ARE YOU GOING LIVE YET?

 So, live video is an amazing tool, but, something a lot of people shy away from as it scares them, they’re worried about looking like a nobhead, uninformed, and worst of all, having no audience to watch. Can I be honest with you? Nobody is going to come and watch your content, nobody cares about you, BUT, this will not be forever……..OK, we’ve got that out the way. 

The fact of the matter is, the level of perfection we spoke about in the earlier chapter puts a lot of people off going live, also the question “what am I going to speak about” often get’s asked, and what if nobody watches me, amongst many other reasons for not going live. The fact of the matter is they generally all result in one thing…….FEAR.

Now, I’m not a confidence coach, if you want to speak to one, I know some excellent people who can help you, but, this process is designed to help you over come that level of imposter syndrome and help you understand you can do this stuff.

The fact of the matter is, you’ve already written about the subject you’re going to do a live video on, and it’s live, right now in your blog content, so this removes those fear issues of, what am I going to speak about, what if nobody cares etc. etc. You’re a “VOICE OF AUTHORITY” on the subject matter in a written format, so speaking about it is the next step, especially when you’re the face of the business.

Now, this stage is in no way designed to force you into going live. However, right now, in 2019, the power of going live on the platform of your choice where the audience is, is such a massively powerful tool, it’d be foolish to not make great use of it, especially on platforms like Facebook where it’s also easy to get hold of the content post going live (which is exceptionally important to the process).

THE 5P’S

This is my golden rule. We’re about to cover off a bunch of ways I work with my clients on to make sure they’re ready to go live. So what are the 5P’S?

PREPARATION

PREVENTS

PISS

POOR

PERFORMANCE

The whole point of this ethos……if you go into doing your live video prepared, then there’s no chance that your content will involve any form of “Piss Poor Performance”. So, how do you make sure you going into creating your live video prepared and ready to be the best you can be? We’ve already discussed the fact you’ve written your blog, and that you’re a voice of authority, so what else can you do with your content to make sure you’re comfortable when you hit that live button?

BULLET POINTS

So, before you go live at all, you need to put a little bit of work in. Remember I spoke about those amazing resonating points in your blog, and how important it was to have 3 or 4 of them and have them in your blogs, not just for making that content shareable and interesting, but, it’s something you can use in the live content. 

The fact is, bullet points are your friends, so make them work for you. Take those amazing points you wrote about in your blog and write them down. These are going to become guide points for you as you go live. They’ll help you tell your story, and speak about your blog content, but will remind you where you’re going with it, and the journey you’re going to take the audience on.

So, where do you write them down. This brings me onto my first big tip for live video content. 

STICKY NOTES ARE YOUR FRIENDS

One of the major problems for a lot of people when they go live using a phone, tablet or even a webcam is where to look. Connecting with the audience by speaking into the lens is imperative, however it’s not always that easy.

You put the camera in front of you, with the screen facing you so you can be sure you’re set up right and in shot, and then suddenly, you start the live, and find yourself speaking to yourself rather than the lens and the audience behind it, it’s natural, and you’re doing nothing wrong, except, how would it feel face to face if someone was speaking over your shoulder and not to your eyes? Exactly, it wouldn’t be a great conversation would it, so you need to treat this the same way, when you’re looking at your stunning self on the screen, you’re not talking to the audience.

So, here’s where sticky notes come in, you can kill two birds with one stone.

1. Write your bullet points down on the sticky note to refer back too

2. Stick the note(s) over the screen so you can’t see you’re gorgeous face anymore

Just those two steps will force you to talk to the lens and also give you a reference card for your main resonating points to talk about and add into your live video.

GOING LIVE

So, you’re about to go live, you’re a voice of authority in your subject matter, you’ve got your bullet points ready to go to help speak to the audience and tell the story of your blog content. So, how should you structure a live video. 

I get asked this a lot, along with the question, how long should a live video be. You’re about to have a heart attack, but, aim to be over 10 minutes, especially if you’re going live on Facebook. The site adores live video, and if it’s around this time length, as long as people watch through it, the algorithm will pick this up and push the content in front of more people. It’s like writing the longer content in your blogs to get it in front of more people through sharing etc.

So, what’s the process you can follow to make doing 10 minutes possible, it sounds a really long time, but, you’ll be amazed how easily you’ll manage it, especially with 4 bullet points to keep the story flowing for the audience.

1. Introduce yourself, nobody knows who the hell you are, and even if they do, the new people joining your channel will not, so make sure they know who you are, what you do, where you do it etc. etc. Don’t waffle on for ever, but, give them a good 60 / 90 second introduction to you and what you’re there to help them with

2. Once you’ve introduced yourself, it’s into the subject matter at hand, so this is your blog content, use the bullet points you’ve taken down to help you flow the story you’re talking about and make sure you’re giving value, but you know the subject matter well, you’ve researched it, written about it, it’s your arena and people are coming to learn not to laugh

3. Give people a CTA (Call to action). This isn’t a chance for you to throw a sales pitch at the audience, this is a chance to open the floor to more discussions, maybe an email to create a connection, remember, social media is all about being SOCIAL, it’s not a selling tool, not until you enter the realms of advertising instead of plain and simple communicative content.

GET STARTED

For the love of everything, please do not do what you see so often in live content. 

The amount of people who seem to forget the video will be live on their profile going forwards, but, still choose to start their video with the words “we’ll just wait until a few people join us”. 

I said this in not so many words earlier, but, “YOU ARE NOT GARY VEE, YOU’RE NOT SARA BLAKLEY, YOU’RE NOT GRANT CARDONE”. Be prepared for nobody to come and watch you when you go live, but, you must remember this content will live, beyond the live video. Don’t sit and wait for people to come and join you, in turn alienating and annoying anyone who comes to watch the content after the live, and has to wait 5 minutes for you to start. Crack straight into your introduction the minute you press “GO LIVE” and keep on going. 

Feel free to recognise new people joining the live if they do, and if questions are asked go back to them at the end of the live content if they’re relevant to the content matter (don’t deviate half way through your story based piece).

TALKING TO, NOT AT YOUR AUDIENCE

So, you’re prepared for your live video, you know your structure, what you’re going to be speaking about, and you know how to not look at yourself too. You have it all planned out, you’ve got your 3 or 4 great resonating moments / bullet points to help you talk about your blog subject as a true voice of authority. 

However, how do you talk to, not at your audience?

This is something I struggled with as a radio presenter. 

My first snoop (listen back to a show with the boss) went something like this. “Simon, how’re you going to connect with the listener. Right now you’re talking at them, they won’t want to be your mate or go for a pint with you, you need to create an emotional connection”. So off I went with those words ringing in my ears, how the hell was I going to make a connection with the audience when they’re not there for me to bounce off, to respond to what I’m saying or more importantly, for me to talk to. 

That’s when it struck me, what I needed was something to replace them in the studio, something that meant I was able to connect and talk to them without them all being in the studio with me. 

I placed a small stuffed toy on the window sill just behind the mic and started talking to him. YES it was a bit odd. However, it felt instantly different, having that thing to talk to made all the difference. Obviously he didn’t talk back to me or laugh at my jokes (it’d be really fucking scary if he did) but, it made all the difference to my style of communication to an invisible audience. 

This is how you need to approach your live video content, place a soft toy behind the lens, a photo of a best friend, your partner, a loved one, just someone or something you can talk to, rather than worrying about the audience behind the lens or the picture of you on the screen. 

Make sure it’s behind the lens and nowhere else, and you’ll absolutely fly and feel the difference instantly yourself too.

STICK TO A SCHEDULE

So, this is it, you’re going live….but when?

Sticking to a schedule is massively important. It’s how you can really begin to build a group of raving fans who’ll watch your content on a regular basis. 

As humans, we like schedules, especially when it comes to consuming other peoples content. If we know when something is going to happen, we make time in our day to consume it…..i.e EASTENDERS, BIG BROTHER etc. etc.

When I worked in radio, we used schedules all the time to gain peak audiences at specific times. So, we’d do that big competition where it was a cash prizes at a specific time, and we’d talk about that competition before hand to drag them round the radio clock and into the event live on the wireless.

So, when you go live, be sure this is a time and day you’re able to do every single week. Stick to the schedule, and people will know exactly when to come back to your channel, week in, week out to consume your content. Even better, you’re able to create events on channels like Facebook and create content drawing people back into the events diary, so people are able to add it to their calendar on the platform and be alerted as to when you’re going live.

So, now you know when you’re going live……crack on and do it, I could go on into how to go live on different platforms, but, it’s different for not only the platforms but also the tools you’re using to go live, so I’m sure you can figure that out for yourselves, and if not drop me a line.

There's so much more to live video, set design, lighting, what to do with it afterwards, but, hopefully this article just gets you started.