Facebook Live was first released in August 2015 but lately, and specifically during the second half of 2016, it’s become a game changer on so many levels for businesses and brands.
Now, anyone or any business can go Live to an instant audience that would’ve been unimaginable and inaccessible just 5 or 10 years ago.
With Instagram also announcing new Live features and Snapchat constantly dabbling and improving, in the art of instant video communication, “Going Live” is going to become the norm and we’re only seeing the start of it.
Notifications Working For You
Right now one of the major benefits of going Live on Facebook is the notification feature.
Now with the click of a button, on a smartphone, tablet or laptop, your followers will be directly notified the moment you go live. This instantly increases the chances of quickly gaining an audience for whatever you want to promote or broadcast.
This is massively different from a standard organic Facebook post that generally reaches only 5-10% of your followers.
How to Use Facebook Live for Business
What does Facebook Live mean for businesses?
As with everything it’s simply another platform, another tactic and another means to get your message out there to a wider audience than ever before.
If you’re an estate agent running a show house open day why not Facebook Live a tour around the house? Depending on the current size of your Facebook business page you could have an extra 50, 200 or 500 eyes viewing the rooms as you walk around. Not bad for one click of a button.
Boutiques could Facebook Live once per week to announce new stock arrivals and highlight best selling or on-trend pieces.
Craft makers could Live broadcast the making of a popular product or a tour around the workshop behind the scenes…
The opportunities are there and an audience is waiting, after that it’s about figuring out what works and what doesn’t, what entertains, informs or engages your audience.
The Premier League Football Problem
On a bigger level, for many brands and businesses Facebook Live, and similar features on other apps, represents a big opportunity but the Premier League may not be one of them.
Recently I’ve been able to watch full Premier League games, otherwise unavailable to a UK or Ireland television audience, via a Facebook page live streaming everything from a location most likely in Asia.
The live stream in question attained an audience of approximately 6 thousand people with almost zero promotion, simply through the organic reach of Facebook.
This represents a major issue for the Premier League going forward as Live broadcasting is only going to get bigger and it will be interesting to see how they tackle the problem.
If you feel like your business could suffer in some way my advice would be to start broadcasting and figuring out Live before the competition does.
NFL UK Going For It
Interestingly, the NFL may be showing the Premier League a thing or two when it comes to using social media Live broadcasting.
Just this week, on Tuesday 13th December, the NFL used Facebook Live to broadcast and announce the organisation’s four upcoming International Series games to be held in London in Autumn 2017.
Despite having different broadcasting deals with Sky and the BBC respectively, NFL UK used Facebook Live to make their announcements.
The reason for this? Instant audience.
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Take some time to experiment with Facebook Live over Christmas or January; depending on when is quieter for your business.
Live broadcasting is now just a click away for everyone.