Instagram Live —or Live Stories— is a nifty little addition to the social media toolbox that puts brands and fans directly in touch. The feature works within Instagram Stories and allows users to broadcast in real-time to other users on the platform; making for more intimate and genuine experiences compared to feed photos and videos. Although I know that the mere mention of the word “live” is more than enough to get those butterflies fluttering in your stomach, companies really have a lot to gain from Instagram Live. It presents a unique and pretty straight-forward avenue for boosting interaction, connecting with new, larger audiences, and bringing brand transparency to the next level. Major brownie points are also given to Instagram Live for bumping your content to the first position in Stories at the top of user’s feeds.To top it off, followers also get a notification telling them when you go live; and after you’ve finished broadcasting your Live video, you can post it to your Story, where it will be available for 24 hours.
To help out with the pre-live gitters, we’ve put together a little run-down of how to best integrate Instagram Live into your marketing campaign from start-to-finish.
1. Create a Video Road Map 🎞️🗺️
Think of Instagram Live as a vacation: You’ll want to plan it ahead of time so you can juice it for all it’s worth. Creating a road map of your video will help prevent you from falling off the rails and allow for a more seamless viewing experience. Writing down all the points you want to cover as well as how long you want to cover them is a pretty solid way of carving out your video’s structure. Setting goals and taking action to monitor your peaks and pitfalls will also help guide you in future content creation. To reach more people and build strong relationships with your audience, set a content schedule, and stick to it. We explain this concept in depth in our: How to Integrate IGTV into your Social Strategy (Now is the Time!), but publishing episodes on a regular schedule will get your audience attuned to coming back and looking forward to watching your segments.
2. Collab with Industry Faves 🤝👩🎨
There’s really no better way of spreading brand awareness and gaining more followers than collaborating with Instagram’s finest. Be it business-savvy entrepreneurs rocking it in conversations about the industry or trend-setting influencers making waves online, these are the people who your target audience already recognizes and enjoy and when you host a collab, they can bring a ton of eyeballs to your brand and introduce more people to your business. All you gotta do is tap on the “Add a guest” button at the bottom of the screen (the one with the two smiling faces) and it’ll give you the option to choose another guest in your stream. When the guest joins, their video will appear with yours on a split screen. Et voilà, we’ve got a recipe for success!
3. Be Engaging 👩💻💬📈
It’s always best to make it a priority to engage and interact with the viewers who are watching, in this way, you are also working to keep the tempo of your video fun and entertaining. In online business, people commonly associate employee interaction with the quality of a brand, and like customer support, a bad experience may put a bad taste in someone’s mouth about your company. To ensure that your are putting your best foot forward and help cultivate a cheerful mood, make sure to check your comments frequently throughout the streaming process. If someone says hi, say hi back; if someone asks a question, answer it to the best of your ability. Go the extra mile and work it into your schedule to pose questions to the audience, and be attentive to their answers. Connecting with your target audience in the moment shows customers that you have nothing to hide and humanizes your business, bringing brand transparency to your marketing mix.
Got any tips-and-tricks you find help you in your Instagram Live Streaming? Share some knowledge and comment below; we’d love to hear!
-Holly Eady🧚
@serotinamedia
#KEEPSOCIAL
