With a brand-new year comes fresh perspectives and ideas to grow your business. With a surging market, new tax reform in place and business friendly legislation; businesses of all sizes are allocating more money into branding and market growth. While for many companies, their strategy may focus on more TV spots and other media buys. However, not all businesses have that kind of working capital at the moment, particularly small to mid-size ones. If you want a surefire way to gain more exposure for your brand and drive more traffic to your site, you need to follow the trends and use Facebook Live to your advantage, whether your business is big or small.
Facebook Live: Affordable and Wildly Popular
Facebook Live, or FB Live as it’s commonly called, is one of the biggest trends in social media for 2018 and the foreseeable future. Once thought as merely for individuals and social media stars seeking attention; it’s now become the go-to platform for businesses looking to grow their market share. Practical and affordable for businesses of all sizes, it’s especially beneficial for the small to mid-size business world. Where a TV spot or radio campaign can cost thousands; even for an off-peak time slot, Facebook Live doesn’t cost a dime to broadcast.
The biggest plus of using Facebook Live is that your content reaches your existing consumer base rapidly and is also archived for future viewing and linking. The more popular this platform becomes the more rapidly your market exposure grows.
According to social media studies, the live concept of the video entices people to watch; as their curiosity of what they might be missing drives them to watch. In fact, this study showed that people spend more time clicking on Facebook Live videos than pre-recorded videos of similar nature.
As with anything in the social media world, you have to strike while the iron is hot and also be able to adapt. Social media users can be very fickle and their need for fresh concepts and new features can drive them from a platform as quickly as they came to it.
Live video is what’s hot and the number of live video based social apps shows that. Platforms such as Snapchat for example and its rapid evolution show just how quickly it can go from a peer to peer social app for teens; and evolve into a robust advertising tool covering a wide demographic. Facebook Live ranks as one of the top live video social streams; 66% of polled social media users chose it over all others. With thousands of content options to choose from at any given moment, Facebook Live is a wide open market.
The key question for your business is: “How do you drive engagement using Facebook Live?” You can’t just begin a live stream and not have a plan of action or just ramble off a sales ad about your business. You have to take a creative, engaging approach to your audience that invites, informs and intersects with their lifestyle and interests. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate production or use expensive sets; in fact you just need to create a video that people will want to watch repeatedly. This means having a message, content they can benefit from, and knowledge they can gain from. There are many techniques and methods you can tap into to deliver, but these three practical methods will give you a good head start.
Host A Live Q&A Session
A truth among people everywhere is that they like their voice to be heard, and this is very true in the delicate relationship between consumers and businesses. If you question the veracity of that statement visit any of the thousands of business review sites such as Yelp and see for yourself. When your business does things right, people will tell a handful of their friends. When your business does something wrong they tell all their friends and thousands of strangers on the internet as well. When you can open your business up in a personal manner such as a live Q&A session with potential and current customers, about questions important to them; you are creating and fulfilling a need consumers have to be heard and counted for.
A simple set-up that is ideal would be to have someone in a position of authority to field questions from live viewers in real-time. A public relations manager or director of sales for example, might be a good option. Consumers love to get their questions answered straight from the company representative themselves on a personal level rather than through marketing collateral or website FAQ’s. It is more engaging this way and can make your company more favorable in a consumer’s perspectives. Keep in mind even if you are a B2B company, the businesses you serve value this engagement as well; it works across all business models.
The best part about the Q&A is the instant feedback you receive via the comments that viewers leave throughout the duration of the video. Comments are often off the cuff, brutally honest, but also valuable because they gauge raw, unfiltered consumer response to your answers and interactions. You can’t get that from ratings and focus group studies.
Give A View Behind The Curtain
When it comes to what consumers want to see in terms of content on your page, video wins hands down. People lead busy lives and if they are going to give a few minutes of their time to you they don’t want to spend it reading another blog post. Overwhelmingly, in recent studies over 80% prefer a live video over a social or blog post.
A great way to take advantage of this demand is to give your viewers an unfiltered view of your business. Most people know that even live videos, for the most part, are scripted to some degree. Having the opportunity to see a live video that is shot on the fly with no script is enticing to a large amount of viewers. You can go about it a number of ways whether showing the launch of new product live in the office with real-time reactions or even something like random live giveaways to people on the street. The beauty of Facebook Live videos over filming TV ads is the ease of mobility and freedom to record anywhere with a mobile device.
Show Your Customers Around
Many of your customers may buy your products every day, but do they know what it’s like in the plant, in the front office, in the shipping department? Maybe you’ve heard of The Office on NBC, a wildly popular show literally following the workers in the not-so-exciting world of paper sales. The show became a pop culture classic, even spurring rumors of a return after a several year hiatus. The interest in this show about the lives of people in a lowly Scranton, PA paper company office shows that people can really connect with a company that engages them on some level.
While the show is obviously scripted for over the top situations and the ridiculous, you can create the same engagement in your own consumer base. Take your phone around the office, show them where their products are made, the Jim and Dwights in the sales office that take their calls, The Kevins and Stanleys who work in accounting or the Pam Beasleys that keep the office running. Your customers want to connect on a personal level with the people that make your company what it is and it will drive customer affinity.
Get On. Be Engaging. Go Live
We’ve given you the basics to get your feet wet and begin engaging with your customer base through Facebook Live. Maybe your company doesn’t have the manpower to handle that aspect of social media? Don’t miss out so much potential growth over a problem with an easy solution. Contact BrandNation today and let us create a strategy that incorporates your social media management, including on-site Facebook live sessions, social engagement and more.
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