How To Increase Your Audience Using Facebook Live
Build Your Social Media Following One Video At A Time
Social media is taking auction industry marketing to a new level – so much ability and power at our fingertips! Social media provides opportunities to connect with people we might never have connected with before. When it comes to your online presence, there are always new things to be learned and new features to be utilized within your campaign. Live videos are no exception. Going live with Facebook is a relatively new feature that has gained popularity across the nation on various social media platforms. Facebook live videos are not only great for your average social media presence to stream a fun experience with friends and family, but they are also a great resource for businesses to use within their marketing efforts. If you are a business and are not using live videos, read on below, and if you are a business that currently uses live videos but feels like you could improve your strategy, we can help you too!
Let us begin by exploring why Facebook live has so quickly gained popularity over the last few years. If you are an avid Facebook user, it is likely that you have seen the small “live” icon pop up on someone you follow as they begin a live streaming session. That video ends up being saved and posted to their page, so it’s possible you might have even gone back and watched an old live video of someone if you weren’t available for the initial streaming. Live videos are praised for being raw and real, they are an unedited and usually transparent way to see into someone’s life. But live Facebook videos are also a great way for businesses to connect on a much more personal note to their audience. In most cases, consumers appreciate transparency from the businesses they are buying from or working with. Transparency within your company harbors trust, builds your brand and shows integrity – all of which are great characteristics for your business to draw in a new audience as well! What other ways can you use live streams on Facebook to boost your audience?
Show off new products or services
One way to use live videos on social media is to show off new products or services that your business or company is offering. This is a great way to connect with your existing audience to let them know what is happening on the business side of your company. If people are excited about the new product or service, they will likely share it with their friends, or even recommend it via social media by sharing your video which will quickly build up your audience through referrals. In addition to building your audience through your current followers, you also can utilize paid advertising on your live streams. Facebook allows you to promote your live stream videos making it simple to get your content in front of the right people at the right time. As an auction company, you likely are consistently having new items to feature or show your following. Using Facebook live videos is a great way to show off whatever items are going to be auctioned off in your upcoming sale or sales.
Live stream events or get-togethers
Streaming events or company get togethers is a great way to mix in a little bit of fun to your live streaming. Depending on your business, this approach might work better than others. For example, if you run a sports store, you might host a local 5k each year to promote your business and get the community together while being active. In this case you might want to advertise that you’ll be live streaming the runners as they finish the race! This allows all of the family and friends of the runners to cheer them on from home or wherever they might be as well as get to know your business through your live video. Be sure to get creative when you start thinking about what events or get-togethers you can live stream – each industry and company is going to be different when it comes to finding what works for you!
Allow your audience to get to know your staff better
Staff live streams are a great and fun way to allow your audience to get to know your business on a more personal level. The options are endless when it comes to how you can utilize staff in your live streams. If you are a company that doesn’t mind being a little laid back, you could do a live stream of fun get-to-know you questions with each of your team members. If you want to take a more structured approach with the stream, you could put on an interactive question and answer time about a specific product or service – it would be a great idea to run a small campaign leading up to a question and answer live stream just to let people know when it’s happening so that they can have time to prepare any questions they might want to ask. Although a structured question and answer time will not provide the personal insight to your staff like get-to-know you questions would, it is still a great way for your audience to talk personally with your staff when they normally might not be able to.
Show off your company culture
We are strong advocates for showing off your company culture to your audience. What makes your business unique, fun, and different from your competitors? What makes your employees love working for your company? Those are the things that you want to show off to your audience and live streaming is a candid way to do so. For example, if you are a smaller business that brings in donuts or something to celebrate each of your employees birthdays, it would be a great idea to live stream everyone talking over their food, maybe singing happy birthday, or even going over to ask the birthday employee what the best part of turning one year older is. Of course this is just an example, there are tons of ways that you can showcase your company culture to your audience and allow them to “be a part” of your business virtually!
As you can see, there are tons of different ways that businesses can use live videos to boost their following and audience all while connecting on a deeper level with them. We hope that you are able to discover more ways that you can utilize the tools you have in front of you such as social media and live videos to help create a sense of transparency, trust, and familiarity with the people that you are trying to reach with your product and services all the while taking your social media marketing campaigns to the next level.
If you are looking for help to build up your audience through social media – contact us today! We offer marketing consultation as well as social media marketing services to take your business to the next level.