Content is KING on the internet. Not just any content though, QUALITY CONTENT. Everyone today is far too familiar with terms like fake news and click bait. Everyone is just stumbling around trying to find content that is valuable to them and once they find a brand the consistently provides quality content they become obsessed.

There are few mediums in the marketing industry that allow brands to connect and engage with their audience’s in a human-to-human way that lets consumers participate and engage with a brands storytelling better than live streaming.

Many businesses fail to understand that marketing is more than just analytics. The brands who eagerly drop the corporate veil and start connecting with their audiences in a real human-to-human way are the ones who are out there dominating their content creating right now.

So, what does valuable content look like? Valuable content is about keeping it real with your corporate image, keeping it real with your audience, and keeping it real with your marketing. If you’re not sure where to begin? Take a look at the list of live stream marketing ideas we created below to get you started.

Everyone knows running a Facebook or Instagram giveaway is a great way to generate engagement with your brand on social. But very few brands consider bringing those campaigns to live streams. They post about it once on their Facebook page and say something like, “like and share to enter” with a photo that is related to the giveaway. Sadly, these companies are missing a big opportunity to engage human-to-human with their audiences beyond just the giveaway.

Sure, engagement is great, but engagement with a giveaway does little to sell your products and tell people about your brand and your best features. That’s why using a live stream to promote your giveaway is such a great resource. It gives your brand the opportunity to talk about your new products, your current products, upcoming events, introduce your team members, explain how products are made, as well as announce the giveaway and announce the giveaway winners.

Comarketing or influencer marketing is a term that every business should be familiar with these days. Essentially it means leveraging the influence and audience of someone who is already respected in your industry usually the people or brands that already have a large following and collaborating with them to benefit both of you.

Finding an influencer in your target market is easy. Just think about the social media accounts that already have a following on each social media platform within your niche. Reach out to the influencers that already have 1000’s, 10,000’s, 100,000’s or even millions of followers and offer to collaborate on a project with them and live stream the whole thing. Get creative with it, comarketing should be fun.

This one is a bit self-explanatory and has a lot of space to get creative and have fun with your audience. The idea is to live stream content that interests your target audience. Start by thinking about what kind of activities and places your target audience finds interesting and live stream that.

For example, let’s look at Redbull, they sell energy drinks, but they want to associate their brand with achieving and accomplish amazing stuff. So, they sponsor athletes and extreme sports events and live stream athletes pushing the limits of their respective sports.

Now obviously Redbull is a marketing giant and unless you own a fortune 500 company you probably don’t have that kind of marketing budget. So, think affordable.

Do you sell outdoor gear? Great… live stream people hiking a popular hiking trail in your area while they use and talk about your gear.
Do you sell pots and pans for cooking? Great… live stream someone cooking a recipe using your pot or pan while they talk about how great your pots and pans are.
Do you sell bird feed? Great… set up a bird feeder in your backyard and live stream when lots of birds are feeding on your bird feed.

The point is it doesn’t matter what your business sells or makes you should make content that your target audience would like to see if they are interested in your product or service.

Using a live stream to talk human-to-human about all the questions your audience has is a great way to engage with them and increase customer loyalty.

Maybe you have a new product coming out soon or are attending an event soon? Start a live stream to talk about all the problems you’ve run into and how you have overcome them while you talk about all the other features and benefits of your brand.

Throughout the live stream remind the people watching to ask you questions. People love to interact with their favorite brands and it gives you the opportunity to meet and talk with people who might otherwise never ask that question they have.

People love to see things other brands don’t normally show them. Being transparent by lifting the corporate veil and making your audience feel like they are part of your business team is huge for customer loyalty.

If you have a weekly meeting with your staff members where you go over business goals for the week live stream it. Remind your audience you brand is made up of real people and let them ask your team questions and give you suggestions.

If your products are made here in the USA, live stream how your products are made by showing the processes focusing on the details you think are most important. You can also introduce all the people that work on making the products you sell and let viewers see all the hard work and love that goes into making the quality products you sell.

Talking about a new product on a live stream can be a fun and engaging way for brands to show off all the hard work and showcase the features and benefits of the new product. At the same time it lets you give your audience a chance to ask about the questions that matter to them.

Demos and how to live streams can be useful for many kinds of businesses.

• • If your product is used to do something specific like cooking, go on a live stream showing people how to cook their favorite recipe using your cooking utensil.
• • If your product is more of a service like art studio live stream an artist explaining their thought process behind how they plan out a specific painting and talk about all the different kinds of paints and let people, ask the artist questions while he or she paints.
• • For b2b companies the concept is the same. Prepare a fun environment for you to talk about something like a specific service or get creative with your “demos and how to” live streams.

Live streaming interviews and events are a great way for brands to market their services and showcase their products or expertise while they interview an influencer that your target audience would otherwise be unable to see.

For example, if you sell outdoor gear your business could interview popular Instagrammers who have a profile about living out of a converted Volkswagen van while they travel the country with their cute dog. Interview these people to talk about all the struggles and ask them questions your audience would want to ask them. Let these people test your products for a few months and have them promote them in the live stream.

Another example would be live streaming local events such as, trade shows, festivals, competitions and so on. Live streaming a trade show that your company is hosting or attending locally is a great way to generate awareness for the show and get people to come.

Sure, people might already know about the event this weekend from your Facebook post earlier in the week but once they see a live stream of you setting up your table and talking about how awesome it is and how excited your team is to meet everyone in the community, that’s what makes them want to come check it out.

Building the hype around a live stream is key to generating anticipation around a giveaway or big announcement and it’s extremely important in creating brand awareness, lead generation, and engagement. You need to get people to watch, share and engage with your live stream. So, how do you do that?

Creating a lot hype around your live stream requires a bit of finessing. The best approach we’ve found is through a term called Integrated Marketing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term integrated marketing it basically means leveraging all your social media influence by creating cross platform marketing campaigns that generate engagement where you want it most.

Demos and how to live streams can be useful for many kinds of businesses.

1. 1. Start by announcing the upcoming live stream a few hours or even a whole day before you go live, depending on the size of the announcement. Make a post on your Facebook newsfeed, on your Instagram Story, on your Snapchat Story, and your Twitter feed telling your followers you are going live at 12pm EST Tomorrow. The post should create anticipation so telling them your team has a huge announcement they don’t want to miss is a great way to generate awareness and get people to keep an eye out for the live notification they get at 12pm tomorrow.


2. 2. Follow up by making a post, two hours before you go live saying, (whatever it is your live stream is about) for example, “Huge announcement in just 2 hours... you don’t want to miss our Facebook live stream”.


3. 3. Engage with the people who are watching and commenting on your stream like your life depends on it. Say their names in the stream, answer their questions, ask them to tell you where they are from, whatever it takes to get them to engage with your stream, so they feel like you are connecting with them one-on-one.


4. 4. Remind and welcome the new viewers that are joining the stream let, what the stream is about.


5. 5. Follow up live streams. Go live multiple times through out the life of an event or announcement to give people updates and to inform people who may have missed it the previous time.

*Remember live streaming gives your brand the opportunity to talk about all the new and interesting things that your business is up to recently. For example, remind people about the new website you’re launching in a few weeks and let them meet your web development team.

You don’t need to prepare a script for a live stream. Live streams are supposed to feel real and, in the moment not like a polished production quality video. When your company live streams try to drop the corporate veil and give you audience a platform to connect with your brand in a more personal human-to-human way by showing them who you really are.

Remember your live streams don’t need to be long they can be 3 minutes where you hop on stream while your making coffee to give your followers an update on how things are going.

Don’t have the time or patience for marketing? Contact YouNoWeNo. We help business like yours every day grow their business.