Tips for using Facebook live as a marketing tool for your business

27 May

Have you thought about using Facebook live video to boost your business’ reach and engagement?

If yes, awesome!

If you’re thinking “I’ll just wing it”, not so awesome. You wouldn’t record a radio ad on your iPhone on a whim and send it into the station would you?

The good news is that done well, Facebook live video is a great way to engage with potential customers. Facebook loves video, and (for now) gives live video broader reach than other content.

The other good news is that I have seven tips for elevating your live video above the competition! So before you hit go live, think about the following things:

1. Work out your objective

This is critical. Why are you doing this video? Do you have something of interest for your audience that can be best communicated in this way? What do you want to achieve by doing the video and how will you measure its success? What are you going to say?

For example, a seemingly impromptu fashion parade in your shop could be a fun way to show off a new range. Your audience will be interested in the new range and you can talk them through it piece by piece while they are watching! A measure of success might be how many sales you get from that video – you can ask people at purchase how they found out about you.

2. Plan your content (as always content is key)

Please please don’t turn on your phone and start randomly filming something. People won’t always be watching it live and may click on it much later. So give your video context - introduce yourself and whatever it is that you are filming – and don’t forget that you can talk to your online audience while you are filming. You can explain what is happening, and you can directly respond to comments that are coming through.

If you’re doing a piece to camera think about your ‘headline’. You have a couple of seconds to get people to watch your video so use them wisely. Lead with your topic – “I am going to teach you how to create engaging video content. Hi, my name is Erika” – and then go on with the rest of your video.

Bullet points are your friend; what are the three things you want people to know? This really helps give your video a ‘spine’:

“There are three things you need to know about this new bike model. Firstly…”

If you lose your way, falling back on these three points will put you back on the right track.

3. Look at what's happening in your background

What’s going on in the background of your video? Is it noisy? Can you clearly hear the person talking? Are there people walking in front of you? Are your kids / dog / cat likely to wander into the room while you are doing it?

4. Promote it in advance

This is crucial. There’s not much point going live without an audience. Give yourself every chance and promote your live video in advance, so you know there will be people there to have some interaction.

5. Keep it short and sweet

Facebook videos get great reach. But the reality is that most of that reach is people who have glanced at your video and not watched it the whole way through. You’re not doing it for the reach, you’re doing it for (insert your objective here). Time is precious so try to be as concise as possible to encourage your audience to watch your video the whole way through.

6. Have a call to action

Don’t forget this one! No matter what your video is about, grab the opportunity to end with a further action. This could be as simple as “give me a call” or “visit our website for more information”.

7. Be prepared with the technical stuff

Make sure you have enough storage, battery and data to get you through!

Feeling excited and a little nervous? Practice making some fun live videos on your personal account so you get the hang of it. If you want to talk content and strategy for using live video in your business account, get in touch.