If your business isn’t live streaming, then you could be missing out on a really important piece of technology. From boosting sales to forming deeper customer relationships and even streamlining business processes, there are multiple uses for it within your company, and it can also help start-up companies get a head-start on the competition. Connecting with your audience and increasing engagement should be the goal for all marketers, and live streaming is a brilliant way to make that connection. Here’s how you should be using it:
Showcase Your People
Engaging with people and making your brand stand out requires the human touch, It’s an old truism that people buy from people and in the information economy, where customers are searching for expertise, giving them a window into the brains behind your operation can really make them feel a part of something. Short, live-streamed interviews with key employees can really help to boost your businesses’ relationships. It gives you a perfect chance to position your company as experts in the field and showcase the people that make your operation what it is. The aim here is to be authentic and let your passion for your field shine through – so don’t include any obvious promotions or people will quickly switch off. Use it as a two-way channel – an opportunity to ask questions of your audience, canvass opinion and reply to comments.
Connect Your Audience to Live Events
Using a service like AmpLive to bring your audience in on events is a great way to encourage their loyalty. Your aim should be to make your digital audience feel just as engaged as those there in person. Ask viewers to help to shape the event by voting on things to happen and make sure they’re getting a privileged glimpse at all the action – a backstage view of what is happening. Focus on unique shareable moments such as an announcement of new products. This works for everything from events to awards shows.
Offer Training
If your audience enjoys your content, you can leverage that in a really seamless way to boost business. Think about an aspect of your business that you could help people understand better, or that they may find interesting. It could be a practical task like refitting an oven element or something more creative like how to use Photoshop to polish up holiday snaps. Hosting the content as a live stream enables it to be interactive, so you can respond to comments as you go. The captured sessions also provide great content marketing for blog posts, or to share on Linked In groups. They don’t have to be polished productions – the authentic approach is often more relatable and goes down better with audiences. Occasionally, you may come across negative comments or deliberate trolling. The best approach with these individuals is simply to ignore them, as attention is their main goal. You can either approach it step by step or let the audience shape the action by simply showing them what they ask to see. The key is consistency – schedule live sessions on a regular date and use your social channels to promote when they’re taking place. Mention people who are asking questions by name to create a feeling of community.
