Why Live Video Is Important in 2020

Implementing a live video strategy is a must-have for marketers who want to stand out, get noticed, and engage their audience. According to Livestream, 80% of audiences would prefer to watch a live video than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video over a social media post.

Today’s consumers are craving live social videos from their favorite brands, so much so that Facebook gives preference to live videos over prerecorded ones. You see, social users love the authenticity and transparency that comes with unedited, unpolished, on-the-spot videos.

They get a true sense and feel of your brand personality, a key ingredient to connecting with your audience and building trust.

So in an age where capturing your customer’s attention is the currency online, leveraging tools that will help you make this happen is vital. The good news is, many of your competitors are not using live video.

Another big benefit of live video is that it works incredibly well with driving conversions and sales. A whopping 64% of consumers are likely to purchase a product after watching a video about it! Therefore, by incorporating a live video strategy, you’ll give your company the slight edge…and advantage.

So here’s a five-step guide to developing your own live video strategy into your social media marketing. Whether you’re using Facebook Live, Instagram Stories (IG TV), or LinkedIn, this guide will help you generate the engagement and awareness to attract more of your ideal audience on these platforms.

5-Step Checklist for a Successful Live Video Marketing Strategy

#1 Be Clear on Your Ultimate Goals

Your live video strategy should align with your overall digital marketing goals. What are you aiming to achieve through your online marketing?

Is it to drive awareness and increase your followers? Capture more qualified leads into your sales funnel? Or boost revenue through online sales?

Having clarity of your end goal ensures that everything you do, including your live video strategy, supports your objective. Therefore, be sure to revisit your content marketing strategy and goals before starting to get a solid idea of the direction your live video content will go.

#2 Choose Interesting Topics Your Audience Wants

Topic generation is often a top challenge for marketers when thinking about what to talk about for their live video. Depending on your digital marketing goals, here are a few topic ideas for each to help get your creative juices flowing:

Drive Awareness/Traffic

• Trending news or topics relating to your industry
• How-to content; showing your viewers how to achieve a specific goal or outcome
• FAQs from existing or prospective customers
• Educational; sharing valuable content on a related industry topic (your latest blog post)
• Take your audience behind the scenes in your office
• Do live Q&A with your attendees and give them an opportunity to ask you questions live and in living color!

Generate Leads

• Promote eBook, checklist or catalog; what they’ll learn and gain from your free resource
• Coupon/discount/giveaways to all live attendees
• Give a snippet to a deep-dive training, then offer viewers a way to access the full training
• Any topic from the Awareness/Traffic category and invite people to join your email list

Increase Sales

• New product launch; offer a limited-time coupon for viewers
• The top benefits of your flagship/popular product
• How your product works; highlighting efficiency
• Holiday promotions

#3 Structure Your Live Talk before the Live Talk

Although live video can appear to be an on-the-spot type strategy, we’re absolutely not winging it or “going live and hoping it sticks.” The key is to be effective and drive results, right?

So, you’ll want to follow an outline to ensure you hit on all of your major points and highlight your offer, whether it’s a giveaway (lead magnet) or your product.

Your live video should be around 10-20 minutes. Here’s an ideal guideline for each of your live talks:

Welcome and Engage: Thank everyone for joining. Drive engagement by getting people to respond in the comments

Intro: Let people know the topic and why you’re excited to have them on

Offer: Before getting to your talk, introduce whatever your offer is here. The more people hear about your offer, the more it will resonate for users to take action. When highlighting your offer, be sure to mention the benefit(s) and why it’s special for your audience.

Main Point: The meat and potatoes of your talk

Storytime: Share a story or testimonial to further engage your audience and boost credibility

Recap: Give a quick synopsis of your talk and the big takeaway

Offer: “By the way…” Mention your offer again!

Conclude: Thank everyone for attending

#4 Have an Easy-to-Remember URL

For a super-effective live video strategy, you want people to easily access and remember your URL. You see, you’ll be repeating your URL several times during your live broadcast. Make sure it’s one that viewers are able to recall even after your show.

In addition to your verbal reminders during your live video, don’t forget to include your URL in the following locations:

• The description
• Get your audience interacting by asking people to put the URL in the comments
• Include in your Instagram Stories
• Add it to your profile bio for the day

#5 Test, Test, and Test Again!

In order to know if your live video strategy is working, it’s important to test your efforts so you can continue to emulate what is and remove what isn’t. Having these measurements in place offers room for improvement and allows you to progress your strategy. It helps you prove ROI and what you should do to make your plan stronger.

Test the types of topics you’re delivering. What seems to drive engagement? Which topics are people showing up for and watching the replay?

Test the times that you’re going live. Also, check your native analytics to discover when people are checking out your replays most.

Finally, check your conversion rates and discover whether they’re improving over time. Your analytics reports offer a wealth of information you can leverage to bolster your overall strategy.

Conclusion

Executing a live video strategy will give you the unfair advantage in your industry. By giving people more of what they want (live video), you’ll better engage your audience, ultimately improving your company’s awareness and conversions. It’s simply one of the hottest tools any marketer can leverage to bolster their digital marketing strategy.

Much success!