The Sweet Spot of Live Streaming

Edit: ?? As of 13th of March, I'm the first creator using LinkedIn Live outside of USA. Check out my stream here, lots of engagement and people sharing there thoughts:

Link to the Livestream video here

?? Livestreaming is being rolled on LinkedIn and I’m excited.

This was the first video I recorded on LinkedIn, and had over 1,800 likes and 500k views. Why should we care about this pre-recorded video? Well, it was recorded as if it was a live stream. @Mehak rapped about startups, and towards the end, there were a lot of knowledge bomb about how to grow on LinkedIn.

In this attention economy. People want to be entertained with video, and when it comes to business, we want value.

Translation: peeps on LinkedIn want both - to be entertained and gain insights.

If you can deliver both, you hit the sweet spot.

There are many formats to consider when live streaming;

1. You talking directly to the camera/audience

2. You talking with others on camera, but not talking to the audience

?? Engage Your Audience With Attention

Let’s turn the limelight on Twitch, a live streaming gaming platform. The most popular gamer, Ninja, spent more than 3,800 hours (that’s an equivalent of 95x 40-hour work week) streaming to his 12 million followers.

Ninja’s channel is Twitch’s most watched of 2018, he amassed over 226.85 hours of streaming and rake about $500,000USD per month. Gaming is serious business.

As a business, he fits into more an entertainer than a content creator, but still this is a creative field worth considering. There are many colleges and universities setting up e-sport hubs to cultivate the next generation of gamers.

What can we learn from Ninja?

If you watch his streams, he shows both analytical tactics, and he is entertaining to watch. We trained our brains to consume content that is worth our while. Still, I believe we crave good conversations and insights that engages with our mind.

What does that mean for business…I understand that maintaining a brand image is important, but one doesn’t go on video to maintain a pristine image. Go on camera to relate and attract the attention of your prospect. When you have that attention, provide them with substance to help them grow.

?? Trigger The Algo-Sugar or Not?

Consider triggering the LinkedIn-algo-sugar by focusing on interaction. That means engaging in comments. It’s about your audience, not you. From my experience of running a 1 hour live stream, the first 10 minutes is to warm up your audience.

The algo-sugar likes feeding on energy of the audience, commenting is key. The more comments, the more engagement. Pre-recorded video focuses on maintaining attention. Live streams work differently, it’s about engaging and interacting with the audience.

Remember to acknowledge your audience and reply to their comments. If you’re streaming an open discussion, ask viewers for their opinions. If it’s an interview, let your audience ask questions and then select the most interesting ones.

How To Leverage Live Stream Efficiently

I collected over 500+ interviews with entrepreneurs using Facebook Live, and this technique can be used on any LIVE channel, from Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

I developed this technique, because of 2 things:

1. I wanted people to rewatch the video interviews.
2. I’m efficient, actually I didn’t want to edit, so I learn how to format interviews to provide insights and knowledge bombs in less then 5 minutes.

After that many interviews, I also learn that it’s important:

• ?? To ask relevant and interesting questions
• ?? Learn how to cut and navigate the conversation, it’s our role to craft the conversation. We want our interviewees to look good.
• ??Be present, and show that you’re sincerely curious about their subject matter.

Another format is to think about the 101 ways to re-use content. Did you know that video can be stripped as an audio and turned into a podcast, or be embedded into a blog post?

Let's use Joe Rogan as an example. He has a popular podcast series called Joe Rogan Experience. He is well known for his long form conversations with well known people and goes deep into topics. Like this 2hour something with Elon Musk. This video was streamed on YouTube and was eventually distributed and turned into a podcast episode.

Just make sure you invest in awesome audio equipment - consider the following brands: Rode, Blue or Audio Technica.

?? String's Guide on Live-streaming for business, use this to help grow your business by:

1. Sharing live events and conference. Share your insights and your key learnings.
2. Interviewing super smart peeps in your industry, see Joe Rogan's format above.
3. Doing short live interviews to increase engagement. This is great for conferences, do a series of them.
4. Showing your office and culture, have an office tour. Interview your employees or clients. This can be a good way to recruitment tool. For companies, show the human side of your business by offering personal ideas and opinions
5. Becoming the go-to-reference or resource for x topic. Set the frequency to weekly shows on the x topic. As humans, we're naturally avid learners.
6. Launching your products or services, celebrate it with your peeps
7. If you’re an artist, turn the stream and show your process of making art, it’s pretty therapeutic to watch
8. Setting up a Q&A, this is a great way to engage in conversation.
9. Gaining real-time feedback from your community, I love asking for the opinions of others as it’s a more organic way of doing market research
10. Reviewing products or services
11. Running a fried chicken party and have fun

There are so many ways to engage and use live streams. Still, are you ready for live streams?

?? And if you happen to want help getting ready for the camera, consider joining my Master Your Video community. We help professionals gain confidence on camera in a supportive area.

Join Master Your Video... masteryourvideo.com/48for48

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