social media tips Archives

Webcasts are very popular right now with the advent of the easy to use video-centric software that is available today. Webcasts can be live or on demand. You can do webcasts using software like Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope.com and more. All you have to do is have an idea, a camcorder/smartphone, and then perform that idea. Here are some tips on how to make your webcasts the best they can be on those platforms. Easily make your webcasts entertaining and engaging for your audience.

1. Keep Them Short – No one wants to watch a two-hour live webcast, even weekly. More than 30 minutes may be too long. Get to the point, make the time you spend with your audience valuable to them, while focusing on the message and keeping it short and sweet. You still have a shop to run and customers to work with. A 10-15 minute weekly update and information session is more than enough. Keep them action packed and entertaining.

2. Show the Insider’s View – If you have a live event coming up, it’s great to show them some of the preparation and behind-the-scenes stuff you have to do. Whether it’s getting the lighting right or working on the sound, this is valuable information for your audience. They will love getting to know what your set up looks like or how your back room looks before a season launch!

3. Have a Point – Before creating any type of video, you need to have a point. Know what message, lesson, call to action etc. you’re going to give prior to starting your live event. People don’t want to waste their time; give them a reason to tune in every day. Write your notes on a 3×5 index card and have your key points ready. It’s ok to look at your notes, just keep the session moving and don’t hem and haw.

4. Look into the Camera – When you do your live events, there will be times that you don’t look at the camera. That’s okay; if you’re talking to someone else, you’ll want to look at that person. But, when you’re addressing your audience, look at them. And look into the lens, not the video display that shows you are in the picture.

5. Ensure Lighting and Sound Are Good – It’s hard to enjoy watching any live event when the sound and lighting are bad. Ensure that you have some sort of sound and lighting to make the event more enjoyable to watch. It’s easy to buy a lighting kit to set up and leave up that can make your lighting great – or choose a window with a sunny day if you don’t want to set up.

6. Invite a Live Audience – A really exciting way to do a live event is to also invite people to watch you perform the event in person. The energy the people will bring will make the event even more fun for people to watch. Doing them at a consistent day/time every week makes sure that if your customers want to be a part of the show they can be there.

7. Offer an Incentive – If you’re going to do a weekly event there should be something in it for the viewer. You can give away prizes; you can have an ongoing drawing where you randomly choose a winner who watched last week who must be watching this week to get the prize. Ensure you read the terms of service so that you do this by law. Or you can give a quick and free guide to the week’s topic and have people opt in to your email list – win/win.

8. Teach Them Something Useful – It can be valuable to tune in to your live event just because what you teach each week is something they can put to use right now. Don’t be stingy with information. Even if you are selling information, give it away on your weekly events. You are selling a product – tell people how to use it. You will become the go to expert and often it helps you get better wholesale accounts and free samples to show your audience. Just love what you do and show it.

Anything you normally do in your business can be fodder for a weekly webcast. You can show your audience a “day in the life,” a sneak peek behind the scenes and more. If you have a blog post about it, it can become a webcast idea. Have fun most of all, because it’s something you are going to do every week and you need to be upbeat and interesting while you are doing it.

If you want to start performing a webcast every week, you’ll need to come up with ideas that keep your audience engaged. It’s not as hard as you think to come up with ideas. You can repeat these ideas on a regular basis so that your audience is always dialed in and interested. Sometimes having a content plan or editorial calendar makes it easy to distribute the work and have your set up be easier. Plus you can let your customers/fans know what is coming soon!

1. Behind the Scenes – Everyone likes to know what you’re doing when you’re not doing your business. If you’re a food blogger, you could do a behind the scenes of how long it takes you to set up a shot, or about the mistakes you’ve made, or how you come up with an idea or shop for food. If you want to show off a bit of boxes coming in or show how to steam your clothes before you put them out in the shop, have at it!

2. A Day in the Life – If you’re a life coach you might want to show your audiences how you live and do a webcast from a vacation point, or while you’re on the road instead of from your well-decorated office. Show up in jammies, a swim suit, or other attire based on where you happen to be at the moment. Show off where you are. For your fashion shop, you might want to have an employee go through what they do in a typical day – organizing, unpacking, setting up for a webcast, helping customers, etc.

3. How I Do That – Most people love to know how to do things, and even if you’re afraid that they’ll then do it all themselves rather than shop from you, don’t worry. That won’t happen. Show them how you do things, and they’ll trust you even more to do it for them if that’s your service. But, more people will watch because it’s valuable and useful to learn how to do things. Ask them what they want to learn about and try to remember what it felt like when you learned the same things. Also, look to your vendors and see what they are teaching on youtube or Facebook Live videos.

4. Interviews – People also love learning about other people who are in the niche themselves. Whether they’re movers or shakers or newbies starting out, interviewing them for your webcast will be interesting for your viewers and for you. Interview other shop owners or vendors at the shows and have a break from a week of webcasts by publishing that on a scheduled week. Or when you have a vendor come by for a show and tell, do a quick interview with them. (tell them what you are doing before hand and they might have some great ideas for you)

5. Q & A Session – You likely get asked a lot of questions, so you can have a whole hour of Q & A where you answer questions off the cuff. You can collect the questions in advance or you can let them ask during the event if you have someone to help capture the questions for you. This one never gets old and it makes you very personable.

6. Live Events – If you have a cool life event happening that you think your audience will be interested in, why not stream it live for your audience? A graduation, an award, a speaking engagement… are all good fodder for a webcast. With fashion blogs and shops it is always good to do a live Q&A or a live fashion show for each season – or monthly!

7. Rants – Did something happen in your niche that you really need to discuss and rant about? If you have the right audience in the right niche, this may be one of your most watched webcasts, especially on replay. Talk about something that really gets you going – do you find one of the latest trends to be silly or is there something that you just love that you can’t wait to chat about? Either one or more will do.

8. Case Study – Did you or your solution help someone with something important? You can bring them on to discuss their situation and case. Go over it as you would a written case study so you don’t miss an aspect that made them successful. Maybe you do a lot of prom dresses and you can go through a case study talking about different body types and how to choose a dress for your style.

9. Get a Co-Host – You can ask different people to co-host based on your topic for the week. Usually it’s good to bring in an expert on the topic to help you present the facts for that webinar. It makes the webcast more fun to have more people, and the discussion will be interesting to the audience members.

10. Hot Seat Day – If you’re a coach, web designer, someone who helps writers, or other teaching/helping niche, you can put someone on the hot seat and analyze and advise them live during the webcast. This is a great way to show what you know, but you need to choose your subjects carefully because not everyone can handle this type of event. Or do this with a fashion styling day – show how you would style someone for an event – it shows your expertise and engages the audience.

Hopefully these ideas work for you. You can do so many different things with a webcast. The fact that you can share slides, share what’s around you and look at your audience live is a very powerful thing that can make a huge difference. You just need your phone or video camera (I use this one: Canon Vixia) to start and a good tripod to hold it while you talk. You can also use a webcam and your computer in your office.