5 effective ways to use Facebook Live for business

Social Samosa takes a look at innovative ways to use Facebook Live for business.

Facebook Live is a great marketing tool to engage with your audience by sharing relevant content. A relatively new model, introduced in 2015 that marketers are still figuring out. However, the platform has seen an incredible growth, according to an article published by mediakix, the search popularity for Facebook Live has grown 330 per cent from its inception till date as per Google trends.

As per a report on Socialbakers.com, companies have significantly increased their usage of Facebook Live.

Below are 5 quick ways to use Facebook Live to amplify your business:

Let the consumers experience your brand  

Having a Facebook Live is a great way through which consumers can experience your brand. For e.g. you open a new coffee shop and you would want to promote it. In this case, Facebook Live is a great marketing tool. Through a live video, give the audience a look and feel of what is in store for them, when they visit you. It can be the ambiance of the place or a specially crafted menu.

Last year, Dunkin Donuts debuted on Facebook Live with Valentine’s Day announcement and a special live tour of the Dunkin Donuts kitchen for their followers which managed to rack up 43,000 views and more than 4,100 reactions.

Live stream your new product launch/events

This is another great strategy, which brands have been using these days. Product launches are always done with a lot of fanfare, in front of the press and celebrities. A Facebook Live helps the additional audience experience the product from the comfort of their location and stay connected to the brand.

Mark Zuckerberg uses Facebook Live to broadcast important company announcements and also fun things, like when he returned to his Harvard dormitory room after 13 years and live streamed the entire event.

When Vivo V5s was launched in India in April this year, the event was live streamed on Vivo India’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Coldplay concert which took place last year in India was live streamed on their Facebook page, while only a thousand could attend it; millions could view it through Live Broadcast.

Conduct Live sessions

You can do live sessions and also invite the audience to leave their questions in the comments section for a healthy communication flow. It not only becomes interactive, but the audience also gets hooked on to your content.

Like we at Social Samosa, do frequent Facebook Live sessions, where we invite industry honchos to come and speak on a topic which caters to our target audience. It is a great way to connect with the audience and build a community.

News portal Quint does Facebook Live from their morning editorial meeting to discuss the editorial stories of the day. They ask people to give them suggestions on the stories they have been doing and what kind of content would they like to see.

Feature employees

Feature employees on your live videos, give them the platform to share and talk about their experience with the company. Giving them the spotlight not only gives a boost to your current employees but it also shows the human face of your organisation.

This year, Delta Airlines, thanked each of their 80,000 employees by name in a 50 + hour broadcast on Facebook Live.

Partner with influencers

If you have an influencer or a familiar face appearing in your Facebook live, you will get more people watching your video. The topic should be relevant and the discussion should be in an engaging manner. The key to co-marketing is that both should ideally benefit from it.

Last year, McDonald’s hosted their first Facebook Live video and according to reports, it garnered 884,300 people in the first 40 minutes of its session. It was in honour of the National Hamburger Day and most of the feedback was either positive or neutral. In fact, before this, the brand had purposely avoided using live videos to engage because of the fear of criticisms.

However, one also needs to be extra cautious because it is happening live and any kind of error can tarnish the image of the brand. Off course technical snag is not always in our hands, but we should try our best to see everything is in place.

Like in 2016, BuzzFeed was doing their Facebook Live interview with Barack Obama and in between the video stalled and some 35,000 viewers were left with nothing but to see the editor sitting alone in the White House introducing the event.