Are you still sitting on the sidelines, missing out on all the marketing and branding opportunities Facebook Live has opened for businesses around the world?
If yes, it's time to let go of your apprehensions and recognize this opportunity that has already changed the way people use Facebook.
Facebook is quickly transforming into a video-only platform, and one of its top executives has already predicted the near end of the written word in a few years' time.
Facebook Live is a major step in that direction.
Source: Facebook Live Stats 2016
Facebook is intentionally giving more organic exposure to live videos, which is why Facebook Live dominates the News Feeds of most of its users these days.
What does that mean for businesses and B2B marketers?
Some 60% of B2B marketers already use pre-produced video in their online marketing strategy, according to the annual B2B content marketing survey by MarketingProfs and CMI. It's safe to assume livestreaming is going to be a growing part of video use in the future.
Leading B2B brands and marketers have begun using Facebook Live to engage with their audiences and build a deeper connection with their target customers. If you're short of ideas on how Facebook Live can benefit your business, here are some tips to get you started.
1. Help your customers find success with your product
The human brain processes images, visuals, and video much faster than it does text. This is precisely why video is an excellent medium for helping your customers to understand your product better, and use it to achieve their business goals.
Facebook Live takes video to a new level by giving you the ability to do live product demonstrations and interact with your audience while doing so.
You can take questions in the comments of your livestream and answer them live in your video. You can ask your customers for real-life examples of how they're using your product to achieve their business goals.
This approach is ideal for B2B SaaS companies, because they have tech-savvy customers looking for various ways to expand their businesses online. For example, email marketing company AWeber routinely uses Facebook Live sessions to share ways customers can use their platform to build a more targeted and engaged subscriber base for their businesses.
Using live video in this way not only helps your customers use your product more effectively but also builds loyalty for your brand since you're always there to listen to your clients and help them out.
2. Build your subscriber base with content upgrades
Building a loyal subscriber base is one of the most important things both for B2B and for B2C companies with an online presence. More than 83% of B2B marketers consider email list building an essential part of their marketing strategy, according to Campaign Monitor, and e-commerce marketers who use email retargeting recover more than half of abandoned-cart customers.
In short, email needs to be a key part of your marketing strategy.
Using content upgrades to generate email subscribers has been one of the top marketing techniques over the last 2-3 years.
In simple words, a content upgrade is a free downloadable resource (usually a checklist or a 2-3-page e-book) placed in the middle and at the end of a blog post on the same topic. It offers additional value to the readers in exchange for their email addresses.
You can apply the same strategy to build your email list with Facebook Live.
Here's how.
Finalize the topic of your Facebook Live session and create a free downloadable checklist or e-book as a content upgrade. Make sure it's relevant to the topic of your livestream and offers information or tools that you don't share during your video. Set up a simple landing page (if you use WordPress, you can use a landing page plugin) and integrate it with your email marketing tool to collect emails. The URL of your landing page should be easy to understand (for example, yourdomain.com/fblive)