Welcome to episode 393 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
I’m really excited about today because we’re talking about something that I brought up to you guys a while ago and I asked if you wanted sort of a recap, and it was an overwhelming yes, so I’m delivering. Over the last month-ish we, and by we I mean I, I have been testing going live on Facebook more frequently. This was partially in response to the algorithm changes and I wanted to see what kind of organic mojo I could get from doing more lives, but also it was just in response to I really enjoy the live content, enjoying it once a week, and so I thought, let’s try it even more. So far I’m really, really loving it. I really do enjoy going live. I think it’s a fun way to connect. It feels really conversational and community-focused, which if you’ve literally ever heard me say more than two sentences, you’ve heard me use those words, so I really, really love it.
One of the things I want to start by saying is if you’re looking for a resource around video, I love, love, love livestreamingpros.com. They have amazing contents. I’m not a part of their membership or anything. I did purchase one of their workshops, though, and it was just really helpful. They’ve just got really great content. They’re a really solid example of walking their talk and I always respect that, so if you’re looking for a resource that really is doing a great job on video and sort of somebody who you can watch and say, That’s what I want to do, they’re a great example. They talk about sort of like different levels of live video, level one being like just using your phone, level two being something like B LIVE, level three being something more like OBS or Ecamm Live, which is what I use. And level four being having a dedicated machine and studio all set up that is dedicated only to live video and video production as a whole.
So I use level three. One of the things I really love about them is they talk a lot about even if you’re using level four, using level one from time to time. This is something that I did when I was in San Diego for T&C (Traffic and Conversion Summit). I will do again when I’m down in San Diego for 90 Day Year next week. It’s something that I definitely want to integrate more into my strategy, but for the most part, nine out of 10 videos you see over at The Stacey Harris on Facebook are level three. They’re on my computer using generally either the computer’s built in camera, which I don’t prefer to use, but I sometimes use, or my external camera which is a Canon T6i Rebel. That’s sort of my set up. I love it because I can pull in comments and things like that. But that’s sort of the foundations that I use.
You do you though. Start where you’re at. If that’s an iPhone on a tripod or Amazon, or an Amazon, an Android, rather, I just made an Amazon order, can you tell? An Android on a tripod, that’s cool. That’s great. Start there. I will say sound quality matters, so if you’re gonna be doing something on your iPhone, either invest in like a mic set up or if you really need to get started, I’ve actually gotten really decent audio off of my, I have Air Pods, the wireless earbuds, or I’ve used lots and lots, a wired earbuds with my phone, and gotten actually decent audio quality. One thing to consider when you have a lapel mic or you have earbuds that you’re using and they’re wired, is it’s probably touching your shirt. That makes noise. Especially if you then have like a necklace or something on. If you’re shifting and moving the mic will pick that up. This is actually a really good podcasting tip too. So be aware of that. Because audio quality matters probably more than anything else. But yeah, so make sure you’re paying attention to that. If you’re doing it sort of iPhone style.
I think that’s all on sort of the video foundations front, but check out Live Streaming Pros, they have a ton of great resources. We’re gonna be adding some more live stuff inside of Hit The Mic Backstage. But they’re a really great resource to watch outside of Hit the Mic Backstage. Certainly not the only resource in town, me, but I’m a good one. All right.
So I’m gonna now jump into my three things I actually wanted to tell you.
Number one, this has been magic for my organic reach.
I will say I do put some ad dollars behind my Facebook Lives when they have a strong call to action to an offering. For example, we’ve done ones that really spoke to booking one on one time with me, especially as my one on one calendar is filling up as far as, ’cause I’m taking June and July off. Or Hit the Mic Backstage, then I’ll run a really small budget to sort of get in front of some new eyes. I’ve always used that, one of the things we’re actually gonna do this week, in fact, the Facebook Live we’re doing on Wednesday, I believe, I think it’s on my calendar for Wednesday is going to be a sort of, hey you’ve been watching the videos here, but I never introduced myself. Never say, hey I’m Stacey and this is who I am. I sort of assume if you’re watching the video you know who I am, and we’re actually gonna run that to cold traffic in the hopes of, and I say in the hopes, the goal for this strategy is to increase the Facebook page likes and drive some traffic to a freebie opt-in that will upsell to Hit the Mic Backstage. So that’s what we’re testing this week. I don’t have the numbers for that yet, stay tuned I’ll share for sure. Maybe via a Facebook live. But it’s been a really, really powerful way to provide value and get in front of an audience.
One thing I will say is we always have done really, you know, value based videos, but where I’m seeing a lot of value added without too much additional effort on my part is adding captions. That has been really powerful in increasing my organic reach because it’s kept video retention. Meaning when somebody starts watching the video they keep watching the video. Because I don’t know if maybe you’re like me, I spend a lot of time watching videos on mute at, you know, kid activities and in-bed with the husband. Or early morning when everybody’s still sleeping or whatever that is. I do end up watching, at the gym, a lot of videos muted and so I read the captions and what’s been really great is seeing how having those captions, ’cause I didn’t do them for a while, has really impacted video retention and that has been really beneficial for my organic reach.
In fact, we have a video that has no ad support whatsoever right now that’s got like three times the reach of something that actually we have a little bit of ad dollars behind. So we’ll be shifting that. We’ll be changing that up a little because there was such great engagement and retention in the video consumption. And so pay attention to those things, ’cause that’s going to … you know just doing the video, just having a video isn’t going to help your reach. Having a video people are watching and engaging with, that’s going to impact your reach. I share maybe one link a week. Sometimes I share this podcast via a standalone link post, but I’m even honestly, I’m doing a lot of sharing this podcast via a Facebook Live video, so I talk a little bit about what’s on the show and the call to action is to click the link and listen to the show.
I haven’t seen a better click through one over the other. I think there’s probably a lot of people who see the video and don’t watch the video and they just click the link because I haven’t, as far as traction to the website, I’m actually seeing about even. But my reach is significantly initially better with video versus sometime, with the links I definitely have to put a little ad money behind it to get to the same kind of audience. So that’s, it’s worth checking. It’s worth paying attention to. If I’m getting the same traction without running the ad dollars, I can move that section of my budget elsewhere. So it’s something to consider.
Number two thing I wanted to talk about was engagement.
I am still playing with timing for maximum engagement. I’m actually gonna be testing this week going live in the afternoon, West Coast time, because I’m actually, the couple of times where it’s kind of ended up being in the afternoon, through the course of my schedule, I’ve actually gotten a lot better live engagement. And for me, I enjoy that more. It feels more like a conversation, and so selfishly I think that’s really fun. I will say though that I don’t think it’s required. I don’t think it’s something that you have to have in every video to see success as long as you’re getting some engagement then on the replay.
I know where I’m not getting engagement I’m looking at, okay so how can I deliver that content in a way that’s more engaging? Or is that content that needs to be shared in a different medium? Is Facebook Live not the place for those conversations? And so that’s one of the things I’m paying attention to, because engagement is powerful. But I am absolutely, even what we’ve been doing Facebook Lives since the beginning, so over a year, and we’ve been doing for the last couple of months, I wanna say maybe January and February, definitely February and March, two or three Facebook Lives a week. Engagement is still the most important part of that. And testing my timing is something I’m still working on. So if you’re just starting, and you’re not feeling like you’ve got the timing down, give it time. That may be something that you have to keep playing with. And it may be something that once you find it you have to play with it again after a while. So get a feel for that.
Number three thing and then we’ll wrap up, I have to say the ROI on my ads that are pushed to a video, or with a video, my video format ads, the ROI is way higher.
I love love love love love the traction we’re getting with video ads. We’re also seeing higher relevancy scores with video versus, you know, where I’m straight up talking about the same thing. I haven’t tested the exact same content, but I’ve tested very similar content, where we’re getting a seven or a eight with a text ad with a photo, like a link, a traditional Facebook ad with a link, we’re getting relevancy scores of nine when we do the same thing with a live video in the ad. Well it’s no longer live, but a video that was live in the ad.
It’s really great. I love it, especially when we talk about running really early sort of test campaigns for new audiences, or retargeting campaigns where we’re talking like I’m running for like a buck a day. And we’re like, oh hey, that’s really doing something. Awesome. So pay attention, pay attention to that. And what you see success with, start putting a little more money behind. You know when you see an ad doing well, increase that budget, and leverage that success. That’s a great way to figure it out. I will say I still like a pretty healthy ads overall budget, when I talk about a dollar a day, that’s not my total ad spend. I’m running a dollar a day over probably, let’s see right now I think we have seven or eight, maybe ten campaigns running. Between retargeting, cold audience, all of sort of our different pieces, we have some numbers. And inside of those campaigns, we in many cases we have a couple of ads that each of those ad sets is getting a dollar or more per day, so test what you feel comfortable with. If you’ve never run any ads before, starting out with a dollar a day just sort of testing things, realizing that you’re not gonna make $100,000 on a one dollar a day ad.
But it’s a great way to start testing audiences. And then when I know something’s gonna work out. I know that it’s kind of getting what I want, then I’ll increase it to five, 10, 20, 100, 500, 1,000, whatever it needs to be per day to really leverage the success we wanna have with whatever that campaign is. But I do like those low dollar ads to start with, especially when we’re talking about retargeting, one of the things I love to do is re target viewers of the ads, so if you’ve watched 75% of my Facebook Lives, you’ve very likely seen an ad for Hit the Mic Backstage, because that’s your logical next step if you love this show and those ads, and here’s the thing, is I can’t re target you based on the fact that you’ve listened to this much of the show, or how many episodes you listen to of the show. I can absolutely re target you if you watch, 75% of Facebook Live. And that’s good ’cause then you see ads for me instead of people who you don’t like.
All right, that’s it. That’s sort of my big things, those are what I wanted to talk about, that’s what I wanna break down with you guys. I highly recommend, if you’re not yet going live, start looking at where it fits into your strategy. If you have questions about Facebook Live, be sure to ask them. I’m happy to answer what I can answer, best place to leave those is Hit the Mic Backstage, all right? Also, remember the link, there’s a brand new LinkedIn training in Backstage that just launched this month. We’ve got our Ask Me Anything Member Mastermind Call this week. It’s on Thursday the 22nd. And what else? Oh and next month we have a really killer training coming out that I actually am scripting right now and I’m super super excited to film around sort of quarterly reviews of your marketing. So it’s gonna be good. So be sure to join us Backstage. If you go to Hit the Mic Backstage right now, you can join us. Get access to absolutely everything, HittheMicBackstage.com for one dollar, so check that out.
I will see you backstage.
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