This month’s talk was choc full of gold from Ian Anderson Gray who spoke about how to gain confidence to create live video on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.
Let’s talk about WHY doing live video is great for your business, first of all.
Advantages of going live
- You can create consistency in your content when you go live on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter which may be easier for you than writing a blog post or doing a podcast.
- Content repurposing – live video can be repurposed into other types of content including video snippets, blog posts, podcasts, webinars.
- Grow your audience – using live video helps your audience to connect with you. It makes you more relatable and human – after all, you are out there, mistakes and all.
- Gain confidence through practice – after doing a few lives you’ll likely find that it’s not as scary as you first thought.
- Increase reach & engagement – lives are a great way to help you find new followers
- Overcome perfectionism – there’s no Take 2 (or Take 45) with live content so your audience gets to see the real you. To err is human, and that’s OK.
Barriers to live video
Tech & equipment
You kit doesn’t have to be expensive, so don’t let that get in the way of going live. You can get a list of equipment at www.iag.me/gearguide
Confidence & fear
Back in 2013/14, Ian started with going live with Google Hangouts and was very nervous despite being a trained classical singer, used to performing in front of thousands. When it came to going live, it was a different matter. He admits that going live still makes him a bit nervous, but that’s a good thing because he can channel that energy into keeping the live video engaging. Reasons why people don’t want to go live include:
- The fear that no-one will watch – better known as Imposter syndrome
- Worrying about messing it up and looking like an idiot
- Perfectionism – when you start your quality will be low, but over time you get better at doing it and get more confident. There will be blips along the way, so don’t compare with others who have been doing it for much longer.
Getting ready to go live
Here are Ian’s top tips for warming up your voice and your confidence before you press that Live button:
Relax your body
- Stretch up to the ceiling for 7 seconds, shake your arms and legs out. Put your arms out in front of you for 7 seconds, up to ceiling and back down.
- Lip trill, stretch out and back again.
- Shoulders – left hand massage the right shoulder look to left, right hand to left shoulder look to right.
- Rub your neck up and down – this massages the muscles there. Then down to the base of the neck.
- Open your mouth and sigh out loud.
- Open your face as wide as possible and scrunch it up. Big, tiny, back and forth.
- Exercise facial muscles.
- Posture – you must look at the camera, not at yourself. Talk to the audience as though they are 30cm behind the camera. Adopt the noble position – nice and straight, lengthen your spine, head up, shoulders down and expand your ribcage.
- Breath control – put your hands below bottom ribs, thumbs on your back, and feel your hands move as you breathe. Repeat while making ss, zz, ff, and vv sounds for 9 seconds.
- Pitch Interest – if you don’t change your pitch, it becomes dull. Go up at the end of ‘Yeah… I wanna go live’ and down as you say ‘So, it’s the end of the show’. Use lip trill exercises to warm up the mouth – say bbbbrrrrrr or roll your R’s, also vowel exercises and tongue twisters.
- Heightened Authenticity – this means practice using different sound levels for 1:1 meetings, small groups, workshops, videos, and conferences, getting progressively louder and more animated. After a few minutes you will find that your level has dropped back a level or two, so try to be aware and keep the energy levels high.
Plan, plan, plan
- Planning your Live – write a summary of the content, target audience, about you, 3 key themes, show your promise, your reasons.
- Types of content – Behind scenes, local, a day in the life, sneak peek, tips and advice
- Pre-promote your live on social media so people know when you will be on. Go live on the same day at the same time so people who follow you get to know when you will be on
- Produce – create a checklist and follow it, remember that you will have a live and a replay audience, so include content for each as necessary
- Post promote – Using your social media, website and other networks
- Repurpose your live to get the most value from it – use blogs, social media, emails, podcasts
Following Ian’s talk, there were a few audience questions:
How long should a live video be?
No real guideline but at the beginning 4-5 minutes. If more people start watching, you can go a bit longer. Facebook Live interactions increase up to 15-16 minutes. There’s no easy answer to this, so you have to try it out and see what works for you.
What do you do with your hands?
Some people might find it distracting but best to be yourself. Try to channel the energy from hands into your voice as well as using your hands.
How can you repurpose content?
Descript.com will transcribe your video and enable you to create little snippets.
It is possible to do captions for live video, but it is very expensive. For repurposing, you can caption using a range of captioning tools.
If you would like to connect with Ian, you can follow him on Instagram at @iagdotme or on LinkedIn.
On March 26th, we have Madalyn Sklar talking about Twitter spaces – please sign up here.