on from a desktop computer. And if you are alone, you can mention that you might not be able to follow all the comments in the broadcast, but that you’ll respond to everyone after the broadcast.
7. Encourage Likes and shares!
Once again, this is key to rank your live streaming higher in the Facebook news feed. The more people who Likes and shares your live broadcast, the higher it will rank.
But when people are watching your video, they can be more distracted from Liking and sharing it than they would be from a text or photo. So it is key that you remember them to do it!
Plus, in addition to asking your viewers for shares, Likes and comments, ask them to subscribe to live notifications or even to like your Facebook page.
8. Broadcast for at least 10 minutes
It’s very important to give it enough time for people to find your broadcast and share it with their friends. The longer you broadcast (especially if you are getting Likes, shares and comments), the more likely is for people to discover your video. I recommend you go live for at least 10 minutes.
9. Wrap up and say goodbye
Don’t forget to warp up in the end, giving everyone a summary of what happened and be sure to finish by saying thank you, referring what is coming up next and making a final call for people to like your Facebook page.
10. Learn from the results
Once the video live streaming is over, give it a time for people to see its recording and then start to evaluate the results and engagement with your video. This is key for you to identify what was successful and what went wrong, in order to improve future broadcasts.
Facebook offers you several metrics for you to evaluate the engagement in live streaming and with the final recorded video. Helping you to plan the length, content, interaction and timing of the next live videos.
If you apply these tips, you can be sure that you’ll improve your the engagement with your online community. The use of video and live streaming is more than ever crucial for brands and organizations to gain visibility and maintain a loyal community of costumers and supporters. Don’t forget to use this tool wisely, making it authentic, spontaneous and as close as possible from your target audience.
Check list
- Plan ahead the content of your live streaming (goal and call to action, structure and possible answers).
- Optimize the technical details of our live streaming (the best time, the conditions, the target audience, the metadata and test it!).
- Promote the broadcast, starting a couple of weeks before everywhere! And focus on your target audience.
- Make it visually dynamic engaging (with graphic overlays and smooth camera movements).
- Make it spontaneous – prepare, but also embrace the nature of live video.
- Engage with the viewers and commenters. Make the introduction of the video several times, call them by their name, …
- Encourage Likes and shares.
- Broadcast for at least 10 minutes.
- Wrap up and say goodbye (referring what is coming up next and making a final call for people to like your Facebook page).
- Learn from the results, by reviewing Facebook metrics.
