At Delineo, we’re always looking for new and exciting ways we can help our clients engage with their customers. As a digital marketing agency, we believe it’s important to constantly push ourselves and our clients out of their comfort zones. It’s only by doing this that we can achieve truly memorable campaigns.
Last month, we made our first foray into the world of Facebook Live, something we’ve been wanting to try out for some time now. Working with Co-op Insurance, we live streamed footage of Bertie, our Creative Director Leigh’s 9-month-old miniature schnauzer.
Find out how it went: Dog Friday goes live with Co-op Insurance
As Facebook Live continues to grow in popularity, we’re seeing a growing number of brands take the leap. However, while some are getting it right, there are plenty of others that are getting it very, very wrong.
As with any new technology, it can be tempting to dive straight in head first – maybe you’re just excited or maybe you want to be the first to do it. But as we all know, if you don’t have a strategy in place, things rarely end well.
Like the old saying goes, fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
So, if you’re wondering how to use Facebook Live, here are a few things you should keep in mind.
Give people a reason to stop and watch
Your video may autoplay in people’s News Feeds, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stop to watch it. First of all, videos autoplay on mute until someone engages with them. And on top of this, think how many things you scroll past on Facebook on a daily basis – how many do you actually stop and engage with?
You need to stand out and get noticed.
Make sure your video is as visually engaging as possible, to entice people to stop, turn the volume on and watch. Whether that’s by keeping the camera moving, rather than focussed in one place, or making sure there’s something exciting happening.
The more people engage with your video, the higher the broadcast will appear in other people’s News Feeds, meaning it will reach more people. As well as likes, shares and comments, Facebook looks at video specific engagement metrics, such as turning the volume on, switching to full-screen and enabling high definition.
Broadcast for longer periods of time
Facebook Live allows you to broadcast for up to 90 minutes at a time. Now, we’re not saying you need to go for the full 90, but the longer your broadcast, the more likely people are to come across it and hopefully engage. You should be aiming for a minimum of 10-15 minutes.
Interact with your audience
If your audience engage with you by commenting on your video, don’t let it be a one-way street – comment back! You can either call them out by name in your video – which commenters love – or reply to them in the comments. Ideally, you’ll have someone monitoring and responding to comments from a desktop computer while you focus on the video.
Don’t forget to sign off
Don’t just end the video suddenly, let your audience know it’s coming to an end. Thank them for watching, let them know if you’ll be broadcasting again soon, encourage them to like and share the video and remind them to subscribe to live notifications so they don’t miss your next broadcast!
Looking for a Manchester-based digital marketing agency to help you engage with your customers? Get in touch with us to see how we can help.