One of the newest trends in digital marketing is taking brands live and making them more relevant. What was once a luxury, is now a necessity to compete online. If you’ve been on Facebook or Instagram lately, you’ve likely come across several big news stories captured by using it. Video live stream is changing the way companies engage with their audience online.
According to a report in 2018, 96% of B2B companies use video in their marketing campaigns and 73% report positive results to their ROI. Why? Because video promotes a message and boosts SEO, while increasing engagement with the target audience or potential customer. If you’re using Live on Facebook, the Social Graph can even tell you demographic and behavioral information about the audience, generating data in real time so you can create Engagement Custom Audience from video views (linked at the end).
Why should you go live?
Within two years of Facebook launching the live stream, a recorded 2 billion people watched Facebook Live broadcasts. Facebook users alone consume nearly 100 million hours of video each day, suggesting live stream is only going to get more popular. By 2021, it is estimated that the livestreaming video industry will reach $70 billion.
What should you live stream?
Ok, so now that you’re convinced to start live streaming, let’s talk about what you should cover in your broadcasts in order to positively impacting your digital marketing endeavors. If you’re thinking about what or how to integrate video into your digital marketing campaigns, here are a few ways to start…
- Product or service announcements. In 2016, Land Rover streamed a video to launch the Land Rover Discovery Landmark. You can create your own news by making a product launch a live media event. You might find it exciting seeing the reactions and responses from customers in real time!
- Behind the scene videos. Take your customers on a behind the scenes tour of production, the workplace or other interesting places that impact your business. Show them something unique that they do not see on an everyday basis.
- Live Q&A. If you’re launching a new product or service, introducing a new team member, addressing a market trend or company crisis, hop on Live stream for a live Q&A from your customers. You can lead the discussion and provide answers and reassurance in real time, while covering controversial topics (before other news sources do it for you).
- Kick off contest and promotions. A live announcement creates a sense of excitement, urgency and suspense. Use a live video to kick off a contest and promotion and continue to tune in throughout the duration of the campaign. This will help promote it and get people excited!
Live stream boosts SEO
Once you film a live video, don’t miss out on re-using the content. This is easy to do if you’re using Facebook Live. From your Business Manager page on Facebook, go to your Page and find the Live video and upload it to your Timeline. From there, you’ll want to do the following to help SEO:
- Edit the post title and description and use keywords in the title
- Add tags to help people find your video if they’re searching on Facebook
- add captions in the form of an SRT file
- Add thumbnails so your video is shared with a relevant image
Your video will post directly to your page’s timeline once it’s uploaded and will look like other videos except there will be a “was live” tag at the top. Posting the video will encourage people to watch it, read comments and react long after the broadcast is over. You can also share the URL of your Facebook Live video on other social networks and throughout other campaigns.
If the video is longer than five minutes, you can also turn small segments into short video clips to use in social media posts or on your blog.
Using video and live stream is an exciting, new way to boost SEO. While there is no cookie cutter plan for every client, we encourage our clients to aim to produce 3-4 videos throughout the year, while integrating live stream video content monthly or bi-monthly.
Live stream is an effective way to connect with your audience, boost SEO and interact with the customers and clients who matter most to you. It’s a personal way to communicate clear and professional messages.
Contact us to learn more about how to integrate live stream videos into your digital marketing plan.