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You Need Live Video Content
Reluctant to go live? It’s time to stop.
One of the best things I ever did for my business was start to go live, and not only that, but go live on a regular basis.
I’m not going to say that pushing myself to do it wasn’t a challenge, because it was. For years, I was the person who was behind the scenes, the one on the other side of the camera, the one showcasing the works of others.
But when I started Quest for $47, I knew that I was going to have to push myself out of my comfort zone, in a lot of ways. I was going to have to put not just my business out there, but my face (more on that below).
It was a challenge, but it was also one of the best things I ever did.
You Need Live Video Content: First, A Misconception About Going Live On Social Media
One of the biggest misconceptions (or limiting beliefs, whatever you want to call them) that I had about going live is that I always had to be perfectly made up to do it.
And don’t get me wrong, I do love wearing makeup, I think it’s a great means of self-expression, but if there’s one thing I HATE doing with a fiery passion, it’s taking off my eye makeup at the end of the day. As someone who loves to go hard with dark eye liner, I think you’ll understand why removing it is so challenging.
But when I was being pushed to go live, I realized that going live is all about what I make of it. It’s about the value I provide, and the spin that I can put on creating something to promote on a regular basis.
That’s how I created my live-stream series, 10 Minutes Before Dinner. 10 Minutes came about because I realized that it was something productive I could do during the 10-or-so minutes that it takes my dinner to cook (in the microwave, because chef I am not).
You can check out the 10 Minutes Before Dinner Archives here.
You Need Live Video Content: Another Misconception About Going Live
One of the reasons that I see stopping people from going live is that they feel they don’t “have enough experience to be worth asking for their audience’s time”. Or that they’re not big enough.
First of all, if you have something to say, then it IS worth your audience’s time, and you should—in fact, you’re obligated—to share it.
And second of all, you’re going to have a much tougher time building that audience if you don’t give them the opportunity to interact with you like this. It’s very much like the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? If the egg is your audience and the chicken is a large audience, you’re not going to be able to get to that chicken until you start going live to the egg.
Whatever is stopping you from getting out there in front of your audience, don’t let it. The people who push past their comfort zones, who shout to the void for months without getting a response, they’re the ones who are going to see success, while the others are more likely to quit before they reach their goals.
You Need Live Video Content: It’s About Showcasing What YOU Want To Showcase
Broadcasting 10 Minutes Before Dinner from my kitchen means that I get to showcase my audience what it means for me to be an entrepreneur who lives on her own terms. Meaning, I work from home, in sweats, and don’t wear makeup if I don’t have to.
And it means that I have the opportunity, and obligation, to connect with fellow online business owners who also want to work from the comfort of their own home, without makeup, and in sweats.
Not only that, but I’m showcasing the importance of being YOU as an online business owner through my series. I’m showcasing the important reminder that your business is about you, and you’re not perfect. Nor should you be (and more on that below.)
You Need Live Video Content: It’s Really Popular Right Now
It’s as simple as that.
One of the other driving forces behind my decision to go live is that it’s really popular right now with the major social media platforms.
When you leverage social media, the first thing you want to do is determine which social media platforms your audience is on (don’t be on all of them, because that’s overwhelming and doesn’t allow you to actual focus). Once you know where your audience is, know how best to engage with them.
And right now, live video is one of the best ways to engage with your audience. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram love it when its users go live, and tend to promote live video more. More promotion, especially the opportunity for organic promotion in a world that is more and more becoming pay-to-play, is critical, and you need to leverage it properly.
You Need Live Video Content: Your Audience Wants To Connect With YOU (Not Your Brand)
This is one of the most important thing when it comes to online business and branding, and why it makes going live an absolute must, is that people aren’t into working with faceless corporations anymore.
It’s ALL about the people behind the business. It’s the Kathryn behind the Quest for $47.
When you go live, your audience gets to know your business, which of course is important, but they also get to know you, the business owner. What you love, why you do what you do, and who you are when you’re not working. They get to know what you sound like, how you act, and it gives them the opportunity to say, “Hey, I could totally be friends with that person.”
And when your audience thinks that, they’re more likely to engage with you, more likely to learn more about you, and more likely to want to learn from you.
You Need Live Video Content: It Doesn’t Have To Be (Nor Should It Be) Perfect
This is also critical.
Live video does NOT have to be perfect, and it shouldn’t be.
Yes, there is a time and a place for the perfectly made up and professionally edited promotional video, but your audience wants to see you having fun and imperfect. They want to see you stumble on your words and lose track of that thought, and get interrupted by your family member or your pet (both of which have happened to me ALL the time when I go live).
As I said above, it’s those imperfections that allows your audience to truly get to know YOU, as both a person and a business owner, and that makes them even more inclined to want to learn more about you and learn more from you.
Remember, you want them to think, “Hey, I could totally be friends with that person.”
You Need Live Video Content: Gives Your Audience The Opportunity Instantaneous Interaction
Sure, email engagement is critical, as is responding to each and every comment you receive on social media, but when you go live, you give your audience the chance to ask questions right then and there.
Even letting your audience know that you’re going to do a Q&A in a few hours in your Facebook community, or asking fo questions in an IG story, and then going live later, allows them to get excited for the answers to their questions, and allows them to better engage with you.
People like the opportunity to get their questions answered as quickly as possible, so soliciting for questions during a live video is a great way to allow your audience to do that.
And engagement, of course, means opening up a dialogue with your audience. It allows you to get to know them better, find out exactly what they want from you, so then you can offer services that fit their needs, or even create new ones based off exactly what they want.
You Need Live Video Content: You Can Repurpose That Live Content
This is the best part—don’t reinvent the wheel.
As I always say, building an online business means working smarter, not harder. And while it may take a lot out of you to think about content all day, every day, repurposing your content takes some of that pressure off.
In fact, this post was inspired by an episode of 10 Minutes Before Dinner that I did, all about this topic. If you check out Episode 64, you’ll notice that a lot of what I covered in that video, I covered here.
See? No need to reinvent the wheel.
Not only that, but you can take your live video content, download it, cut it up into small snippets or previews and showcase it on your other social media platforms. Live video can become a blog post (or vice versa, clearly), and you can even transcribe your live content and turn them into blog posts immediately right after your broadcast.
The sky is the limit with the ways you can (and should) repurpose your content, and remember to have fun with it.
You Need Live Video Content: How To Start If You’ve Never Gone Live Before
I know, I know, the reason why you haven’t gone live yet is probably because you’re worried about what other people will think, right?
Here’s a trick that I was told when I was thinking about going live for the first time (not one I used, but still a great trick):
Go live at a time where you KNOW your audience, your family, your friends, are not online. Stay up a couple hours later than usual, or wake up a couple hours early, or any other time that you know your audience isn’t around, and try it out.
Remember to keep it simple. I often have notes in front of me to consult, just to make sure that I’m not missing anything related to the topic I’m talking about, but other times I’ll just go live and see where the topic takes me as I talk.
And if you don’t like your first hack at live video? Then delete it. No one has to know. Or, you can always do the opposite and go live at a time where someone WILL be on live to watch you, for moral support.
Just remember to have fun with it.
And also, don’t worry about what other people may think of you. Anyone who has a negative opinion of what you’re doing (in the very unhelpful, “Hey, you sound dumb.” sense) is not someone whose opinion you should be seeking about your content. Constructive criticism, on the other hand, is VERY helpful, so you may want to have a family member or friend on with you to tell you what worked best and what needs improvement.
But remember: you won’t improve until you take that action.
What is the one thing stopping you from going live in front of your audience? Leave a comment down below and let me know!
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