Tips for Going Live on Social Media

In recent years, social media features like Facebook Live and Periscope have grown quite popular. By now, you’ve probably even seen some of your friends posting live feeds. While they certainly make it look easy enough, though, you may still have some reservations about going live yourself. What would you possibly say, and who would even want to watch and participate in the feed? Well, that’s exactly what this post is about! Today, we’re going to give you all the down and dirty tips for diving into the trenches and going live – successfully!

Tip #1: Titles Matter!

While your actual video stream will serve as the “meat and potatoes” of your live experience, you should never overlook the importance of coming up with a killer title and/or description. Why? First, you want to compel your current followers and fans to tune into your broadcast. Secondly, this part of your feed is what makes the content more shareable. When your viewers start sharing your feed, the title or description is what’s going to be shared with others and will determine whether or not they get interested enough to check out your live stream.

Tip #2: Give People a Heads Up

Believe it or not, your target audience isn’t just sitting around on social media waiting for you to dazzle them with your live feed. They’ve got busy lives of their own, and odds are that they may not be free to tune in at the drop of a hat. Consider writing a post for your social media followers to let them know about your live feed in advance. Provide a little bit of “bait” that offers a glimpse into what the post will be about, but don’t give away any pertinent details. This will get people curious about what is to come and will allow them to work you into their schedule in order to watch and participate in your stream.

Tip #3: Acknowledge Your Viewers

If your audience is taking the time to watch your live video and provide feedback, you owe it to them to acknowledge their viewership and participation! Keep an eye on people’s questions, comments, and other types of feedback as you are broadcasting, and make a habit of responding to those people as you continue to stream.

Tip #4: Quality Over Quantity

Whenever you go live on social media, you are triggering a new event for your followers. They are much more likely to be excited by and interested in these events when you embrace quality over quantity. This means that it’s much better to strategically plan out a live broadcast and give it some depth, weight, and length rather than to go live every other day without a real game plan.

Tip #5: Choose Your Poison

Don’t fall into the trap of making your live posts a series of random, unrelated streams of consciousness. As a brand, it’s your job to use the live feature of your social media account in order to give even more of a voice to your business. This means that you should brainstorm what you want to be known for. You might decide to be the brand who demonstrates cool product hacks, who is the leading expert on a particular subject, or who keeps its audience on top of the latest industry trends. It might take some playing around with different ideas in order to find your sweet spot, but it will be well worth the effort.

Going live on social media is an excellent tool for building up your brand name and growing your target audience. Let the experts at Madison Taylor Marketing help you get your live feed up and running! Shoot us an email to get started today!