@micaela_mh
8 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Live Stream
Learn how to plan and generate more engagement with your live streams
In the past year, Lives have only continued to grow in importance and popularity. Besides serving as an alternative to in-person events, Lives offer a unique opportunity for content producers to engage in real-time with a global audience.
A great addition to any social media calendar, Lives are an excellent way to build closeness with your audience, create content catered to their interests, and increase your engagement.
Here are a few simple ways you can better prepare for and execute your next Live:
Understand your audience
To engage with your audience, you need to know when they're available. By using analytics and checking trends on social platforms, you can identify at what times your followers are typically online, as well as the time zone where the majority are based. If you're still having a hard time narrowing down when to host your Live, you can even ask your audience directly by using quizzes on your stories or having them leave comments on a specific post.
Watch Lives
The popularity of the Live format means that there are tons of great examples online that you can use for inspiration. Get into the mindset of your target audience and try to find ones that appeal to their interests, either watching old archived Lives or joining ones in progress to interact with other commenters. As you watch, take notes about things you like and things you would like to do differently.
Pick your format and plan
Even seemingly informal Lives require some planning to be pulled off successfully. Sketching out a rough structure and having an estimated end time will help things run more smoothly. Popular Live formats include tutorials, challenges, and conversations. Having a clear vision of what your Live is about will make it easier to tell viewers what they can expect, making your advertising more effective.
Advertise the event
While it might sound obvious, the work you do in the lead-up to your Live is crucial to its success. When promoting it, make sure that information about where and when the Live will be hosted is clear and easy to find, and that you specify your time zone. Promote the event through multiple posts, ideally spaced out over a week to increase the chances of people seeing them. In addition to laying this groundwork in the days before your event, it's also good to issue a last-minute reminder or countdown, either in your feed or stories, to help capture last-minute followers.
Troubleshoot tech problems
Take time to prepare your setup and test it, and do so at least an hour before your Live begins. By having these details ready way ahead of time, you’ll avoid the stress of rushing around and beginning a Live already exhausted. Having a backup plan is always ideal - if your wifi fails, can you connect using an ethernet cable? If you’re using your phone, is it fully charged, and do you have easy access to a charger and outlet? Double-checking these details beforehand will free you up during the Live to better engage and interact with your audience.
Leave the comments on
Spontaneity is one of the things that makes Lives so interesting, so it's good to find ways to work it in regardless of the format you choose. Encouraging questions and comments incentivizes people to tune in live, and these interactions make for a more interesting and engaging experience for your audience. Because social media algorithms pay attention to engagement, this will also help you generate greater reach with new audiences.
See what works
Because Lives offer a rare opportunity to interact in real-time with your audience, they’re a great chance to learn more about what sort of content and formats they respond best to. While it’s important to plan ahead and know what you are going to cover, make sure to also allow for some flexibility. Pay attention to what people respond to and give them more of that, so that your Live feels more like an interaction and less like a lecture.
Reuse your Live content
Your Live may have ended, but that doesn't mean you're done with it. Whether you make it available for later viewing or choose to repurpose select clips as tutorials or promos for future events, a well-done Live is a great addition to your larger library of content. On top of that, you can also use any unanswered questions or popular comments left by your audience as inspiration when picking topics for future Lives.
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