Scott Van Camp, Author at IdeaRocket

8 Facebook Live Stream Strategies To Engage Customers in 2022

Scott Van Camp — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 07:00:00 +0000

The launch of Facebook Live streaming back in 2015 heralded the beginning of a new era in communication for people and businesses. While other social media platforms have since jumped on the bandwagon, Facebook was the first major platform to let you speak to your customers live through video with Facebook Live Stream.

As the biggest social media platform in the world, Facebook has about 1.93 billion daily active users. That’s nearly a quarter of the world’s population. If you’re marketing directly to consumers, you’ll almost certainly find an audience on Facebook.

But even B2B marketers can engage customers with Facebook live stream strategies. Remember, businesses are made up of people. The decision makers in those businesses want to be informed and entertained. They want to connect with you and your brand before they make a big business decision. And live video is a powerful way to do that.

Facebook Live Stream Strategies For Businesses

While a professionally produced video is more polished and more versatile, Facebook Live streams have their place in your video marketing plan. Here are eight strategies you can use to capture audience interest and engage customers using Facebook Live.

1. Look Behind The Scenes

People love getting a look behind the scenes. It makes them feel special, like they’re part of the in crowd. And it appeals to their sense of curiosity. Use Facebook lives to show customers how business is really done. You could show off your manufacturing process, give them a tour of your offices, or let them see what your team does together for fun. Every glimpse behind the curtain builds trust and invites your customer to be a part of your business.

2. Embrace Your Authenticity

Facebook Live stream videos aren’t perfect. The camera might shake because it’s being carried by hand. Presenters may flub lines. Unexpected sounds or events could disrupt a planned video. But on live streams, people don’t mind imperfection. When you’re willing to embrace authenticity on camera, you remind customers that your business is full of real people.

3. Share the Excitement and Create Buzz

Presenting raw and unedited videos might seem dangerous. Who knows what will happen next? That’s part of the fun. You can capture the real excitement and buzz around a new product launch or announcement. LUS brands did a Facebook Live to announce their new product and answer questions from customers.

4. Promote Community Spirit

Facebook Live is a great way to show commitment to your community. While it may feel like showing off to write a wordy press release about your company’s participation at local events and fundraisers, it can be fun to share the experience in the moment. When you live stream an event you bring viewers along on the journey. As a result, they feel more connected to your business and begin to view you as part of the community.

5. Jump On Breaking News

A live broadcast can highlight your company’s knowledge while offering helpful information to the audience. Recurring talk show-like sessions or “breaking news” videos can cover topics important to customers while they’re fresh. You may not have time to plan, produce, and release a formal video about it before the buzz dies down. But a Facebook live stream can happen now. Like any great power, you should use this one sparingly. Jumping on every passing fad can make your business feel inauthentic, the ultimate sin of live streaming. So choose your topics carefully and make sure you have something valuable to add to the conversation.

Johnson & Johnson did a series of Facebook Lives to address questions around the pandemic as they worked on developing a vaccine.

6. Interact With Viewers

Facebook Live allows viewers to ask questions or leave comments during the live stream. As the presenter, you can see and respond to these comments or questions in real time, creating a truly interactive experience for viewers. That interaction translates to better engagement. Juniper Networks saw a 500% increase in link clicks year over year and a 200-300% increase in engagements after launching their Facebook Live program.

During and after the stream, viewers can also share your video on their feeds. A study by quintly found that native Facebook videos (including Live) drove an average 1,055% higher share rate than YouTube videos.

7. Use Facebook Live Stream as a Testing Ground

Facebook Live offers real-time video metrics, letting you test specific pieces of content on the fly. After your broadcast is over, you can view engagement metrics including likes, reactions, mentions, comments and shares. You can even see when people left comments or clicked a reaction button. That means you can constantly improve your videos, doing more of what viewers like. You might take those topics that evoked the biggest response and produce more formal, planned videos that delve deeper.

8. Edit and Reuse Facebook Live Streams

When the broadcast has finished, the video will be saved to your Facebook profile. You can write a title and description, choose or upload a perfect thumbnail image, add video captions, and make other edits. So although the process may seem like a fleeting moment in time, your video can live on forever. You might use pieces of a Facebook live stream to make gifs, edit into shorter, punchier videos, or share on other platforms.

How Facebook Live Fits Into Your Business Video Strategy

Facebook Lives are a great place to create buzz, test out new ideas, and increase engagement. They’re also informal and a bit unpredictable. So you shouldn’t rely on Facebook Live streams alone. Your video strategy for business should include a mix of live and recorded content to connect with customers wherever they happen to be. Live videos might capture their attention, but recorded content is shorter, more focused, and available on-demand. Plus you can use it to make facebook video ads.

For help creating quality pre-recorded videos that fit your video content strategy, reach out to the video experts at IdeaRocket.

The post 8 Facebook Live Stream Strategies To Engage Customers in 2022 appeared first on IdeaRocket.

Find The Right Online Animation Maker Or Tool

Scott Van Camp — Tue, 13 Feb 2018 07:00:50 +0000

Have some visual content lying dormant on your desktop? Ready to go a step beyond the mundane? There are several video-creation platforms on the web that can put existing content to work, as well as editing software and video management utilities that can optimize your in-house produced videos’ look and reach.

We’ll start with cloud-based platforms that allow users to combine photos, video clips and music to make budget-friendly videos that resonate with customers and prospects. These platforms are easy to use and have the ability to upload finished works to social media.

Now you might think that since IdeaRocket creates premium-quality customized videos, we wouldn’t want you to know about these lower-cost tools. But the truth is, not every video objective justifies a significant investment. If you have the time to work an online animation maker and a professional, bespoke solution is not right for you, these sites might fit the bill.

Animoto

Launched in 2006, Animoto operates with a simple mantra: “Make great videos. Easily.” It’s a tagline that seems to resonate, as the platform has an estimated 20 million registered users, which range from individuals looking to make quick, fun, personal videos to show on their Facebook pages to businesses promoting their products and services.

Animoto offers a wide variety of features in its “Professional” and “Business” categories, some of which include: HD 1080p video; landscape + square formats; 2,000+ commercially licensed music tracks; 30+ pre-built storyboards; and color customization and font library. Cassie Galasetti, co-founder of Social Sidekick Media, Branding & Public Relations out of Red Bank, NJ, puts these features to good use when creating videos for her agency and its clients.

Galasetti finds the landscape or square formats helpful, using the former for YouTube posts and the latter for clients’ Instagram and Facebook accounts.

The pre-built storyboards, essentially templates in which to place content, make client videos easy. “They have real estate storyboards, for instance, which we use and then just swap out our clients’ content with the placeholder content in the storyboard,” says Galasetti.

Another plus for Galasetti is the commercially licensed music Animoto offers, which can be used in client videos posted on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube without fear of the video being removed for copyright infringement. One minus, says Galasetti, is the lack of a mobile app for its Marketing Video Builder product, which is geared toward small businesses.

For pricing, Animoto offers three tiers: Personal ($8 per month); Professional ($22 per month); and Business ($34 per month). To give Animoto a try, take advantage of the 14-day free trial of the Professional tier.

wave.video

From video and animation software development company Animatron, wave.video is similar to Animoto with some twists. In addition to landscape and square formats, it offers a vertical view for Instagram. It also boasts a “premium” library of 2.5 million stock videos and images, in addition to letting you upload your own content. In addition, it lets you add text to the video using an instant preview feature. Pricing runs from Pro ($39 per month,) and Agency ($75 per month) to Ultimate ($49 per month). A free trial is also available.

Magisto

An intriguing entry into the video-creation market, if only because it bills itself as “the only end-to-end video marketing powered by A.I.” What that means is you can make a video on Magisto in a matter of minutes by uploading content, choosing a visual style and music, and then pressing ENTER to let the AI analyze and edit what’s there. The platform provides cross-channel video content hosting and distribution as well as video performance analytics. Pricing ranges from $9.99 per month for the Professional package to $39.99 per month for Business, but they do offer a free trial.

Rocketium

This platform promises “Buzzfeed-style videos in under 5 minutes” and “12x more social engagement using images, clips, & articles you already have.” Rocketium’s differentiating features include automatic translation of videos for 100+ languages and a team collaboration tool, a la Google docs, for reviews and edits. You can use Rocketium for free (10 videos per month with the Rocketium logo); Professional ($49 per month); Business ($149 per month); and Enterprise (custom plan, price varies).

Video Utilities:

Once you have your video made, you might need some tools for negotiating the back-end of the process.

Wipster

Owned by Vimeo, Wipster is a platform completely focused on the workflow aspect of reviewing videos. Users can easily type notes anywhere on the video, which is then distributed among the team. It’s used by IdeaRocket in conjunction with clients. “It’s really saved us a lot of work in terms of collecting notes from the client and passing them onto our team,” says William Gadea, Founder and Creative Director of IdeaRocket. Prices are based annually on file size, from 10 GB at $250 up to 500 GB at $3,750, with a 14-day free trial for each tier.

Top Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash

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