Live Streaming: A great tool for social media
Whether the objective is brand awareness, communicating the benefits of your product/service, or convincing them to purchase your product/service, your business will want to reach the maximum amount of people to guarantee a great return on investment - and what a better tool than social media to do so?
Optimise your reach
A great method is to share a private video link with your audience via your website, newsletters or personal messaging making them feel privileged to have the exclusive access to your live streaming. However, even if you only want to share a private link with your current database as an exclusivity, it is always a plus to re-broadcast your live streaming on your social media platforms and to boost the content, to give your company more visibility and attract the attention of potential customers you probably didn’t even think about. This is a great technique to increase your brand awareness, especially if it is an event, webinar, product launch or demonstration of the services your company provides.
To give a sample of your event to your audience
If you think live streaming your event will deprive you of some potential attendees who prefer to enjoy it from home you are not completely wrong, but don’t neglect it as in a long run this might attract new customers! Yes, live streaming is a great way to showcase your event and if you want to do so, ask professionals to help you to guarantee the quality of the streaming and thereby enhance the promotion of your event, remembering quality equals credibility.
A lot of potential customers will look at the live streaming of your event and if you have convinced them of your professionalism, good chances are that they will attend your next scheduled event! It’s like live music - you don’t buy a ticket for the concert of an artist you don’t know - you first listen to their work and if you like what you hear then you generally want to enjoy it live… It’s the same with live streaming events!
If it is not an event but a product launch, for example, the process is the same, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your product to your audience and its benefits via live streaming. If you allow Q&A it’s even easier for your audience to ask their questions directly, and if they are interested in the product, they will probably come to a store to try it themselves (e.g: car launch) or purchase online directly.
Create engagement
Engagement is key in social media. You want your potential clients to engage and interact with you to create a more personal approach, give them advice, answer to their questions and gain their trust by creating a relationship with them.
A good way to do so is by using different tools during your live streaming. Q&A and poles will be your go-to tools to engage with the audience and communicate directly with them, minimising the delay of response that can sometimes occur via email or chatbots on your website. By responding directly to them and creating real-time engagement you avoid the time-lapse pitfall which could represent the time your potential customers could be searching for your competitors.
Easy to access
It is now very easy and accessible to everyone to live stream on social media, from every platform you’d like to use. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Periscope (Twitter) are all great for live streaming. Other platforms like LinkedIn are great to re-broadcast your live streaming. You will need to keep in mind there is a time limit for videos on some platforms. For example LinkedIn allows you to upload videos of a maximum length of 10min, stories are generally of a 15sec length on Instagram, you can now use IGTV which allow you to post longer videos. The time limit of the platforms is important but the most important is to keep your audience alert and get their attention for the entire duration of your streaming.
Make sure you know the rules