Raw. Personal. Spontaneous. Interactive. This is what I feel about Facebook Live after seeing and experiencing it in action for the past few months. These qualities are what make the platform such an attractive choice for live streams, and so ideal as a front-line channel for engaging your audience.
With live streaming on Facebook Live, broadcasting is now democratized. No matter how many friends, fans, or followers you have, you can now reach a global audience that is hungry for fresh content and live video delivers. Ordinary people, with just a smartphone and a decent data connection, can now become citizen journalists with live streaming capabilities that once required entire media organizations. Information that was not traditionally broadcast, or even captured, can now be sent to a live viewers around the world from the palm of our hands.
Quick and easy
Live streaming gets your content out there when there simply is no time for delay. You can create and publish content on-the-fly without the time or tools required for editing. Your videos won’t be super polished, but your audience actually appreciates that! ‘Real’ resonates—and live video is about as real as it gets. This is perfect for breaking news, daily coaching sessions, or spontaneous streams from somewhere fun an exciting.
The real magic in the trend toward live-streaming video is the unknown. Live is unscripted, unedited. Going live means putting yourself out there—you might make a mistake, get interrupted, or forget what to say. You might also capture something off-the-cuff that is truly brilliant. As long as your content is interesting and authentic, it has the potential to spread like wildfire. 🔥 Thousands of people can become part of a conversation centered on a single live feed. For online entrepreneurs, the potential for a live post to quickly hit viral status could really pay off. Plus, the audience’s ability to participate live (and even react with ’emotions’) allows you, the broadcaster, to respond to comments and questions as they flow in.
Much more to come
Imagine all the room for innovation… This week at its annual F8 developer conference, Facebook showed off a reference design for a high-end video capture system that will record video in 360 degrees, as reported by The Verge. Facebook also announced plans to release an API so developers can implement live Facebook video right into their apps. This would allow for live streaming from a drone, for instance. Yes, you read that right. See it action with Mark Zuckerberg in this awesome demo captured by @kerrymflynn on Twitter:
“Alright, bye, bye drone.” – Zuckerberg #F8 pic.twitter.com/Dy1toyL6J4
— Kerry Flynn (@kerrymflynn) April 12, 2016
Facebook Live offers some serious competition to other streaming platforms, and even as the new kid on the block, it fits well into an ecosystem with 1.4 billion monthly active users. We can count on Facebook to roll out some amazing features for Live in the coming months. After acquiring the popular app MSQRD, Facebook is likely working on integrating the same real-time video filters we love to swipe through in Snapchat.
I know going live might sound intimidating at first, but I highly recommend at least trying it out and doing some experimentation. You can always set up small audiences of just close friends or family. Later, you can create larger audiences and segment them to fit your social media goals. You can broadcast to specific groups: friends, colleagues, customers, for instance. Now is a great time to join in on what could be the new norm for communicating online! Are you streaming on Facebook Live? Let me know in the comments!
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