Are you looking to boost your social media presence?
Do you want to do it in a simple, cost-efficient manner?
Then you need to take a look at Facebook Live video. With over 100 million hours of daily video watch time, Facebook Live is rated as the most impactful video social channel.
If you want to start taking advantage of Facebook Live video, in this article you’ll see 5 ways to get you started.
Create Brand Awareness
Creating brand awareness is one of the primary reasons why large companies spend millions of dollars in advertising. Although online marketers tend to look down on awareness for being too broad, large businesses still use it to increase brand preference and lift ad recall, among other goals.
Heineken has used live video to promote some of their +100 music festivals worldwide. Their live video strategy has been most useful in Taiwan, where it stands as the most popular imported beer brand.
In September 2016, Heineken wanted to increase their brand value and preference among the young generation in Taiwan with the help of their live concerts. To achieve this goal, Heineken used Facebook Live to showcase a real concert experience as part of its global “Live Your Music” campaign.
Heineken broadcasted 3 sets of 30-minute concerts featuring local celebrities on Facebook Live. This allowed the brand to reach an unlimited number of fans, who could enjoy the concert anywhere around the world.
At the end of the campaign, Heineken Taiwan was able to acquire an 8.66 brand equity score, which represented a new record for Heineken, a 4% increase in sales compared to the previous year, a 100-basis point increase in market share in 3 months, and a 10-point lift in brand recall.
Build Engagement
Engagement is the lifeblood is any successful Facebook Live video campaign. By making your live videos engaging and entertaining, you ensure your audience's attention.
One company that lives and breathes social media engagement is Buzzfeed. Last year, two of Buzzfeed's employees decided to test how many rubber bands it would take to explode a watermelon. To attract attention to the event, Buzzfeed decided to live stream the video.
The live stream, which ended up being 45 minutes long, was as simple as that. No fancy tricks, no jokes, just two people putting rubber bands around a watermelon. Despite what you could expect from a video like this, simply by playing on people's curiosity they were able to attract over 807,000 viewers at its peak.
Here's what's interesting: after they published the video, Buzzfeed attracted 11 million viewers, 53,000 reactions, 319,000 comments, and almost 18,000 shares.
This video proves the power of engagement. Next time you want to use live video, remember not to overthink it. Make it interesting and engaging, and people will feel drawn to your videos.
Holding Q&as With The Audience
Carrying out live Q&As and AMAs (Ask Me Anything) are an effective way to increase engagement by allowing an audience to connect with an influencer in a direct way. The more respected and famous the influencer, the more can the video publisher expect to engage their audience. It also helps prolong the watch time, as viewers wait longer to see if their question is picked.
Sephora, the French cosmetics retailer, invited influencers Jen Atkin of Ouai Haircare and Christophe Robin Paris for a 30-minute block where they would answer all the audience's questions about beauty and makeup.
During the live video, both influencers made sure to offer solutions to the viewers' problems. Most importantly, Sephora made sure the influencers mentioned their products as they showed the audience how to improve their styles.
The video attracted 86,000 views, which not only helped Sephora engage with their audience, but also made their viewers research the recommended products online, which could lead to further conversions.
Covering An Event
Events and live video work very well when put together. According to Livestream, 67% of live video viewers are more likely to buy a ticket to a concert or event after watching a live video of that event or a similar one. It makes sense: a live video helps you feel as if you are in the event, making you want to participate in it.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York has adopted Facebook Live a few times to showcase their events and their museum.
In one of their most recent videos, the Met showcased the behind-the-scenes before the launch of the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between" exhibition. In this video, they interviewed the Curator of the exhibition and let their fans see what the exhibition was about and how it looked.
The video ended up getting 181,000 views, 4,200 reactions, 646 comments, and 1,739 shares. It's likely the Met was able to drive a lot of awareness to the event as well as sell tickets.
Doing Live Product Demonstrations
A big problem in the ecommerce industry is that people can't try a product with their hands. This is especially true for fashion companies, where the way in which a certain piece fits makes all the difference. Doing a live demonstration of a product can help people see how it works and how it looks without any photo editing.
Who What Wear, a popular fashion blog with over 1.5 million followers on Facebook, partnered with the Saks Fifth Avenue, the giant luxury department store, to promote the latest fall outerwear line.
In the video, Kelly Framel, a professional stylist, tries on several coats while highlighting what she loves about each one. She also showed which outfits to pair the coats with and the occasions in which they should wear them for.
The cross-promotion helped Who What Wear show their audience new exciting products, while Saks Fifth Avenue used this opportunity to connect with a larger audience in a more authentic way. The video received 78,230 views, 409 likes, 30 shares, and 99 comments.
Conclusion
Using Facebook Live is a fantastic way to build your following and engage it with relevant content. People are consuming more video than ever, and delivering it live is the best way to make them consume it.
You've seen 5 ways you can use Facebook Live to grow your social media presence and deliver results to your company.
What are your thoughts? How would you use live video to grow your social media presence? What extra tips can you offer? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.