Looking for Facebook Live Ideas? Get yourself some coffee.
Facebook made it possible for absolutely everyone with a Facebook account (on phone or from the desktop) to go live.
With Facebook Live, you can do live streaming from wherever you are and let the world see exactly what you want to broadcast.
Many brands, businesses, and individuals are still trying to get used to the new format. As if Video itself wasn’t hard enough, you now have live video sitting there opening doors to new forms of interacting with your audiences.
Brent Hieggelke — head of marketing for Brandlive — writes:
“Brands are figuring out ways to modernize their entire go-to-market process and using live video as an agile way to bring content to audiences. Content marketing is being transformed from static written and designed documents and slide presentations into live video “run of show” outlines, and on-camera hosts and guests are becoming more in demand instead of writers and designers.
Live video brings with it the authenticity of unscripted conversations with product experts or influencers, along with the ability to do live demonstrations and create honest reactions and interactions with the audience. Since it’s digital, it can be consumed on any screen and anywhere, bringing the product or spokesperson directly to the consumer. ”
Brent calls this “Content Conversation” as against just “content marketing”.
Instead of you just consuming content (as in text and video), you can participate by liking, reacting, commenting, and having conversations — all the while live video is streaming.
So, how do you — as a blogger, business, brand, marketer, or self-employed professional — use Facebook live? Ever wondered that it’d be great to get a clutch of Facebook Live Ideas that you could implement?
Here are a few creative ways to use Facebook live and a bunch of Facebook live ideas:
Do Facebook Live For Timely & Periodic Content
Are you blogging already? Do you spin up content like a content factory?
Continue to do so but only this time, create a new content calendar exclusive for Facebook live with a few topics relevant to your niche (just the way you do it for your blog posts and other content).
Choose topics that are closer to your heart, that you have strong opinions on, and something that can connect to your audience.
When it comes to Facebook live, you’d ideally want to keep the content lengthy (because people take time to find you and then come in to join you), engaging, interactive, and provoking.
This in turn means that the topics you choose will have to be those that you can talk about all day long (or even when you are half-asleep).
You got to have opinions and have to be spontaneous with those. Get ready for a flurry of reactions when you start.
Relay news, layered with your opinions
Things happen all the time, everywhere; It’s no different in your niche. Take my case for instance. Given that I do end-to-end digital marketing, there’s really a lot going on where I come from.
Consider Facebook: it rolls out updates faster than I can wear my pants (and these updates are often strong and “campaign-changing”. ”
Google is a little slower comparatively but there’s global impact for absolutely anything Google does.
New tools are launched all the time or there are new updates for old tools that are a part of our regular marketing stack.
Each week, you can pick a set of topics that you’d like to relay. However, don’t sound like a home-grown news channel. Layer your news with opinions and you have a great “weekly roundup” thing going on with Facebook live.
Chime In On Facebook Live With Your Opinions
Little did I know what my father meant when he said “have an opinion on everything; but only state your opinion when you are asked to”
That was a tight piece of advice, but that was true in his time.
Today, your goal is to an influencer, a brand unto yourself, and you owe it yourself to get heard (only those who want to listen will listen anyway).
This is where Facebook live starts to make so much sense and starts to make a real difference.
Got something burning to say or when you got your own views on something that’s just been announced?
Go Live on Facebook live and let it all out.
Use Facebook live as Weekly/Monthly Events
Facebook live is interactive, totally unscripted, and has a real audience watching the live streaming on Facebook itself. Facebook live video immediately gets just as close to a real event as it gets.
As you’d normally do when you launch a Meetup or an event, plan out your events in advance, complete with topics and speakers (if any). You can launch your events all by yourself (and you might have to do that initially).
After you announce that you are going live on Facebook, prepare for it. It works just like an unplanned, hot wired, and impromptu webinar.
Each week, set out to touch on a topic that you think is crucial for your potential audience (just like you do with blog posts. Only this time, it’s going to be live and it’s not going to be as carefully plotted as your blog posts are).
Christian Karasiewicz of SocialChefs explains clearly how to setup a Facebook live event.
Normally, people have to RSVP, and then take time out of their lives to travel to the venue that you’d choose.
With Facebook Live, there’s no need to RSVP. There’s no venue to get to. People save on time, fuel, and effort.
Meanwhile, you could just put up a status update on your Facebook feed about your new Facebook live event. You can also create a “Facebook event” (normally for regular events) and have people show interest and mark their calendars.
If you are itching for more, you can create a Facebook update with details on your new Facebook live event and boost the post.
Build relationships at scale with Facebook Live
You are an expert. You do something well others struggle with. You know a lot about your business because that’s what you do all day long, every day, for several years.
Others look to you for help. But you don’t always have to charge top dollar for the help you render. There are ways for you to help your community by doing clever little things.
Let’s say you are a landing page specialist. You could go live on a particular date and time each month to do a live audit of a few chosen websites belonging to some of your live attendees.
Are you a dentist? You could go live and take questions on best practices for daily dental care.
Real estate agent? Go on Facebook live and share questions on how to prepare to buy a home, what to look out for before renting an apartment in [Enter your location], etc.
Facebook Live, as I see it, is a fabulous way to build relationships at scale (even if your audience size gets to a size that can fill up three football stadiums).
Facebook Live For Customer Support, at Scale
Traditional businesses have virtually no customer support, so to speak. Online businesses at least show some promise with live chat support, Twitter support, and email support. In some cases, there’s some active phone-based support (depending on products, services, and locations).
Facebook live, however, can change this. Imagine someone capable and knowledgeable on your team going live twice a week to take questions or address issues (all of this is live) with an entire audience watching?
Would that have an impact on the brand? Would it make customers feel a wee bit closer to your business if you did it this way?
Consider this: webinars have a way of clocking 30-40% conversion rates (also live, with an audience watching and taking action because others do).
If you did customer support proactively like you do Webinars, would this also translate into sales? Would someone attending your Facebook live Customer Support session end up buying your products or service, all the while the session is on?
That’s something for you to think about.
I can barely get a video up let alone go live and unscripted on Facebook live.
I, for one, am aware of the potential but I typically freeze with video. I need to work up my confidence to get on Facebook live.
Read:
The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Live Streaming
Want to make your live streams stand out on Facebook Live? Customization options like overlays, animated backgrounds, split screens, and background music can make your live stream more engaging and memorable.
Learn how to customize your live stream for Facebook using Restream Studio.
What about you? What Facebook Live ideas do you think are worth pursuing? Are you using Facebook Live yet?
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