Today I’m going to share with you five key tips when it comes to really crushing it and really making a good Facebook Live, because, let’s face it, right now Facebook Live is one of the best ways to get traction on Facebook. It’s one of the best ways to get engagement and followers and business, and there’s lots of great things, but there’s nothing worse than going on Facebook Live and you have two people who show up, and maybe one of them’s your mom. So how can you really make the most of it? Here are five quick tips!
Tip number one. Plan ahead. You’ve got to plan ahead. Figure out what is the topic you’re going to talk about, when are you going to broadcast, and then really brainstorm. Whenever I do a Facebook Live I’m definitely not scripted, but I always have a little bit of a cheat sheet. I have some notes; I have some ideas of the points I want to make; the content I want to share; and so just planning ahead. Not just doing it on a whim.
Now by the way, there’s always some time in life to go live on Facebook on a whim. We were in Maui earlier this year, and I was just overcome with the beautifulness … is that a word? Beautifulness of Maui, and so, we did a Facebook Live. That wasn’t planned, I just whipped out my phone and did it, which was awesome.
But if you are using Facebook Live as a way to build your business, plan ahead. Think about the topic; what it is you want to cover. If you want to invite someone on your Facebook Live, let them know, in advance, of course. Give them a little bit of preparation; figure out what topics that you want. Also think about what’s your goal. What’s your call to action at the end? Are you driving people to your website? Are you driving people to engage with you on Facebook? Whatever that might be. So number one: plan ahead.
Tip number two is to promote in advance. You’ve got to promote your Facebook Live if you want people to be there. We use a tool called belive.tv to schedule a lot of our Facebook Lives, especially over on our business page, which is great. You can schedule a broadcast up to seven days in advance, which means now you’ve got this link right there on your Facebook business page, so I can share that link with my email database; I can share it over on Twitter; I can share it over on Instagram; I can share it over on Snapchat, and really promote the fact that we’re going to be live.
I will tell you though, when the best promotion happens: usually the day before, or right before you go live on Facebook, so before you go live on Facebook, whether or not you’re scheduling it or not, promote it ahead of time. If you moderate a group or two; if you run a business page; if you are on Twitter; whatever your social media platforms are, make it part of your process that, ten or fifteen minutes, maybe an hour or so, you do a few posts promoting the fact that you are going to be live. That’s really, really important. You can’t just go live and expect a bunch of people to show up, so promote ahead of time. That’s really key.
My third tip is check your setup before you’re actually live. This is really important. You want to check your framing of how you are framed, you want to check your lighting, you want to check your sound, and this is especially important if you’re doing a Facebook Live with anyone else. A lot of times I see folks doing a Facebook Live where they’re doing a Facebook Live with someone else in the screen, so maybe you’re interviewing someone else on your business page, or somewhere on Facebook. If you’ve got two people in a broadcast, you want to make sure that you’re testing your sound. You also want to make sure that your framing looks okay, so if I’m framed like this, you don’t want the other person to be falling off the screen. You want to check your framing, check to see how you are with lighting and everything, so check your setup ahead of time.
A lot of times, especially with Facebook, if you’ve never done this before, you can actually go onto your personal profile with Facebook, and in your settings you can do a Facebook Live only to yourself. There’s a little setting that says, “Only me,” which means you’re broadcasting only to yourself. Why would you do this? This is a great thing to do if you’ve never gone live on Facebook, because then it’ll give you a sense of what it looks like, and where the buttons are. If you’re a little bit nervous about doing a Facebook Live, again, do that over on your personal profile. Click the settings to Only Me, and you can test it out, and then you can delete it afterwards if it’s terrible. If it’s great, great. Keep it up there. But that’s just a little bit of a hack to really prepare yourself ahead of time.
Now if you’re a little bit more advanced, and you’re scheduling your broadcast in advance using a tool like belive.tv, like I mentioned, you could, ahead of time, check out your sound and your lighting and just make sure that everything is good to go. You also want to be on the strongest internet signal possible.
So if you’re on a Facebook Live, you want to make sure you’re closing out your other windows. Here’s a little bonus tip. If you have not restarted your computer in a long time, or your phone, and you’re going live, restart your phone; restart your computer, depending on what device you’re using. That might sound funny to hear, but live-streaming takes up an enormous amount of bandwidth, and that simple act of restarting actually helps to make that broadcast even crisper and cleaner, so make sure you do that. You also want to make sure you’re closing out your other windows, especially if you have things like Skype or Zoom or GoToMeeting … anything like that open, you want to make sure you’ve got those closed out before you go live. That’s really important.
Tip number four is deliver. Deliver. There’s nothing worse than watching someone’s Facebook Live and they spend the first ten minutes going, “okay, we’re waiting for people to tune in.” No. When you start, you start. So know how you’re going to start, know what you’re going to talk about in the middle, and then know how you’re going to wrap it up, and deliver. If you’re going to take someone’s time to watch you live, or to watch the recording, provide some really good content.
And so what we’re seeing are agents and brokers who are using Facebook Live really well, is that they’re providing valuable content. They’re sharing tips on getting your home ready for the market. They’re interviewing their local lender. They’re talking with their stager. They’re talking with other folks in their community, and they’re really providing great value. So if you’re going to go live on Facebook, deliver.
Now, I will say the fist few times you go live on Facebook it’s nerve-wracking. It’ll probably be terrible, you’ll have three people who tune in, but let me just say it gets easier. The more you do it, the easier it gets. It’s like a muscle. I promise.
Tip number five. This is one of the most important parts of creating a Facebook Live that does not suck, and that is, promote the replay. Because you know, most people are watching a replay, more so than actually watching it live, ever. So promote the replay. Once the replay is done, you can share out that replay link to your email database. You can re-share it on Facebook a few days later. We do this all the time. If I do a Facebook Live on a Friday, the next Monday or Tuesday I will re-share that Facebook Live, and I’ll say something like, “Hey, in case you missed us live last week, catch the replay.”
So share that replay link. If you’re active on Twitter you can share that link out on Twitter and send out a couple of tweets with maybe a few relevant local hashtags. You can do that over on Instagram. You can do that on Snapchat. You can do that on various platforms, but promote the replay. Don’t just let it sit there. That’s really valuable.
This is also really valuable if you’re using Facebook Live to highlight other people. So if you’ve created a strategy where you’re being really intentional, and highlighting other people in your industry or in your community, make sure you send them the replay. And then ask for them to share it. Say, “Hey, here’s a copy of the replay. It would be awesome if you would share this also, on your Facebook page,” or wherever you’d like them to share. Be specific. Promote the replay. That is what it’s all about.
I want to hear from you. Are you broadcasting on Facebook Live? Let me know, yes or no, in the comments below, and let’s connect on Facebook. I’d love to know what your Facebook business page is, so drop your link below in the chat so we can connect.
