Why Live Video Needs to Be Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

Video Content Marketing

Video rose to king of con­tent in 2018, and as brands har­ness their pro­duc­tion skills, video con­tin­ues to con­tribute to con­tent mar­ket­ing strate­gies. Mak­ing video a pil­lar of your con­tent strat­e­gy is essen­tial to healthy mar­ket­ing, audi­ence growth and con­tin­ued brand development.

Live Video Marketing

More recent­ly, video con­tent has gone live, mean­ing brands cre­ate and air shows in real-time, with­out scripts. If you’re not yet going live with video mar­ket­ing, you’re miss­ing out a huge new media wave and pow­er­ful tool for engag­ing with consumers.

Live video is a dom­i­nant media play­er because it com­mu­ni­cates authen­ti­cal­ly to con­sumers, pro­vides inside looks into brands, and cre­ates once-in-a-life­time dig­i­tal events that con­sumers can tune into from any­where, for free!

Here are a few of the most com­pelling rea­sons to live video:

• Authenticity is important to consumers

Live video invites con­sumers in for an authen­tic glimpse of your brand. With­out a script and prop­er pro­duc­tion stu­dio, view­ers get to meet the faces that typ­i­cal­ly dri­ve con­tent from behind the scenes.

• Algorithms emphasize video

Google, Face­book and Insta­gram (amongst oth­ers) pri­or­i­tize video con­tent in their algo­rithms. This means the more video you upload, the high­er up in search rank­ings and con­tent feeds you rise. A bit of courage to go live goes a long way with these platforms.

• Content contributes to new channels

Dig­i­tal plat­forms con­tin­ue to pro­duce unique con­tent, cre­at­ing valu­able stream­ing hubs that you’ll be thank­ful to be a part of down the road.

• Live Video is easy to use

Going live is easy! It’s a bit nervy at the begin­ning, but all it takes is the touch of a but­ton to be online and pre­sent­ing to a glob­al audience.

• Video content caters to mobile viewers

Most con­sumers search for prod­ucts on the go, and video is easy to con­sume from any hand­held device. Video is a favored media to con­sume and share at work, with friends, in free time or at social events.

• Face-time establishes a strong connection with users

When your con­sumers get to see you face-to-face, a new lev­el of inti­ma­cy is reached and it’s as if brand and buy­er become friends. Any­time you can intro­duce your audi­ence to the peo­ple behind the scenes at work, the stronger a rela­tion­ship you can forge for life.

• Live video reaches more consumers

Since any­body can tune in from any­where when using social media, shar­ing live video has immense poten­tial to reach a huge audi­ence. Addi­tion­al­ly, since algo­rithms favor live video, your cur­rent stream­ing will be announced and preva­lent­ly shown to all users. 

• Streaming services are free

If you’re using stan­dard social media stream­ing plat­forms, live video is as eco­nom­i­cal as it gets. Depend­ing on prep and avail­able stu­dio light­ing, pro­duc­ing and air­ing your video con­tent is free. With so much mar­ket­ing poten­tial, live video is a tough oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn down and one worth explor­ing while it’s still gain­ing popularity.

• Video engagement continues to increase

The ten­den­cies for high-qual­i­ty videos are still ris­ing, and con­sumers con­tin­ue to watch, replay and share their favorite videos with fol­low­ers and friends. Live video invites con­sumers to com­ment, say hi and ask ques­tions through­out stream­ing, boost­ing engage­ment lev­els to all-time highs.

• Live Video allows analytics tracking

You can track audi­ence engage­ment and activ­i­ty in real-time as you stream a live video. Take atten­tive note to when con­sumers tune in or tune out and cater to their video view­ing pref­er­ences so you can fur­ther enhance your video con­tent strategy.

Let’s take a look at a few ways to exe­cute these video mar­ket­ing advantages.

Content Marketing Video Ideas

If you’re this far along in the post, you know need to go live. The next step is com­ing up with a few cre­ative ways to go about pro­duc­ing your con­tent and con­ceiv­ing of clever videos to post. We’ve list­ed a hand­ful of ideas to get you start­ed on your new live video stream­ing, check them out below.

• Keep it simple

When start­ing out, it’s okay to stick to the live video basics. Keep face-time fresh and straight­for­ward as you warm your audi­ence up to the idea of going live with you more often.

•  Host a live interview

If you can arrange an inter­view with some­body that your view­ers trust and will tune into, make it live. Gen­er­ate aware­ness about the upcom­ing inter­view and stream it live so your audi­ence feels like they’re there in the room, too. Events in real-time are irre­place­able bond­ing moments between brand and consumer.

• Reveal a new product

If you have a new prod­uct or ser­vice (or oth­er note­wor­thy announce­ment) com­ing to the mar­ket, debut it by going live on Insta­gram or Face­book. You can walk view­ers through fea­tures, details, and maybe the inspi­ra­tion that led to the new idea.

• Host a DIY

Go live and walk your audi­ence through a DIY activ­i­ty, such as cook­ing or craft­ing. This keeps view­ers engaged. Be pre­pared to answer ques­tions as they like­ly ask them along the way.

• Go behind the scenes

You know what con­sumers love? Inside access and infor­ma­tion. Take your audi­ence behind the scenes of a live event, prod­uct pro­duc­tion, a brain­storm­ing ses­sion or hol­i­day par­ty to invite con­sumers into the inti­ma­cy of your brand at work.

• Host a Q&A

This is a sim­ple way to get start­ed using live video. Go live and ask view­ers to sub­mit ques­tions or top­ics. As ques­tions come in, you can respond to them. If you hit a dull patch, talk to your con­sumers about a new idea or nar­rate what you’re doing as you go about your day. Keep your audi­ence engaged so they stay tuned for more questions.

• Try out a mini TV show

If you can come up with an inter­est­ing “show” for your con­sumers to tune into, def­i­nite­ly exe­cute it. Watch what con­tent your audi­ence responds to and host it con­sis­tent­ly on your live chan­nel. Set the day and time of the week and be sure to spread the word about going live soon.

Live video social media across all platforms

Going live is an essen­tial part of your social media strat­e­gy. It can feel awk­ward the first time you try it, but it is well worth the courage when con­sumers tune in from all over the world. Live video is a fea­tured option on most social media plat­forms, so be sure to engage the tool across all of your pro­files. Remem­ber, ‘going live’ means con­tent is cap­tured in real-time, so it’s a good idea to be pre­pared with what you want to talk about or show your view­ers. Make live video a con­sis­tent sta­ple in your social media strat­e­gy, espe­cial­ly around big events or prod­uct reveals.

Share Content Marketing Hacks

Have you had suc­cess with the video mar­ket­ing ideas above? If so, let us know about your expe­ri­ences or sug­ges­tions in the comments!

If you don’t include live video in your con­tent strat­e­gy yet, there’s still time to get start­ed. Reach out to our team at Rosy Strate­gies to learn more about the ser­vices we offer. We will work with you to find the live video mar­ket­ing solu­tions that best accom­mo­date your cur­rent con­tent strategy.