LinkedIn Live Events - The Why, What, & How To

As I write this, I have just closed out the 7th LinkedIn Live I have either led or supported for our business. You can check out two of them on the NeuroMaker STEM events page and 5, so far, on BrainRobotics. You may notice one specific thing about all of these, only one out of the 7 truly focuses on just the product. All others discuss topics within the industry. But why? Well, let's dive in!

The Why:

For me, there are a few reasons for why to do these webinars. You may not agree with them or have different reasons but this is what's worked so far:

1. It's a GREAT lead/prospect generator - read on to see how many people sign on on average to our webinars
2. Thought leadership - discussing topics beyond just yourself. It's been said time and time again that only talking about yourself gets boring and at some point people don't want to hear it anymore. Now, if you are offering a certification or credit of some kind for your own product overviews, that's a different story and LinkedIn Live probably shouldn't be your platform.
3. SEO - In some cases it might be a stretch, but think beyond just the LinkedIn Live itself. You can download the recording, post it to youtube, get a transcription of the whole conversation and use it for a blog or whatever else you'd like.

The What:

One of the "whats" we should get out of the way is, WHAT could possibly go wrong? And the answer is, many things, so just be prepared.

Here are two personal stories that nearly made my heart stop:

• The time when I was leading a webinar and when it was time to go live I either kept us all on, instead of hiding the other presenters, once I realized this I started again but this time hid all of us and no one could hear anything, and then finally realized that all this time I had never even hit the Go Live button so I had to start from the top for the third time. That one really rattled me, but perhaps not as much as...
• The time when 5 minutes before going live my computer decided to die. Completely dead, no signal, nothing. I had to scramble and grab a home computer and pull everything together in seconds and get us up and running - no one on the other side of the screen knew anything went wrong.

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• However, the real what is the what platform should I use to run my LinkedIn Live?

I have chosen streamyard for its pure simplicity. LinkedIn gives a pretty good overview of all your options and how to run everything so I'll leave it to you, but I really enjoy streamyard just make sure your account is a business one, at $25/month, as they seem to have just recently stopped allowing you to download recordings from a free account.

• You may also be wondering, well WHAT do we talk about? I can tell you one thing that so far has proven not to be THE thing, and that's ourselves.

Of the 7 webinars I've held, only 1 has been about our prosthetic hand, and it got the fewest number of sign ups. If we pull that one out, on average we've had over 100 people sign up for our webinars, which makes it a GREAT lead/prospect generator.

Go beyond your product or solution. What's worked best is to discuss industry relevant topics that apply to all clinicians, manufacturers, etc.

Ask yourself - What does my audience care about?

In our case it's fitting the prosthesis, getting good outcomes, being able to get reimbursed for the product, etc. These are the topics I look to cover with the right guests of honor who can share their own expert advice and get the conversations and questions going.

This way, not only does your audience see you as a great connector, but also a brand that understands its customers beyond just trying to sell them something.

The How To:

This part is probably the easiest. My process is as follows -

• At the beginning of this year I set out to do 4 LinkedIn Lives this year, one per quarter so it doesn't get overwhelming and so I don't overpromise and under deliver. I planned out my 4 topics, one of them being a product highlight, and went with that.

I began thinking about the guests that I wanted to have on and began reaching out. Now, for the webinar I held in January, all of that was pretty much cemented before the holidays.

• Once I have my guest speakers nailed down and confirmed, with a date and time, I set up the event in LinkedIn. I make sure that I have a solid two weeks before we go live to drum up excitement and talk about what's coming. I encourage the guests to also share, but it's not mandatory.

You can choose to share the LinkedIn Live event on your personal LinkedIn, on other social channels, or in a newsletter that you may already send out to your audience.

• Now the critical part is selecting that you intend to use a LinkedIn sign up form. This opens a drop down and you can put a link to your privacy policy in there. This allows you to later download the full sign up list.
• What I offer my guests as a thank you, because I don't have a marketing budget which would allow me to reimburse them for their time, is the full sign up list and the recording of the webinar. This way they get just as much out of this as we do. Potential new connections and a digital asset that they can use however they choose to.

That's all there is to it:

Why: Great lead gen opportunity, becoming a thought leader, SEO

What: Prepare for the unexpected, select your streaming platform, plan your topics

How To: Think about frequency, who your guests will be, how you'll promote

What shall we discuss next? What's irking you? Is it all this AI talk?

Looking for someone to talk about your plans & where to get started? Let's chat!