LIVE STREAMING: WHY & HOW
We’re all learning how to grow and adapt our businesses to acclimate and innovate as marketing ventures go FULL digital. Let’s talk about ways to stay connected with loyal as well as future customers with the help of the fun and interactive means of Live Streaming.
Why Do It
Brand awareness
A live stream will bring awareness to your brand. Whether it be through word of mouth, on a discoverable feed, or by the grace of Facebook algorithm, people will find ways to make it to your video.
Audience engagement
Loyalists will have a chance to sing your praises and new customers will be able to ask questions.
Establish a personal connection
Some people will never get the chance to interact with you as a person but will see your brand. Take this as an opportunity to connect and engage with your audience.
Creates transparency
However fortunate, your brand is an extension of you. People will make assumptions either way based on your brand. In an effort to maintain consistency with your brand and its message, practice methods and behaviors like being candid with your audience and asking for feedback on products or services are great starters. Taking extra steps, like finding ways to showcase your company culture to your audience, are also great ways to create transparency between you and your client base.
Recycle Content
Once a live stream is published, there is the potential to treat that livestream as evergreen content. While there are certain topics, services and discounts that are time sensitive, the majority of your content can be repurposed in some form or fashion. Such as social media trending day-themed features like throwback Thursday, or sharing fundamental advice as a professional in your industry.
Create partnerships with other businesses
Cross promotions and partnerships with businesses over live stream can give the viewer a sense of camaraderie and connection to your brand, and even their community if you are all assumedly local businesses. If you’re a retail shop, talk about what wine you’ve purchased from the bar around the corner, or what watch you’re wearing from the retailer around the corner from your wine bar. It reinforces the idea of supporting local businesses by leading by example, which in turn reinforces your local economy upon which your business thrives.
It costs zero dollars to facilitate.
Going live, in theory, should not cost you anything. Now, should you decide to invest in amenities and features such as a backdrop, ring light, etc. to enhance your production, that is all well and good. However, all that is truly needed is a strong wifi connection, a smart device with a camera, and a social network.
This venue is growing large and FAST
As going virtual becomes more and more popular, so does the rise of using live streams. We recommend acting now and hopping on the bandwagon as quickly and efficiently as possible, so you can become seasoned professionals on making a live stream happen at the drop of a hat.
What You’ll Need:
Now that we’ve addressed the important aspects of starting a live stream, let’s talk about the tools and resources you’ll need to get started faster, and on the right foot.
Social media
Make sure your proper social media channels, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, are set up and ready to go for live stream. We also recommend making a series of promotional posts alerting your followers of the upcoming live stream.
A sturdy wi-fi connection
Having a strong wifi connection is perhaps the most important element in ensuring a successful live stream. Streaming from a smartphone or tablet with a data plan will simply not be strong enough to deliver a stream that has good quality audio and video. We recommend testing your network in a private live stream before your big day if at all possible.
A smart device - your phone will do
Thanks to social media, starting a live stream is as easy as opening your phone, selecting a channel, and pressing “go live,” but of course, with other steps. If you do not have access to a laptop or desktop with a webcam to use as your live stream base, a smartphone or tablet will just as easily get the job done. Just make sure to test the equipment before getting started.
A good filming location
Having a solid filming location enhances the overall user experience. To see a brand put effort into curating a set for something as seemingly simple as a live stream makes a difference on the lasting impact you are attempting to leave on your audience. While you can take it in as many creative directions as possible, we recommend that at least, for starters, you make sure to have proper lighting in FRONT of you so that users can see you, soundproofing - however possible - to cut out any echo or background noise, and a cute, staged area. We recommend checking out brands like Stoke Coworking who’ve mindfully set up an area of their event space to provide a great setting for conversation, recorded or otherwise.
Take it to the next level:
If you’re ready to take your broadcasts to the next level, we recommend investing in the following equipment and programs to enhance the production value of your shared content.
If you’re looking to increase your image quality during your streams, we recommend investing in a DSLR camera
Microphones
A plugin or Bluetooth enabled microphone is a great starting point for our smartphone streamers. If you’re working from the comfort of your laptop or desktop, we recommend investing in a USB microphone that connects quickly and easily to your existing setup.
A camera if possible
If you’re looking to increase your image quality during your streams, we recommend investing in a DSLR camera, which can be found easily at places like Amazon or Best Buy online. Having a camera with higher quality lenses will boost the quality of your content and therefore boost your validity as a brand.
Ring Light
If you’re looking to upgrade, but maybe save a little bit and stick to using your smartphone as your primary camera, we will now refer you to the ring light. A tripod with an attached ring of LED lights, these setups are popularly used amongst vloggers and influencers who are looking to make quality content from literally anywhere, with as little extra equipment as possible.
Broadcasting software
For some businesses, broadcasting via smartphone may simply not be enough. Perhaps you’re a therapist, a tax attorney, or a community organizer. Perhaps you’re looking to share more than just conversation or presentation of products, and need to share resources and written information instead that involves a presentation, or a mix of presentation elements that simply can’t be captured in a ‘’basic’’ setup. Enter programs like OBS, StreamYard, and Zoom - streaming software that offer ways for users to connect, share presentations and screens, while also connecting to a social media platform to create a live video. If you’ve got the time to invest in exploring these platforms, we encourage you to do so.
A streaming channel
Sometimes, it’s hard to depend on social media to give you a proper, glitch-free stream. If you’re going live on the weekend, it’s harder to maintain good signal quality on account of the influx of users being at home and online due to the time of the week. There’s also the risk of using audio that can be muted by platforms that say you don’t own “the rights” to use the music. To circumnavigate these tricky issues, we recommend checking out streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch for better, more stable streaming capabilities. These platforms, though perhaps not as popular for your demographic as usual, will be more dependable in the long run when it comes to maintaining overall quality. Again, this is a step that is seemingly farther off than our previously mentioned updates, so don’t feel obligated to bring your brand onto something you aren’t quite yet ready to manage.
Conclusion
What We Can Guarantee
There’s not a lot we can guarantee, but let’s go over what we can as it relates to your streaming experience:
It will be a learning experience
It may be rough, but you’ll learn a lot about you, your patience, and your technology, that’s for sure.
You’ll appreciate your loyal customers even more.
Sometimes, we forget that some of our customer bases has been there for us since the beginning, family-related or otherwise. As you traverse your journey to going live, we guarantee that your loyal customers will be there to support you as best they can. Use this loyalty to your advantage and encourage these users to share your videos and spread the word of this new feature you’re using to promote your business.
You’ll have a new way of sharing content and promotions quickly and fast from here on out.
Once you get the hang of what it takes to go live quickly and efficiently, we hope you’ll grow to love this feature as a way of promoting your business to your audience. The transparency, openness, and immediacy are all potentials to making your brand more successful.
What We Can’t Guarantee
We wanted to break some things to you now before you get started, so you don’t set expectations too high for your live stream success. Not everything about the live stream, like all things, are sunshine and rainbows:
That those new customers will arrive in droves.
Some people just aren’t into live streams, and that’s okay.
That anyone will buy anything.
Like any event, sale, or discount, we can’t guarantee that people will act upon it. Set your expectations for revenue success like you would with any other aspect of your business.
That everything will go as planned.
It’s been briefly mentioned that you could encounter connectivity issues when trying to make a live stream happen. We’re here to reiterate that things can and will go wrong. As always, make sure to test, test, test before you begin.
Changing the way you promote your business to keep up with “the times” can be daunting, yet equally rewarding. If you’re choosing to take the live stream journey, we hope these guidelines have helped better inform you on how to be successful in your work. If you need help getting started, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
