5 Best Practices for using Facebook Live

What is Facebook Live? It’s a new way to create engaging conversations and interactions with your followers in real time. You can do this all with simply using the camera on your smartphone. It is a unique way to connect with followers and fill them in with what is happening in an event, around the office, or even in a live Q&A!

Facebook Live is still a relatively new tool to the Facebook world being less than a year old, and only some businesses have jumped on the live broadcasting bandwagon. Are you thinking about trying to dabble out into the Facebook live world? Or are you thinking about new and better ways for your company to experiment with video and better engagement on social media? Or maybe you want a new edge that lets you stand out from your competition. Then you’ve come to the right place.

We’ve done the hard work for you and found these are some best practices for a Facebook Live video:

1. Make sure that the live broadcast is a minimum of 20 minutes long. Facebook themselves advertise a minimum of at least 10 minutes as a best practice, but longer often proves to be better. Why? Because even with a hefty promotion beforehand it may still take a while for users to find your live broadcast. The longer the video the more engagement it will receive. The longer time frame also allows more people to discover it in their newsfeeds and join in on the conversation.
2. Make sure that you tell people ahead of time when you will be broadcasting. A planned broadcast is more likely to receive engagement!
3. Before you go live, test to make sure that you have a strong Internet connection. The last thing you want happening in the middle of a broadcast is to have it cut off due to bad a Wi-Fi connection.
4. If it is a more personable broadcast, and not an event or other group-like settings, answer people’s questions and say their names. People love the recognition and being able to chat with people/companies in real time. If you don’t have an answer for them on hand, tell them what the best way to contact you (or the company is) and that you’ll get back to them with an answer. This way your audience feels more engaged and like their voices are being heard.
5. Be creative and go live frequently! You can figure out what works best for your company, but if you are going to branch out into the live broadcasting world, make sure you stick with it! You’ll receive better engagement rates if you go live once a week or biweekly versus once quarterly. Find a schedule that works for your organization and then get creative with the types of broadcasts that you do! The possibilities are truly endless.

Do you have any other best practices that you try to stick to when using Facebook Live? We’d love to hear about them in the comment section below.

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