As Facebook Live becomes a staple for creating engagement, it is necessary to understand how it can work for you. Through your broadcast, you can tell your story, your way and take full control of your transmission. You can use creative tools to communicate the way you want to.
Also, Interact with your community in real time. You can answer your followers’ questions in real time, hear what’s on their minds, and see their live reactions. The best part is once you have finished you can save it on Facebook, or even download it and use it on other platforms.
We know you can take out your phone and start broadcasting, but we are going to help you out with a checklist of what you need to do before you start recording.
Here is our checklist for a successful Facebook Live.
1. Verify Internet connection.
Before starting your broadcast, you should check the Internet connection. If you are using your phone, verify if you have available coverage. If you don’t have good coverage, confirm if the place you are at has WiFi available. Facebook Live requires a connection that’s faster than 10 Mbps for good quality video.
2. Confirmed the Facebook App is installed.
You need to have installed on your phone the Facebook App. If you have a Facebook Page make sure you have downloaded Pages Manager or Facebook Creator.
If you are using your desktop, go to facebook.com and go directly to Live. It gives you the option to a webcam or even a professional camera to improve the quality of your video.
3. Plan ahead what you are recording.
It is essential to know what you want to do while you are broadcasting during Facebook Live. Some examples of what you want to do are:
- Talk about hot topics: Let your followers know what’s on your mind. It can be about current events or react to the news.
- Provide a Q&A: Enforce your engagement with your followers by providing a space, allowing you to receive questions and answer them. This will enable you to contact with your subscribers.
- Interview someone: Similar to a Q&A, you can broadcast an interview with your friends, colleagues, or experts. You can bring someone on your Facebook Live and able to do the interview with both of you on the same screen.
- Do a live performance: Bring your followers a front-row seat to the action. This can be a musical performance or a sports game.
- Go behind the scenes: Make everything around you the star of the show – let all of the action unfold on camera.
- Use the Watch-with option: Facebook Live allows you to watch your favorite show, movie, event, or live video with your community. This creates a perfect environment to connect with your fans.
- Demonstrate to your members: Take this time to teach people how to cook, play music, learn about current events, and more.
- Stream your video games: Invite subscribers to watch you play your favorite video game. Maybe play Fortnite or Call of Duty and let people how good you are it.
4. Ability to use different cameras.
Probably you might use your phone to broadcast your Facebook Live, but you have many options to stream. You have the choice to use your computer and stream using a webcam or professional camera with the help of a Live API.
There is an excellent variety of software like OBS, Ecamm, and Wirecast to improve the quality of your video and make it look professional. Facebook Live allows you to broadcast up to 4 hours.
5. Setup equipment.
You can use a phone by itself, but adding additional gear will improve the quality of your video. Some of this equipment can be as basic as a tripod then improve it with a microphone, camera lens and light. Always check your equipment is on hand.
6. Steps before broadcasting
Build anticipation by telling fans ahead of time when you’ll be going live. One day’s notice is enough time to build awareness. Also, ask your audience to submit questions via the comments section. This is a great way to engage with your audience before your interview begins.
Also, include a description of your transmission that describes the content you’ll be discussing. This will help your followers understand your video before watching it.
7. During your broadcast
Once you broadcast begins, take into consideration the following examples of what you can do during a transmission:
- Give people time to join – Many viewers tune in during the first couple of minutes of a broadcast. While you’re waiting for the audience to grow, we recommend using this time to introduce who’s on the show, welcome the early viewers and go over what you plan to do.
- Interact with viewers – The power of Facebook Live is real-time interaction. You can have a more successful broadcast if you let viewers participate by asking questions. Remind your viewers that they can submit questions as comments and try mentioning viewers’ names when responding to their comments or questions.
- Invite a friend – You have the option to add a friend to your broadcast. This could be a fun and exciting way to interview someone and add a communal dynamic to your normal Live routine.
- Broadcast for more extended periods – The longer you broadcast, the more likely people are to discover and invite their friends on Facebook to watch the video. Keep in mind the maximum length of a broadcast is four hours. We recommend that live videos last at least 10 minutes, if possible.
- Announce the end – Don’t leave people hanging or end a broadcast abruptly. Instead, use a closing line to let people know that you’re done. If you already know when you’re broadcasting with Facebook Live again, mention that too and encourage people to tune in next time.
8. After your broadcast
Once you finished your streaming, you are not finished yet. This is some of the things you can do afterwards. Remember the video will stay on after the Live ended.
- Save the video – Once you end your broadcast, you’ll have the option to delete or publish the video to your Page or profile. Once released, you can remove the video post at any time, but we recommend keeping the video so people who weren’t able to watch the broadcast live can access it later. Additional viewers can share the show, increasing your overall views.
- Update the description – Providing a detailed report before your broadcast is just as helpful as the description you use after your show. Did something exciting happen while you were broadcasting live? Were there unexpected topics that came up? Just tap Edit on the video post and include these types of highlights in an updated description to add more interesting elements and boost discovery.
9. Understanding Video Metrics.
Once you finish streaming, your video lives on, and it is essential to understand its metrics. Here are some of the Live-specific parameters:
- Peak Live Viewers – This shows the highest number of concurrent viewers who viewed your live broadcast for at least three seconds. The curve you see in the graph shows the number of simultaneous viewers watching different points of your live broadcast for at least three seconds.
- Audience and Engagement – The Video Engagement graph shows you how aggregate audiences engaged at specific points during a Live broadcast. This means you can see particular aspects throughout your broadcast of when people were moved to react to, comment on, or share the video.
- Minutes Viewed – This is the total number of minutes your video was watched, including replays and views less than three seconds.
- Unique Viewers – This is the number of distinct people who viewed your video at least once. We’ll show you a breakdown of people who saw your video organically and through paid media (like a boosted post).
- 3-Second Video Views – This is the number of times your video was played for an aggregate of at least three seconds, or for nearly its total length, whichever happened first. There are several video views metrics you can find, such as three seconds, ten seconds, etc. You’ll also see a breakdown of the percentage of people who viewed your video with sound on versus sound off. Time spent replaying the video for a single impression won’t be included.
- 10-Second Video Views – This is the number of times your video was played for at least 10 seconds, or for nearly its total length, whichever happened first. Similar to Video Views, we’ll show you a breakdown of the percentage of people who viewed your video with sound on versus sound off. Time spent replaying the video for a single impression won’t be included.
- Video Average Watch Time – This is calculated as the total watch time of your video divided by the total number of video plays (including replays). If you see a point in your video with a significant drop-off, look at your content to understand which parts of your video might not have been as engaging to people. You can select a specific moment on the engagement graph to watch the corresponding video clip.
10. Share, share and share.
Once the transmission is finished, you can share it through your social media platforms. Also, look for groups related to your topic, and you can share your video to them.
If you have access to a couple of Facebook Pages, and the content is relatable to them, you can do Crossposting. One of the benefits is that it can appear as a video of its own. Also, it increases the reach of the video.
Another benefit is the ability to download your video. Later you can use the video to upload at other platforms like YouTube. Another great perk of doing Facebook Live.
Conclusion
Creating content is essential to reach others and improve your brand. Also, using an automated service like SmartEngage, the First and Only Cross-Channel Autoresponder. As a result, It can automatically link a customer’s email with their Facebook Messenger and their Push Notifications.
In other words, you can send them the message when they need, at the time they need it, on the platform they will see it. Besides, this is some of a few things you can do since it provides you with many tools like lead magnets and a great variety of reports like Open Rate Ratio. Therefore, helping your business grow.
The best part is that you can give it a try with their free account, or use the 14-days free trial on the premium service. In other words, you got nothing to lose.
To learn more about Facebook Live, I recommend you to read 5 Reasons To Use Video On Social Media, and Best Equipment for Streaming Live. In fact, both are full of useful information and tips.
Want to learn more about SmartEngage features click HERE
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Written by Mark Nieves
