Lights, camera, action! Those are the words immortalized by movie directors before they start shooting a scene. Live streaming starts the same way, but it probably resembles the movies the most in its organization and aftermath. This is the key to engaging your audience with live streaming and in a majority of cases, you are the sole writer, producer, director, and lead actor. Sounds challenging? It doesn’t have to be if you use the following strategy.
Ask yourself: who is your audience?
For live streaming to work, you need to know who you are addressing. Researching the audience will help you maximize engagement and send the message to the right demographic. Once you know your targeted audience, you can set the tone of your live stream, like entertaining or educational. Start by defining the purpose of your live stream and go to develop your ideas from there into a tone that will attract the such audience.
Find the right topic
Choosing a topic should be related to what people want from your brand. This means that if you provide service, the audience wants to know, for example, how you do it and why you are different from your competitors. The topic has to address needs, concerns, and expectations, and encourage your audience to be loyal to your brand.
Live streaming is an excellent way to expand your audience more quickly and build relationships that would otherwise take more time and resources. So, knowing your targeted audience and picking the right topic is crucial to creating live streams that convert.
Create an enticing introduction
The way you start your live stream may determine whether your audience will stay or leave. The so-called “hook” should be something that will grab the attention of the audience so they want to know more. For example, use surprising data in your intro or tell an anecdote that is relevant to the topic.
Going with the “imagine if…” hypothesis is always a good approach but make sure not to leave anything unanswered. A quote from someone distinguished can be inspirational, as well as retelling a story or a poem. The basic idea behind the enticing intro is to gain and keep the attention of others so they become loyal viewers and stay until the end.
Pre-engage your audience
If you want to have an audience, you need to build interest for your live stream before it starts. You can do this through marketing campaigns on social media, by communicating with your followers, and also by being a guest on other live streams.
The most important thing during this process is to highlight issues you plan to address and to invite people to send you suggestions, questions, and opinions you can include in the live stream. Keep in mind that you are not live streaming to sell your products or services, but to show the audience why they should trust your brand. Think of pre-engagement like a party invitation telling people you would be happy to see them attend and share that moment with you.
Live stream a Q&A
During the mentioned pre-engagement period, you will have people asking questions in the comments or sending you messages. You can include some during the lecture and answer them that way, or you can host a live stream of Q&As. That way, you can answer questions asked before the live stream and those that appear in real-time in your comment section. People will appreciate you taking the time to address these which will make you and your brand more trustworthy and approachable.
Provide quality production
Live streaming is normal today so the audience has certain expectations, one of them being quality production. They want high-quality sound, pictures, backgrounds, and presentations, especially when it comes to the production of live stream conferences.
In this case, your audience can be your clients, customers, future employees, and partners, so you want to leave the best possible impression on them.
Mind you that production is not only about the right equipment and engaging materials — it’s the complete live stream, including even what the audience can see in the corner behind you.
Plan segments to be inclusive
The live stream needs to be interesting and captivating, or your audience will quit watching it. Besides answering their comments on the spot, you can also have inclusive segments. For example, ask people to send you materials that are related to your topic and you can present them during the live stream.
Also, have guests on your live stream and invite them to answer questions and interact with the audience. If it’s just you talking to the camera, chances are that your viewership will decrease more and more as time goes by.
Inspire the audience to stay until the end
Even with all of the above, you may still need a little extra incentive for the audience to stay until the end. You can announce from the start that those who stay until the end will receive some type of reward. This can be a discount or free product from your brand, or some other type of promotion that will keep them interested. But this is not the only thing you should use, since you want them coming back to your live streams for more amazing content and spreading positive word-of-mouth about your brand.
Ask for feedback after the live stream
If your first live stream failed to fulfill your expectations — learn from it. Ask viewers to send you their feedback or create a questionnaire they can fill in after the stream. However, don’t stop there. You should do this after every live stream so you can improve and better satisfy your targeted audience. Also, this is the perfect way to get more information about your viewers and fill in the gaps that research might have left out.
The bottom line
No one rule fits all when it comes to engaging your audience with live streaming. Find the ones that are good for your brand and viewers, adapting them to your approach a little. But remember to include the audience and hear them out to create an interactive experience that will improve the image of your brand.