Videos & Live Streams Inspire Social Connection
Adventure brands across the world were thrust in a unique position three short months ago. With travel suddenly suspended by COVID-19, there’s been a collective shift towards service over sales, along with a strong uptick in inspired brand messaging. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are now being used for their true power: social connection. And not surprisingly, people are seeing better results. Engagement is up.
This is why so many have tuned in to using features like live stream videos, and video features like IGTV.
Some Quick Facts About Live Streams
- All of the big social platforms prioritize live content in their newsfeeds. Facebook Live videos, for example, get six times more interactions than pre-recorded ones.
- Instagram saw 70% increase in use of the live stream feature in April 2020.
- In 2019, internet users watch 1.1 billion hours of live video. (StreamElements)
- Research from Hubspot illustrates that by the end of 2020, live streaming is expected to account for 82% of all internet traffic.
- Hubspot also quotes that 80 percent of users would rather watch live videos from a brand than read a blog.
- Additionally 82 percent preferred live videos compared to social media posts.
Videos—be it live stream or otherwise—are great at helping you connect with your audience. It allows you to attract new followers, invite influencers, fellow industry leaders, and trusted customers to join you in a live broadcast, create great evergreen content and series, and more.
What we’ve seen, however, is that while adventure brands are creating great video content—most of them are failing to leverage their efforts.
How to Leverage Videos and Live Stream Content Effectively
Identify the Best Time to Go Live / Share Video
Time to dig into your social profile’s insights! This gives you the opportunity to see not only what days of the week your followers are online—but what times are most active as well.
On Facebook, you’ll find this information by navigating to More at the top of your business page > Insights > and then selecting Posts from left menu.
On Instagram, click on the the top right menu icon and select Insights from the drop down > Audience.
Promoting Your Video Launch or Live Stream
Before you share your video or go live, you’ll want to drum up interest in the video content. This is especially important if you’re planning a live video event.
1. Create an announcement post.
You’ll want to write a post that shares the details they need to know: date, time, where to tune in. This is a great time to remind people to join your email list to get reminders delivered to their inbox, too, if that’s appropriate.
2. Share the upcoming launch of the video/live stream via Stories every day leading up to the launch or live stream date.
You can share your announcement post to your stories one day, and hop onto Stories yourself another to talk about what they can expect in this next video drop or live stream.
3. Send out an announcement to your email list!
Give your email list a heads up on the upcoming Live or video launch.
4. Do you want to gather questions for a Live Q&A?
If preparing for a Q&A, a great option is to ask your followers and email list subscribers to send questions in advance. This gives you material to use if your viewer count during the event is low or questions just aren’t rolling in.
How to Leverage Videos and Live Streams Across All Platforms
1. If you recorded a live stream, you can now download your video and then upload to YouTube.
YouTube is one of the largest contenders out there for videos. Since creating video content should be an ongoing effort for you, it’s imperative to set yourself up properly on that platform with an SEO-optimized channel and videos to get the most out of its huge search engine reach. Lucky for you, we know a great article on How to optimize your YouTube channel and videos!
2. Ensure that your video is up on all social media platforms.
Be sure to add the video to your Facebook page, and your Instagram IGTV channel.
3. Share your video on your feeds.
Create a post to call out this new video and recap the key points within your caption. This can be short and sweet, or more in depth; there are no rules with this one!
4. Share your video via your stories.
Call it out; invite others to watch and share. Because stories only last for 24 hours, you can ride the momentum a few times throughout the week without getting too tiresome to your followers.
5. Send a replay link to your email subscribers.
Whether you send a replay link out immediately, or you send a call out to a few new videos in a monthly round-up… call your work out to your email subscribers. This offers them great, fun content to watch—and you may gain a few new followers or shares in the process, too!
6. Create a short blog with the YouTube video linked.
Explain what the video is, why it was created, etc. This doesn’t have to be a long blog, but it’s a great opportunity to share some context for the video, and make use of strong video keywords to help you gain more traction.
7. Schedule this blog to be shared on your social media platforms and in email a few weeks out.
It’s great new content, after all—why not effectively stretch out its use and reach in this simple and easy way!
Get As Much As Possible Out of a Single Video or Live Stream
Viewers love video. And now that you know exactly how to ride the video wave for yourself, you’ll be able to turn your video content into content that carries your efforts much further than a one-and-done kind of deal!
Want more tips specific to adventure companies during this period of disruption?
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