I recently was live chatting to my followers about a mind shift or a shift in thinking in regards to your social media marketing in terms of online assets.
The idea came to me after a chat with my son and we were talking about businesses, and how many of us will use a strategy for our marketing whether this be online or offline and often we will see the benefits of this strategy.
Which will be a phone call, an email address and/or a sale. The issue we were chatting about is that for many of us in business we implement these strategies and they seem to be a one off, after we have completed we more often than not, don’t implement them again, and this was the conversation we were having around “Why” as a business owner do we not play the consistency card with our marketing, and market our business when the cash flow starts to stop.
Personally, I think we often disregard the value of our online marketing and what these platforms can generate for us and our business, especially Facebook.
Like the beast or not, Facebook is still one of the most popular platforms, yes, it is frustrating keeping up with the changes, however it is your job as a business owner to ensure you are at the top of your game and keeping up to date with Facebook, is just one component of running a successful business.
Today I would like to challenge you to consider for a moment, the power of your online marketing and to start to think about your Facebook account and platform as an online asset to your business. Every asset you currently own, I am sure that you are looking after it, whether it is your home, car, jewelry or other items of value.
So I pose the question, if marketing is essential for your business and Facebook is one of the biggest platforms, why are so many business owners disregarding the power and the opportunities for their business?
In particular the power of Video and online marketing? I am still amazed at the number of businesses who can’t seem to bring themselves to the Facebook Live space, they have issues around using this extremely powerful platform that is still currently FREE.
I have chatted to you before about the power of live video, and today I would like to share the recent updates and the massive opportunity for you to have your own Live Talk Show – another online asset for your business, add Facebook messenger bots to this Facebook marketing strategy and you have the recipe for a powerhouse asset that will grow exponentially.
Lets quickly revisit the live streaming options, Facebook introduced live streaming in the late part of 2016, three years ago. When it was released I personally was like a child in a candy store, I was so excited at the opportunity to potentially reach out to the world, it was like the first time I was connected to the internet on dial up!
However, I am human and the first time I touched the go live button on my personal page, I froze, I jammed up, I had no idea what to say, I lost all confidence. This for me was a fear of being judged by my close network on my Facebook Profile, I definitely found it easier once the live streaming was available on my business page. Truth be said though, 3 years on, I need to make myself take action, it is easier for me not to go live, then host my show!
What keeps me going is that people watch my show and get massive value, this also generates leads and sales, one show in particular that went for just 5 minutes netted me over $1500.
So going live is easy, created content is also easy, you are the expert in your niche, you just need to allow yourself to share your awesomeness.
However these statistics may help you in creating video on Facebook.
“Of its myriad of advertising content, Facebook videos still leads some of the most Facebook post engagement. Facebook video content includes both videos uploaded to the network and Live-streaming videos. Its viewership is up to 8 billion views a day.
- 85% of video watched on Facebook is silent (captions are a necessity)
- People spend 3x as much time watching a Live video than a pre-recorded one
- Video ad attention is 75% less for ages 18–24 than 65+”
*Statistics from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/#FB-video
Facebook recently have developed a few amazing tools to assist us in the making and streaming of our Facebook live videos, these include:
Rehearsals, I think if you are feeling a little intimidated with live you will love this, this feature will allow page admins and editors to go live and share the live video only to those that have control of the page, this will help you practice until you feel confident to go live.
Editing, creators will now be able to edit the beginning and end of their live video, so no more awkward silences whilst you are waiting to connect, however be careful, I tried this a few weeks ago and instead of trimming I accidentally deleted the entire live video, to make it worst it was an interview!
Streaming, we can now stream up to 8 hours of content live! Before this the maximum was 4 hours.
API, You are probably thinking what is API, well it is Application program interface. Facebook is now with their live api, allowing creators to share the live stream to multiple platforms (this is exciting).
Creator Studio, this is a new function that we have had access to awhile, however a new update in this section of Facebook is we can now schedule content to Instagram and IGTV* from inside of Facebook “WHAT!” Yes, that is right, we can organise our content to go from Facebook to Instagram and IGTV, love this feature, I also love that Facebook is listening and developing the platform to offer functions that we are all looking for. Withing the studio, Facebook is also adding a number of new languages to the auto captioning feature, Cool!
*IGTV is Instagram’s TV, it is currently on a separate app, however it is also connect now to the Instagram app, originally only vertical video was able to be uploaded, now we can upload both vertical and horizontal.
Keep an eye on your creator studio as Facebook also introduces a number of insights and features that will show us the metrics of the videos, fans returning to the page to watch videos.
Watch, the watch party feature will include the ability to tag businesses of influence, replay after the watch party has finished.
Lite, Facebook lite is an android application which will assist users that have low speed connections and phone specs, expected to use less CPU and ram!
What do you think? Again I love that Facebook is rolling out all of these new Facebook features and keeping up to date with the demands on their platform…..
These features are designed to help the video creator, Facebook knows that video is king when content is being consumed online and on their platform, so the tools help us with our metrics and editing.
There is still a massive opportunity for you to dominate your niche and industry with video, both on Facebook Live and other platforms, I like to use my one piece of content idea and repurpose everywhere and that is create a live video, download and upload to YouTube, rip the audio (you now have a podcast), upload to IGTV and Instagram.
This brings me back to my opening sentence, your Asset, Facebook is definitely an online asset to its share holders, hence their continuing to keep the platform recent and up to date, that why the asset will continue to grow.
So, if your business has a Facebook business page, isn’t it fair to say that you are apart of Facebook’s Asset? that your business page is an asset to you?
Then, what steps can you take today to ensure that your online asset is healthy and will continue to grow for you?
- Will you implement the Rehearsals and start your own Facebook Live Show?
- Create a schedule of content that is relevant using the new creator studio options?
- Will you introduce a bot to your Facebook content, so that you can grow your list?
- Will you hold more watch parties to educate and entertain your fans?
- Share your amazing knowledge with the world?
Whatever you decide, I hope that you have a plan in place for your business to consistently deliver content to this platform, I like to say we are here to feed the beast, you may find Facebook frustrating, overwhelming and sometimes giving you no results, however think of your page as an online asset, think how you can make this asset, which cost you nothing work more effectively for your business and grow, either with paid ads or organic strategies.
Thanks again for taking time out to read this article, I hope you are inspired and pushed a little outside of your comfort zone, that you consider what you can do to grow your Facebook Page and develop awesome videos.
For another look and a different perspective at the current scope of Facebook, check out this great infographic from Sorav Jain.
