Do you have a limiting belief? You know what we’re talking about here. It’s those labels that are things like, “I’m not smart enough to do that. I’m not fast enough to play that sport.” For a lot of us in social media marketing, that label is: “I’m not good enough on camera to do live streams.”
It’s time to get rid of that limiting belief! We’ve put together some effective live-streaming tips for you to do just that.
Feeling confident on camera is not a natural ability for most of us. It’s a skill that you build over time and anyone can do it. If you can talk to a real person in real life, I promise you can talk on a live stream on social media.
What’s more, your community is waiting and eager to hear your voice and for face-to-face connection rather than just seeing your blog posts, your quotes, and your value-adding social media status updates go by.
Use These 12 Live Streaming Tips To Build Your Camera Confidence
Here is some live streaming advice from our resident live stream expert, Megan! She breaks down how to structure your live streams, along with the best live streaming tips and tricks to make you a pro in no time.
1. It’s All About the Message
There is true power in social media videos and the world needs your message right now.
Step number one to realizing how you’re going to be confident on social media videos is remembering that. It’s not about what you look like and it is not about what you sound like.
It is about the message that’s going to impact your audience.
Being confident on camera comes from getting comfortable with your message, so take some time to focus on the true value that your message is caring for people in your community.
2. Know Your Audience
If you’ve niched down and identified a target audience that you’re speaking to and a company mission that’s the driving force behind the content you create, you already have all you need to build your confidence on camera.
Be sure you know who you’re speaking to and why you’re doing what you do.
Sit down and write down who you are trying to reach and why. Are you solving a pain point that’s going to bring more joy or save more time or save people money in the long run? How are you doing this?
One of our first tips for live streaming is to have your audience persona named and write that person’s name on a sticky note and stick that right on your computer.
When you know exactly who you want to talk to, every single follower feels like you’re speaking directly to them. Imagine you’re just speaking to one person and there’s no reason to be afraid.
3. Have a Great Hook
We have the attention spans of goldfish. We all know that. We scroll by videos all the time. Make sure the opening of your live stream really hooks people in.
I started this video by asking you if you had a limiting belief rather than jumping on and explaining, “Hi, I’m Joshua Shoemaker, the CMO of Everlasting Creators! You see how that might actually be a bit more boring for people than if I asked if you had a limiting belief? This is a question that makes you do some curious self-reflection or makes you want to keep watching the video to learn what it’s about.
Of all the tips on streaming, remember: in the first three seconds, you need to hook people in.
You can also use movement to hook people in. For example, a knock on the screen to get someone’s attention or move your hand to your ear for a sound on prompt. Get creative about how you hook someone into your live stream because you have three seconds to grab someone.
4. Promise a Result
After you grab someone in, you want them to stay on your live stream. To do this, you need to promise them some sort of outcome and result from what you’re going to be teaching.
This is going to engage them and get them to stay to the end. So I’m going to then tell you the outcome of this is you’re going to be way more confident about jumping on a live stream and growing your audience. It’s more powerful to remind you of the benefit of sticking with us on video here and of seeing that outcome, audience growth, because I know our audience persona and who you guys are and what you want.
5. Include a Personal Story
Another really good thing to add in at some point in the first couple of minutes of your live stream is a personal story. This makes you relatable and shows you’re not just talking down to someone and relaying your information.
For example, I know that a lot of people struggle with just getting started with the video because you feel like it’s something you either have or you don’t have. So I could tell a story about a social media follower who had success on video because she followed the steps outlined on the blog here.
Or I could tell my own personal story about how I became more successful doing live streaming videos. These things help viewers get into the mindset that they’re ready to take action using the steps you’re going to tell them.
They’re ready to get results, and, if you get people results through your social media content, it is more likely they’re going to come back and consume more of your content. When it comes time to buy your product or service, you’re the logical choice for them to go to because you had them have received results of before.
6. Behind the Scenes Content
Next on our list of live streaming tips: remember you can drop small nuggets of behind-the-scenes content and personal stories in live streams far more effectivley than anywhere else on social media.
Behind-the-scenes content drives an emotional connection with your consumer because it humanizes your brand.
Behind-the-scenes content is great because it gives your followers a sense that they are getting something exclusive by following your social media pages.
We want to feel like we’re getting something other people who are not following are to make sure you’re retaining the followers that you have.
7. Share Actionable Tips and Have a Call To Action
There’s this law of reciprocity that if you give someone something, they immediately feel like they owe you something back. It’s just human nature. So if you have given the step or if you’ve given a tip that someone can take and they actually get those results, it bonds them to that brand.
Once they see results, they’ll feel grateful and will want to reciprocate the help. So, encourage them to follow or like your page or subscribe to your newsletter.
Have the Resources and Props You Need
You can do things like use slides if you’re afraid you’re going to lose your train of thought, or you can go back and forth between slides and your face because I know some people like to follow along with a speaker and with text on the screen.
Use a notes app with just keywords of where you want the discussion to go. Don’t write out long sentences because you don’t want to look like you’re reading. Just put those keywords as a reminder that can be triggers for your brain on what you want to say next. Put big spacing in between them.
At Everlasting Creators for live streams we use a program called StreamYard that shows you how many people are watching live at once. Sometimes that can be a little bit intimidating, not only the large number but also if you see people dropping off or coming in and it’s distracting. So pull the notes app right over the screen so that you don’t your face talking or the followers coming in or coming off of the video.
8. Review Your Insights
You should review your live streams, especially on platforms like YouTube and Facebook that offer these kinds of insights.
Is there a big surge in when people drop off? Consider what you said or what kind of topics you covered.
Go back into your insights afterward to learn where people dropped off or where you retained the most followers, this will give you clues on the types of content and categories people want to watch.
9. Be Enthusiastic
Don’t underestimate the power of enthusiasm. People do not want to listen to a monotone voice. Enthusiasm is going to be a tool you can use that’s just as strong as the quality of your content.
People want to be entertained and they want to be having their energy levels heightened by consuming your content. You don’t want to be a drain so that people are thinking, “When is this video going to end?” Even if you have great content, if it’s delivered terribly, people will drop off.
Get a little bit animated and get excited about the message you’re putting out there. Remember to smile when you’re talking. It really does come across much better and it can boost your signals to your brain to be more enthusiastic.
Another thing I love to do before I hop on camera, and this is done from confidence-building research, is that you get really big. You open up your arms and you tell yourself an affirmation or a mantra that’s really going to help you build confidence, but stand in that big outstretched, arms out, chest puffed out so you are building that confidence for a minute before you hop on a live video.
You’ll feel your energy levels and confidence go up and then tell yourself something to build your confidence.
I love to tell myself that people need to receive the message I’m putting out there and I’m worthy of receiving the attention because we’ve done so much research and we’ve done so many experiments on social media that the knowledge we have needs to get out to our audience.
10. Don’t Try to Be Perfect
Perfection is not a human trait. Perfection is not a relatable trait.
Saying “uhms,” stuttering, losing your train of thought, those are relatable experiences, so if that happens on your live stream, just own it. People understand. Don’t let that stop you from pressing go live on any social media account because the boring, relatable things in our lives are what people resonate with. They do not expect perfection, especially right now. It is going to be a disservice if you let your perfectionism stop you from hopping on video and sharing your face and your message with your followers.
You are not forcing your followers to watch your content either, so don’t let that stop you. This is a reminder I have to make for myself all the time. They can scroll on by. It’s not like in real life if I’m having a conversation with someone that they have to sit there politely.
If someone is not resonating with your message, that’s fine. They can leave because the people who are listening, are meant to be there. Don’t get too afraid of the people who your message is not hitting right. You want to show up for the followers you have and not worry about pleasing everyone because your messaging needs to please the people that your product or service is going to solve a pain point for.
11. Up-Cycle & Repurpose Your Live Stream
One of the best tips for streaming is to upcycle your content. Video content is some of the best content to repurpose on your social media.
Upcycling is the ability to take one well-researched piece of content like a blog post or a live stream and turn it into 5 to 10 social media status updates. Live streams get your face out there to have that human-to-human connection with your audience. You can extend the life of that live stream and have a connection with more of your audience by downloading the stream, editing it into several short clips, and creating 5 to 10 social media status updates about it.
12. Just Hit “Go Live”
Finally, just try it. Go live. It gets less scary the more you do it. The anticipation of what you’re building enough to be scared about is truly worse than the reality.
And you can see here even I’m speaking to a significant amount of people who are afraid of video and afraid of live streams. However, that’s not all of our audience. A lot of our audience is better at live streaming than I am and more seasoned at it.
But that’s okay because this video is meant for you, the person who has been really putting the brakes on doing their first live stream because they are a little bit afraid. I want to give you that confidence by trying these live stream tips and realizing that you need to have a growth mindset to build up the skill.
Try Your First Live Stream
I’m going to leave you here with a super cheesy quote, so don’t tune out, don’t leave me here because it’ll make sense at the end.
There’s this concept that the beauty of a butterfly is when it turns into a butterfly, but the growth comes in the cocoon stage when it’s messy. When there’s growth happening, things look a bit messy.
So on your first couple of live streams, you might be talking to an empty room, you might be talking to no viewers, you might stutter a lot, your feed might cut out because you haven’t found the right program for you. It might be super dark, or your dog barks in the background.
These things are okay. They are the growing pains that are going to bring you to that beautiful butterfly moment where you feel confident and your message comes across perfectly.
Go through these tips for live streaming in order to build up to the moment when you feel confident and your audience will forgive you for those couple of stumbles along the way. Don’t let them miss out on what you can provide during a live stream just because you’re a little bit scared.
After a couple of times, I promise you’re going to figure it out and I promise that it’s going to be better. So let me know too. Go ahead and let us know when you’re doing your first live stream. We would love to come to watch it!
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