What could possibly go wrong when we are live broadcasting?
The short answer is anything and everything. Live broadcasting is enjoyable for that very reason.
We cannot control the technical side of broadcasting, and we can increasingly expect good quality video and audio. The majority of our broadcasts are of good quality from a tech standpoint.
When we produce a broadcast, there will undoubtedly be mistakes that we make. I often think my viewership increases when something goes wrong; the word seems to spread quickly.
We cannot avoid making some mistakes in each broadcast. There are steps that we can take to avoid the more obvious ones.
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1 Not rebooting your machine before the broadcast
When we use our computers, the system performs the tasks we ask. We surf the web; we run desktop programs. We go live.
Every time we do something, our computers process the request; everything we do is stored in the computer’s memory. Our machine will also be running programs in the background.
When we go live, we want our machine to be working efficiently.
Before every broadcast, I switch my computer off and turn it back on again. This action stops all the process running and frees the memory which we need for broadcasting. The first thing I do on rebooting is to go to Chrome, load my broadcast studio. I then add my camera and microphone and test both.
2 No Agenda and no planning
When we broadcast, we should have a plan of what we expect to happen in the broadcast. Going live without an idea on the show format is a recipe for disaster; you will stumble and run out of words at some point.
If you have a deep knowledge of the subject matter, then you might recover the situation. If you do not know the topic well, you need to plan and make some notes.
Preparation can be as simple as writing down the talking points you will raise during the broadcast; if you are interviewing a guest, write down the questions,
People often talk about a Run of Show, and this is a structured approach to show planning.Flying by the seat of your pants without planning might be fun for you, but your audience might not agree.
3 Microphone Mishaps
Mishaps with the microphone are my speciality; my viewers have lost count of the number of times when I am talking, and they cannot hear me.
I always remember to mute my microphone when I am playing a video. Even though I use Krisp noise cancellation, I sometimes switch my microphone off.
Switching our microphones back on is very important. I have made some excellent speeches which nobody heard. It is a learning experience for us all.
The quality of sound is important too. After a few minutes, when people watch a broadcast, they continue browsing and listening to the audio from your broadcasts. An external microphone improves the quality of the audio and will stop them from wandering too far away.
4 Broadcasting in groups without participating
When we broadcast into groups, it is natural to think that every group member will see our video. They will either see it live or on the replay.
Showing your video to every group member is not how Facebook works.
Facebook reach is the number of people who can see your broadcast in their timeline. For every post in a Facebook group, the reach starts at ZERO. In other words, nobody in the group can see your post.
When you schedule a live broadcast in a group, the post has a reach of ZERO.
For reach to increase, you should comment on the post yourself.
When more people comment, the Facebook reach will increase; the more they type, the greater the reach. ‘ I look forward to seeing your broadcast’ has more impact than ‘Hello Steven’. When people like your post. Facebook reach will increase but not by the same amount as a comment makes.
The problem for broadcasters on Facebook is not as simple as attracting an audience for that first post.
A second Facebook post is created in the group when we go live – this one has the video attached. The reach of this second post is zero !! We now have to attract comments and likes to the video post; as we do, the reach increases.
The creation of two Facebook posts for each broadcast is not an ideal situation; Facebook does not link the two posts together, so we should ask a friend to add the second post link as a comment on the first post. It is difficult for us to do as we are broadcasting.
However, if you have built a good reputation in the group, Facebook will favour your group posts favourably and automagically increase the reach.
Building a good reputation within a group takes time. Going live once a week in a group and doing nothing else is unlikely to give you good reach. We need to do more in the group regularly, even if we are an admin or moderator.
Start by commenting on other peoples posts, interact with the author and other commenters. Create topical posts in the group and respond to all comments made. When you do go live, after the broadcast, reply to everyone who has commented. In summary, be an active participant in the group.
5 No promotion before the broadcast.
You know you are going live at 10 am every Wednesday, the question is ‘Does anybody else know? ‘
We put a great deal of effort into producing our broadcasts, and we should be rewarded by people viewing the show and interacting with us.
Even if we have a regular show which everyone knows about, we need to be proactive in promoting it. If we do not, then we cannot expect large audiences. We gain large audiences by creating great content and shouting from the rooftops about it.
All we need is an attractive showcard, a description of the show and a link to the broadcast. Armed with these, we can tweet, post on Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, in fact, anywhere we have a social media presence. We can take snippets from previous broadcasts and post them everywhere.
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Finally
I wish you every success with your live broadcast; let’s practice those things that improve our broadcast and simply enjoy going live.
There is a live broadcast today on this topic at 12 pm EST in the Be.Live Streamers Community
Link https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebelivers/permalink/2866609266938241
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