You’ve decided to try your first Facebook Live!  Congratulations.  When you decide to market Live, you will reach a different audience than your normal scheduled video posts.  Facebook will notify every follower of your page as soon as you go live.  Live’s audience engagement is heightened when you are broadcasting so that your followers can interact with real time comments and emoji’s.  These features all work to expand your reach.  Making the decision to do a Facebook live means your social media marketing will grow stronger.

All advertising, even social media, include both reach and frequency. Both are affected when you choose to do a Live event.  The way Facebook places the notification that your business is live into all followers news feed, puts your business in front of followers who have not commented, or liked your posts in the past months. Suddenly you are reaching more and different fans!  It brings that follower back to your page and will continue to engage them in the future weeks. For example, most small pages have a few thousand followers.  If your page has 5000 followers, you may find you only reach around 1000 with regular and consistent posts.  When you go live, you might reach an additional 500 followers that have not seen a post in many many months. Each live you create will reach more of those “Hidden” followers. 

FREQUENCY IS KEY

Frequency is the second part of Live marketing.  Each time you do a live broadcast, you are picking up more inactive followers.  The time of day will determine how many and who you reach.  By varying the times of your live broadcast you are connecting with your followers when it’s convenient for them to hear your message.  Try picking different days, and different times of day. The more often you conduct a facebook live event, the more successful your social media marketing will become.

TIPS FOR GOING LIVE

Before you push that golden button and start your session, let’s talk about some tips.  First, decide how long you want to be live.  Since you’re just starting out, keep it short.  You may get nervous, you may realize that talking by yourself is a little weird, and you might simply forget all the things you wanted to say!  Plan to keep your first live around 5 minutes.  It helps if you have “things” to help you remember what you wanted to talk about.  Line up your products so you do not forget.   During a 5 minute session, you would be able to show 6 items.  

Next, let people know you’re going to be live, before you’re actually live.  Make a post the day before your live event telling your followers that tomorrow at the same time, you’re going to be hosting an event.  Invite them to create a watch party, and to plan to join you.  

Remember to breathe!  Taking a short break and taking a deep breath may seem like a long pause to you but it will be barely noticable to others.  Also, try to slow your rate of speaking.  As most people get nervous, they talk faster and make more mistakes.  Your dialogue only seems slow to you!  Take your time. 

Think about the ending, before you start.  How will you end your session?  Will you be asking for action from the viewers?  What is it you would like people to do while watching, and when finishing your facebook live?  You will need to know this before you start.  Be very clear with those watching.  Tell them exactly what you want from them.  For example, if your purpose is to find new followers through friends of your page, maybe you want them to share your video on their timeline.  If your live is to sell products,  maybe you want them to private message you to purchase an item.  

One final tip for your very first Facebook live.  Just doing it is a success.  It will reach more followers.  It will place your business name in front of more people.  You will get better and better at doing it.  So you’ve already succeeded when you decide to do a Facebook live.