3 Tips on Using Facebook LIVE for Event Marketing

Live videos are thrilling to watch. And with the increasing popularity of Facebook LIVE, marketers and event organizers should take notice. Fifty-two percent of marketers worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. For event organizers, live streaming through free mediums like Facebook Live can be an attendance-boosting strategy. Digitell reports than 30% of people who watch a live stream of an event will attend the same event the following year.

Beyond that, Facebook LIVE can be used to add a level of excitement and intrigue to webinars and other engagement activities. There’s a certain thrill you get when recording live. Whether you’re using Facebook, Periscope, or YouTube, seeing your live viewer count rise as you record is pretty exciting. But it’s not as simple as pointing and shooting your video. Since your broadcast is in real time, your audience can see and hear everything so it’s crucial that you’re prepared and know what you’re doing.

We recently did our first live webinar on Facebook which proved to be a great learning experience and a lot of fun. Here’s what we learned:

1) Get Techy

Make sure you have the right tech for the job. This really depends on the complexity of your video. But for starters, your internet speed is key to your success. Since a live broadcast requires a lot of bandwidth, make sure to have a fast connection. If possible, try for a connection through an ethernet cable instead of WiFi for stability.

Now if you’re simply shooting straight from your mobile phone, you can skip ahead to the next tip. But if you’re looking to amp up your game, you can stream from a laptop and use software like OBS or Wirecast that allow you to switch between multiple cameras, audio sources, overlay graphics, and much more. Check out Animoto’s Social Video Marketing Summit that was hosted live.

2) Get Prepared

Remember that you’re broadcasting live, so there is little room for error. The best way to avoid any issues is to prepare. Create a video storyboard to help you concept the broadcast to organize your thoughts and to create a sequence for your video. During your broadcast, you can follow along with your storyboard to stay on track.

Also, it’s a good idea to get familiar with Facebook LIVE before you press that record button. The process is slightly different on the mobile and desktop version of Facebook so get comfortable with both. Facebook provides a preview of your video so you can check how your lighting and framing looks before you broadcast to the public. Keep in mind the preview will not necessarily match the quality of the final broadcast so a solid work around is creating a temporary (fake) Facebook page and broadcasting there to view how a final broadcast will look.

3) Get Talking

Just like any online content, you need to spread the word to grow your audience. You should create a promotional strategy for every stage of the broadcast — before, during, and after.

Use Facebook and other social media channels to promote the live broadcast two-to-three days before, one day before, and the day of for best results. You can post about your upcoming broadcast on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn or you can schedule the broadcast on Facebook to generate an announcement and allow people to sign up for a reminder.

During your broadcast you can continue to promote your broadcast with social media. Encourage your team members to share with their networks as well. When the broadcast is finished, you can choose to save the video and create a post on your Facebook page or you can keep it private. There are also some advanced distribution settings if you want to fine tune the privacy of your video. Keep in mind that if you post your video, by default it will appear on all your followers’ news feeds. You can then further encourage people to watch the recording of your broadcast on your social channels or through an email campaign.

Going live on Facebook is not as simple as posting an edited and polished video, but fortunately Facebook has made it a pretty seamless process. If you needed another reason to go live, Facebook actually favors live video content on its platform so you will get much more exposure on Facebook than other content like images or links.

Stay tuned for EventMobi’s next live broadcast on our Facebook Page.

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