Facebook Live: Guide to Promotions and Collaborations.png

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Owen Video: Today we're gonna talk about how promotions and collaborations can 10x, 10x my friends, your Facebook Live show. We've got an expert today, one of my good friends. She's a very smart marketer, she's done some Facebook Live strategy for big names - Stephanie Liu is here! Also, you're gonna hear from a new face. Someone who grew his page by 256 new likes with just one live stream - my friend Jason is here, he's gonna be co-hosting with me. Before we bring him on I want to know, have you ever interviewed a guest on a Facebook Live video? Type “1” for yes, “2” for no. Guys, it's going to be an exciting show today. I can't wait to get engaged with you, welcome to BeLive Weekly. [Intro] Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. It is BeLive Weekly and I am your host Owen Video and I'm joined here today by a good friend of mine. I hope you guys really brought your energy belts because we've got a great co-host, we've got a great guest today. We're gonna be covering a lot of really exciting real world tactics to help you grow your Facebook Live show. I'm your host Owen Video and I want to remind you, you can type “5” in the comment box right now to subscribe to the show. Our chatbot’s gonna pick you up, run you through a cool system, and you'll get alerts every time we go live at this time every Monday 3PM (12PM ST). Welcome to the show. Guys, I want to introduce you to a guy named Jason Rodrigue. Jason Rodrigue, it's probably not even funny anymore. I keep mispronouncing his name. Jason Rodrigue is a live streamer and he's my co-host for today. Jason it's good to have you on the show.

Jason Rodrigue: What is up, Owen! Thank you for having me, it's just totally awesome. Yeah you got it close, it's Rodrigue, you know, that sort of thing. That's why it’s just Doing It With Jason, it just makes it easier. People don’t have to spit it out.

Owen Video: Talk about your show, what is your show all about? What do you do?

Jason Rodrigue: Yeah, so my show is on Facebook and YouTube, but I've been really going for this Facebook thing a lot lately. It's just pretty much DIY, we do a lot of painting and chalk painting, which is really a cool new trend that's going on now and I've been doing cabinetry and furniture for so long it's like hey, why not just use some residential type products instead of all this industrial stuff and show all these stay-at-home moms and dads how you could totally make an awesome door and re-do your kitchen and all this stuff really easy.

Owen Video: Right, that’s awesome. Well your show is super funny and you're super funny, and we're hoping that that translates to a good show today.

Jason Rodrigue: Yeah well I have no control of it, but I'll just be here and we'll see what you do.

Owen Video: If Boeing crashes, I’m just here for the ride.

Jason Rodrigue: I’m just a co-pilot.

Owen Video: You sound fantastic though, what mic are you using?

Jason Rodrigue: Well, that's funny you asked. I’m using the blue, I think it was ice? It's available at Walmart for $49.99 (not sponsored). It's a really good mic, I needed something more like a shotgun style mic. And the Blue Yeti seem like you have to put him close to your face and Blue Yetis cost a lot of money, and I don't have a lot of money. So I bought this one and it seems to work really well with power tools going on, crashing, and you still hear me and not see it, which is really cool.

Owen Video: I think it sounds fantastic, what do you guys think? How does Jason sound? Doesn’t it sound pretty good? It’s really fantastic at how far… You said you went to Walmart? I would never thought to go to Walmart.

Jason Rodrigue: Right? Me neither. We have four kids, I go there all the time unfortunately. I like Meijer, which is like Walmart so there you go. Walmart sponsorship, it's gone. But Walmart have a cool electronics section and I was just walking around there because I'm always just like ugh I really want a faster computer, and then I saw this I was like, “What? Okay, that looks cool and I could return it.” Walmart takes anything back, that's why you go to Walmart. I can afford these with a lifetime warranty, it’s basically what's gonna happen in the next four years when they break is I bring it back. What receipt? No receipt. Sign here, here's your money, go get a new one. Thank you, Walmart. That’s why I love Walmart.

Owen Video: That's why I actually walk in there crying, I just bought this… I feel like whenever I go to the return line I always have to have story for them.

Jason Rodrigue: Same here, I feel really bad. We had a bunch of ink cartridges for an Inkjet printer, and it was like $50 for the set each and they give me a hundred bucks for the whole thing thinking I'm scamming him or something. I'm like, “They're gonna give me a hundred bucks? No worries, okay cool.” And I bought a new printer, which was cheaper than that.

Owen Video: I don’t want to hear that! I’m not condoning… Hey, it's good to have you Jason on the show today. We've got a great show, we’ve got a great audience today. Jeff Adams is out there saying, “Let's get it!” Theresa, my love, is saying “5.” Anna, good to see you, and by the way thanks for the LinkedIn invite, I really loved it. We asked a question in the beginning “Have you ever interviewed someone on Facebook Live?” Mark McDonough Madonna is saying “Yes.” Stacey De Polo, “Yes.” Joanna, good to have you out there, “Yes.” Good to see it! Chuck is saying “No.” Have you ever interviewed someone on your show, Jason?

Jason Rodrigue: I have, I have a good… actually, that's funny. Look at that, this guy's Chicago Johnny, he’s local here he makes Jardinera and all kinds of other spices and we used to do like a cooking segment type thing and it was fun. We still do it occasionally, but we end up partying too much when he comes over, so we kind of exed that part out a little bit. But it's a lot of fun, definitely interviewing and having someone else there with you instead of being like, “Oh geez, if I mess up what do I say?” I think it takes the ice off the whole thing.

Owen Video: Having someone else on your show is a strategy, it’s definitely a strategy. Dean Jonothan says, “Dude you know I have a jump in and say hi.” It's always good to see him. James Stewart is out there saying, “Hi there.” So glad to have you. And one of my favorite live streamers Rachel Moore is saying, “That is a heck of a sweater, dude.” This is actually my fight club sweater, it looks good.

Jason Rodrigue: I like it, I like it a lot.

Owen Video: Great! So we've got a great show today. Jason, can you take the reins a little bit? Let's talk a little bit about what you've been learning. You, my friend, just had some success. Tell us about that success that you had with your Facebook Live collab.

Jason Rodrigue: It’s actually over 400 new followers, I just checked a little bit ago, since less than 24 hours ago. It's totally insane, what happened was someone found me a company, not a huge company, but they do chalk painting and they came to ask me to do be a brand ambassador and I have a Facebook page already, which had like 1,800 followers or something, which now it's at 2,300 to 2,400 - it just keeps going. So yesterday I was showing their product in a demonstration which is pretty fun. I love doing it, get a lot of comments going. And then last minute, about two minutes before the broadcast [ends] they were like, “Hey, you want to give away an 8 ounce jar of our paint?” Literally it's only a jar like this big, 8 ounce jar of paint. I said, “Ok yeah, that's awesome.” So I put it in there, talked about it at the beginning of the live stream and literally in 3 hours the video was, I don't even know, was at10,000 views, just out flying. And it I mean right now it's almost 800 comments, which is something I did learn from you about replying to those comments. If I reply to those comments and say “Congratulations, you've entered” or anything like that to keep it going, literally I could just watch it stop. And so my wife would yell at me, “Hey, get off your phone!” And it's Sunday, it's like but these people can't wait, honey! And so I'm going there and the phone quietens down and then as soon as I start commenting, I love doing it - commenting and answering some questions as well - it's like boom -boom-boom. It's like honey, turn off your phone, it's nighttime, we're going to bed. So I had to turn it off because it just was one o’clock, so it was fine. But it was just a little product like that can blow it up. It's really cool just watching it.

Owen Video: Now, how did you set that up with the paint company? How did that work out?

Jason Rodrigue: I emailed them like an hour before I was going live on Sunday, which was yesterday, and luckily someone takes their work home with them and answered my email and said, “Heck yeah, we'll give it away. Let's do it!” Then they wrote me back, but the coolest part was I don't have that many followers in the first place. On YouTube I think I'm about to hit 6,000 which is exciting, but they found me on YouTube originally and just said, “Hey, we have this product we want you to try it out. Let us know if you want to be an ambassador for the brand.” And I was like, “Hey, that sounds cool.” And yeah so it's I have a long future of fun with them and they're gonna share me on their page. I'll get to go live on their page, which has 100k and more followers. So it's like hey, this is an opportunity. I haven't done that yet, they're probably just scoping me out first. But yeah, it's a blast, I just love showing people…

Owen Video: But I would definitely say that’s off to a good start. That’s off to a good start, right? That’s exciting and this is something that everybody can learn from, right? The ability to just go out, reach out to people and try things. See what you can drive your people to, right? And this that you got worked out with the collab, now did you tell everybody about, I may have missed it cuz I'm paying there's so many different things, did you tell everybody about the new page likes that you’ve got?

Jason Rodrigue: Yes, I got I think 400 follows, somewhere around their, likes and follows are different. Yeah, even more than you thought, like it was crazy. It just keeps going, so 257 you can take that off the screen there boy and put some duct tape 400. But yeah, I know it's crazy.

Owen Video: We want to congratulate Jason and remember guys, this is the spot. This is the spot for you to get that education on Facebook Live and what's actually working on Facebook Live. Because what Jason is talking about came from an interview on this show!

Jason Rodrigue: Absolutely, probably one of the last few ones with that lady, the mommy one I think?

Owen Video: She was fantastic and you actually put that stuff into action, so that's fantastic Jason. Now what recommendations do you have for our audience watching to make a good a product swap?

Jason Rodrigue: Like to do a giveaway?

Owen Video: Yeah sorry, I’m looking for the word. To do a good giveaway, what are some of your tips to make it good and successful?

Jason Rodrigue: I’m not a hundred percent into giveaways. Obviously don't give away something that has nothing to do with what you're doing - if you own a car wash, don't give away like a toothbrush. Do something that has to do with your trade and what you're talking about that way it doesn't feel so gross. That's why I really enjoyed that giveaway, I wouldn't give away Amazon gift cards personally and stuff like that. Although giving away a $10 product plus shipping literally like that's probably like a third of whatever it cost me to promote it on Facebook now. So that cost alone was half the price I'm sure of my bad promoting on Facebook, because I have no idea how to set up analytics and all that stuff, and who to shoot for. So I think it's a win-win. You give somebody something they can use, show them how to use it or whatnot and then boom, you know? It's fun.

Owen Video: You know what, Christie Riddle McGlothlin who was our guest, she's out there, she's got a lot of hearts for you.

Jason Rodrigue: Sweet, thanks!

Owen Video: Can you see the screen where you are?

Jason Rodrigue: I can see the screen, but only when you pop up. The comments right now I can't see anything flying up or anything.

Owen Video: I read Rachel, “Bring the knowledge, dude!” And Samiah Page is saying, “That's great!” We're really excited for you Jason and glad that you're here to co-host a show with us today. I'm gonna keep you on the air, you're doing so great. If you guys are enjoying Jason, give us some likes out there if you're digging Jason, the energy that he's bringing to the table.

Jason Rodrigue: I’ll give you a product if you give me likes! No, I'm kidding, I won’t. But we'll just pretend I will.

Owen VIdeo: We love it! Now hey at this time I want to invite you guys to share this Facebook live stream, watch this I'm gonna switch some…look at that. [Music] Hey guys, we've got a great guest today I'm your host Owen Video, I'm here with my co-host Doing It With Jason, Jason Rodrigue, and we've got a great show lined up for you today with a great guest - Stephanie Liu is here! Stephanie, you are fantastic. I have been following you for a long time, we met at Social Media Marketing World, maybe? Or maybe Social Media Day and immediately I've caught your attention, or you caught my attention. You've been working with some top-level celebrities even for their Facebook Live, I wouldn't do it justice. Welcome to the show, Stephanie Liu! Tell us a little bit about what you do.

Stephanie Liu: Hey-o! Well Owen, Jason. So happy to be here with you guys, super stoked. What is that I do? You guys, I'm the host of Lights, Camera, Live!TM which is another Facebook Live show where I get to geek out with the best and brightest marketers and just kind of spotlight the strategies that are working for small businesses. And it's fun when you get to geek out and be yourself, and people kind of enjoy that, so rock on!

Owen Video: That’s awesome, that's awesome. Tell us about some of the clients you have worked with.

Stephanie Liu: Oh my goodness. So chef Claudia Sandoval, she won Master Chef Season 6 and, in fact, she's actually gonna be heading over to my house tomorrow because she's working on a new project. So, you never know what's gonna be coming out of that, that’s gonna be super exciting. Other clients - Scripps Institute of Oceanography, we did the first “Ask an Astronaut” with a female astronaut.

Owen Video: That's radical!

Stephanie Liu: That was pretty legit and then we have some amazing female organizations for young professionals here in San Diego like the Lady Killas, sick-ass name to tell you the truth. But we got to play around with Switcher Studio and do like the different multiple camera angles. My goodness, that’s just a few.

Owen Video: That is a fantastic software. I love the company, I love how it's run. Eddie Garrison is out there saying, “Hey, Stephanie! Love her stuff…” That is awesome, we've got a lot of great conversation happening. Eddie Garrison shared the video, I get so distracted. When you guys share it, I just love it. Thank you guys so much for that. We have a great conversation, I'm trying and I want to show all the the comments in there, but what questions do you have for Stephanie Liu when it comes to collaborations and promotions with Facebook Live? That's what we're gonna be talking about today and I really want to have a conversation with you guys. I get to host this show every week and we have a great show today. I want Stephanie to really talk about your expertise, talk about what is Facebook Live collaborations and promotions?

Stephanie Liu: Oh my goodness, okay. So, Facebook promotions, on that first piece, is really about when you're about to go live, how do you make sure that people actually show up and they're actually gonna go ahead and engage with you? I can tell that so many times when people go live they'll just like, Sscrew it, I'm just gonna do it.” Then they hit the “Go Live” button and then they're all adrenaline, they’re getting super pumped up, but then no one is there and they're like, “Oh my god, how do I get someone to engage?” Right? They’re like, “What did I do wrong?” Promotions is really about how do you get people buzzing about your show even before you go live? Ao you've done some really amazing stuff too, Owen, where you take advantage of scheduling your broadcasts, promoting that out there. Sometimes, when our schedules don't get ahead of us, right? I will definitely say that's something that's definitely worked for me as well as my students is always creating a Facebook event. I don't know if everyone does that, but I do that. I create a Facebook event, I drop in the “Here are the three things that you're gonna go ahead and learn”, I invite people, I encourage them to invite other people - it's kind of like the share the Sharifier that you do. And so when I'm about to go live, that day I'll go back into the Facebook event and say, Hey, here's the actual link” so that way they're not only getting a notification on my business page, but they're getting the event. They also know who else is going to be there, so you have that social proof. It gets everyone just talking.

Jason Rodrigue: Yeah, I was gonna ask you that exact question. How do you recommend doing the Facebook promotion or the group, and then where do you go live at? Do you go live in the event? Because I've noticed you can do that. Or do you go live on your page? That was a big question I still don't know, but hearing you say “Okay, that's the right way” I'm assuming…

Stephanie Liu: Yeah, so I go live on my business page mostly because of the fact that I could take advantage of the advertising piece of it, right? So I take the Facebook event, I'll write all the details there, and then where it says “Location” instead of saying San Diego I actually put the link of the scheduled broadcast that way when the countdown happens, they say the event is happening and they get that share URL there. Oh and you know what's really cool, Jason? They just started doing this thing where you could do story highlights for your events. So now I'm thinking as I lead up to a specific event I'm just gonna say, “Here's the behind-the-scenes. Me, Owen and Jason hanging out” and it shows up in the story.

Jason Rodrigue: That's cool, that’s really awesome. I’m really excited about Facebook lately, it's fun, it’s a blast.

Owen Video: It answers a lot of questions too. Stacey De Polo has a question, “Have any good examples or ideas for indie musicians using creative FB live promos and collabs?” Stacey, I love what you do. Stacey is a fan of the show. I'd love to hear about that, so how do you put together these promotional collaborational ideas, Stephanie Liu?

Stephanie Liu: The promotion stuff, that actually stems from my old agency days. I spent a decade in the advertising industry and the promo plans for whenever we did social media events like the world's largest Instagram meet-up, we have the same promo plan and we just had to shift it for Facebook Live video. Now in terms of collaborations, collaborations are usually great if you're trying to extend your reach into a different audience, right? I did something with Jenn Lerner, she has the front row Facebook group. From her group alone I was able to double my email list ridiculously fast. And I'm just like, “Oh my gosh”. Just having that clout from her just transfer over to me… and that was one of the great ways to leverage live video. But if you're gonna be doing this for a musician, dude there's so much you can do. I've seen someone do, “Hey, I'm setting up for this actual live performance that I'm gonna go ahead and do. Go ahead and watch me as I set up. How does my mic sound?” And they get this like sneak peak of what's going on. So I think that's something that you could take advantage of.

Owen Video: Do you pitch a brand with a promotional idea or do you pitch them with the idea of just being promotional and then collaborate with them on the idea?

Stephanie Liu: In terms of collaborations, the collaborations that I've had are usually with other live streamers. I've had Ross Brand on the show, we've talked about Livestream Universe and the things that he's doing. Those are the collaborations that I've done. If you're gonna be working with a brand, usually when you're working with a brand as an influencer it's always helpful to have a media kit. I don't know if you guys actually have that. Do you have a media kit where it says, “This is how many monthly viewers that I have, this is the breakdown of my audience, these are the top five topics that people are super interested in and that is how it aligns with the painting products that you have” and so forth?

Jason Rodrigue: That's a no for me, I do not have one of those. I need one of those.

Stephanie Liu: Look into it. One of my good friends Ariel Viera, he is the host of the Urbanist, the Urbanist Facebook Live show. Basically what he does is he goes to different parks in New York and he gives you this whole history of a museum, of the park, and he walks you through it and his Facebook Lives are usually around three hours long. He and I we met up and he said, “Stephanie, how do I monetize this?” I was like, “Dude, you basically need a media kit. Create your media kit.” He was getting about a million views a month and he didn't know what to do with it. We created a one-page and he basically sent it over to me, I had as a second look and like “You need to add this, you need to add that, you need to add the brands that you've actually worked with” and ever since then he's now traveling abroad. It's crazy. I'm like, “Ariel, when are you gonna come back?”

Owen Video: That is a great tip and where do you go to get a media kit made?

Stephanie Liu: You know what, creativemarket.com has a lot of great templates that you could download for free. A lot of bloggers that are out there, sometimes they might just post their media kit on their website so you could download them and just get a feel for what are the stuff that they're including. But honestly, the sections that I would definitely have you look after it would be what is your show about (which is basically what Owen asked Jason), what are your stats, who is your audience, what are some topics, who are the brands that you worked with, and what are the next steps into actually engaging with you for a promotion.

Jason Rodrigue: Right on, oh my gosh.

Owen Video: That was fantastic, give her some likes guys for that. Barbara Leon is saying, “Media kit cheat sheet needed!!!”

Stephanie Liu: Yes, yes. You know what, I don’t maybe Owen I'll send you just kind of like “here's an example” and then they could create a template off of it and get after it.

Owen Video: I love that, I love that idea. Maybe we could post that into the comment section afterwards. Media kit is a great thing. If you guys have questions for Stephanie Liu on how you can create better Facebook Live streams by having more Facebook Live promotions and collaborations. We've got Stephanie Liu she's talking about that very subject. Stephanie Liu, I want to know a case study of a great, successful Facebook Live collaboration that you did. Tell us a story of something that worked and why it worked.

Stephanie Liu: So with chef Claudia Sandoval we did her first-ever Facebook Live. She won Master Chef, but there was also a sponsorship with T-Mobile and they were doing this really cool thing where if you download the T-Mobile app they have this free something that they would give you every Tuesday, right? It was like a giveaway every Tuesday. So they you wanted her to go live, she was gonna go ahead and show off her famous tres leches cake live. But dude Jason, back in the day all I had was just my iPhone 6, right? Holding it, I didn't even have a tripod. So like Mari was holding the phone, I was in the back like on Hootsuite blocking the trolls and whatnot. We set up the promo plan where it's pretty much like all right we're gonna have our tweets go out, we're going to have our Facebook posts go out, and they all drive to the scheduled broadcast. And then we also made sure that T-Mobile and whoever else from the agency side that they were tagged as a branded co-creator of it.

Owen Video: Like branded content?

Stephanie Liu: Exactly, just so we would be in line with Facebook policies. And what we found was we got over a hundred thousand views within 24 hours. We had 170 thousand downloads of her book within 24 hours. That was insane! And let me tell you, when she was going like dude props to Claudia because she was baking the tres leches cake and she had certain things that she had to say for the sponsors. So we had another person holding cue cards like “okay, now you have to mention this”. It was a whole production, but we went low-tech with just a camera, we leveraged Facebook Ads for that as well. But really, just that organic stuff was bananas. We had someone tune in from Vietnam that was straight up like “yo, I was doing my homework and I saw this video popped up and I stopped doing it.” I was like okay Vietnam, high-five.

Owen Video: That’s fantastic. Aron Jemison is out they're saying, “Wow power tip!” Paul Democritou, good to see ya, oh my gosh… I got to read those comments. Danielle Gurlov is saying, “Such great info!!” Cheryl Piper is saying, “Love that idea!” How many people does it take to pull this off? Is this like a full-time thing? Do you need a whole big audience? Stephanie Liu, your thoughts.

Stephanie Liu: To get engagement off of your Facebook Lives?

Owen Video: yeah ,to make it successful.

Stephanie Liu: No, honestly I think if you just have an idea of what your agenda is going to be and you have to 10x your voice and just your engagement, you think that you're super pumped right now, as soon as that a camera goes live you're just like boom on a whole different level. You're like Super Saiyan if you watch Dragon Ball Z, that’s totally me. You get into your exact state. But in terms of engagement, this is a strategy that works for me. I go live and I say, “Hey, I'm live here in San Diego. Drop a comment, let me know where you're watching from.” That's an easy question, it's the easiest icebreaker that you could do and people are just gonna start dropping those comments. So even when Owen was saying things like, “Hey, let's do a poll. Answer one or two.” That just makes it so much easier because people start to realize, “Okay great, I know that I can engage with Stephanie, Owen and Jason by doing X Y Z.” So it makes it super easy.

Jason Rodrigue: That's awesome. So Stephanie I heard you mention earlier about the guy in New York. He was like three our live streams. Do you have a recommendation for amount of time? Because this morning, at five in the morning I was up hanging out, drinking some coffee and I was just just looking around and something came up. This lady and a pile of clothes, selling them. I have no idea what she was speaking in lieu of the language, but it was like clothes everywhere, ripping them out of a bag, putting them on this fake thing and there was like hundreds and hundreds of people watching. It was like three hours long, is that what you recommend? Do like some like intro maybe and some little tutorial and then paint something for three hours? Does it help engagement for the time? I was just wondering.

Stephanie Liu: It really depends on your content, right? If I was just eating lunch for three hours I'm pretty sure people would pop off and no longer tune in. If anything, if you're gonna go live try to go live for at least 20 minutes because Facebook's algorithm does need that time to go ahead and create that audience for you. And I know there's some people that are probably watching, they're like just give me the structure, and the structure is really… the first part is, “Hey, I'm tuning in from XYZ, tell me where you're watching from! Cool, this is what we're going to talk about today, this is why we're gonna talk about XYZ, and this is how you can do it, and if you're wondering what if I can't catch this, then that's cool, you could watch the replay.” And then you go straight into the “how” and that's pretty much the structure that I do for everything. And Jason, if you're the type where you already have a show lined up, that's your perfect opportunity to say okay well go ahead and drop the comment, leave a comment “subscribe” and I can notify you the next time I go live. And then “Tune in next week and I'll have XYZ on the show.” So, just doing all that will take up your twenty minutes, should at least. Right?

Jason Rodrigue: Very cool, that'd what I was wondering. Cuz I've been trying to keep it on for the replay value, so that's why I didn't know which one should I focus on more - the replay value, so it's clean and starting off very fresh, versus maybe ten people only show up for the live. Who should I focus on more overall, that was my biggest…

Stephanie Liu: I would say whenever you're going live, just act as if the person that you're talking to you is your best friend. And that's who you're gonna connect with whether they're live at the moment or if they're watching the replay. I can't tell you how many times I've had someone leave a comment that says, “woah, I didn't even realize that this wasn't live. I didn't realize I was watching a replay.”

Jason Rodrigue: That’s the best feeling, right? And people are still like, “I'm from Connecticut!” and you're like, “That was yesterday.” They're there, they’re there. It's a cool feeling, I dig that.

Stephanie Liu: I love the thing where you're saying that to keep engagement going you would go back and then you would actually go ahead and leave a comment. I actually have a different strategy for that.

Jason Rodrigue: Oh, I’d love to hear that.

Stephanie Liu: So let's see Jason, you left like ten comments on the show. I'll probably leave a comment on the first three the day of the broadcast, and then the next day I'll go down your next three, and the next one. It's a little bit time-consuming, but it keeps that engagement going because it's kind of like an engagement loop. You're like, “Oh, Stephanie said something again. I'm gonna go ahead and check that out.” And not only am I getting you, but I'm getting your friends that are seeing that I'm responding to you.

Jason Rodrigue: Right, that totally makes sense. Yeah on an older post I did the same thing, I was responding that I didn't notice happen and it all sudden boom I'm getting more likes on it. Algorithm is really funny, but it seems to be everybody's complaining about it, but it seems to be easy. I don't know it minus the business page part that's all going on and like no one sees your posts, but they see the live ones for some reason. Just not the normal posts.

Stephanie Liu: Yeah, they definitely see the live ones. Here's another hack that I've been doing that I've only told my students. I actually haven't told this publicly to anyone else, but I will tell you, I'm gonna tell you so sheesh.

Jason Rodrigue: All right, don't tell anybody else. Turn off, Owen!

Stephanie Liu: I don't even know where Owen is, I think Owen dropped off. So when I was telling you that whenever I create a Facebook event, the Facebook event could be about a certain topic. So let's say I had Christy Laurence who's the creator of the Plann app, we were talking about Instagram marketing. Weeks later I had Jenn Herman who's the co-author of Instagram Marketing for Business. I was gonna have her on the show and I was like, ‘You know what, I already had people that were interested in this show with Christy. I'm just gonna go back to that Facebook event and say, “Yo, if you're still struggling with Instagram marketing it's all good because the next week I'm gonna talk to Jenn Herman.”” So now I'm just looping them back in. Why would I create a new organic post not knowing if they're going to see it if I could just go back to the Facebook event because they've already engaged that? Or I could go back to the replay and the original. It's like in your blog post where you're creating backlinks, I'm just creating backlinks on my Facebook post. So, it works out that way.

Jason Rodrigue: Yeah, that's really cool. I watched a video about backlinks, I don't even understand it. But all I know is I found one for Samsung that they said was, “Oh man, you should jump in this.” I put my website in and it was funny, but I kind of get it. I understand it sort of, enough that okay it sounds weird and fishy. Like a backlink generator, I don’t know if you've seen those. I was just kind of researching what a backlink was and there's this generator pops up thousands of backlinks. You can enter your website and then BOOM. Is that legit? I mean what is that exactly? Is it good to do that or is it bad to do that? If that make sense.

Stephanie Liu: The best person to talk about SEO would be my good friend Darrell Stern, but as far as I know in terms of backlinks for just your regular SEO stuff, reach out to them and say, “Okay great, thank you so much for mentioning Lights, Camera, Live!TM Thank you so much for mentioning the Owen Video business podcast. Can you go ahead and make sure that you link this or that you're actually using the title tag correctly when you link back to me? That way I get some love from the Google algorithm.” As far as those other things, those are pretty cool too. They're also helpful if you notice that a spam site is taking all of your content and trying to put it behind a paywall. That's actually happened to a couple of folks. So keep that in mind cuz then you could just go ahead and stop that and go from there.

Jason Rodrigue: Okay, cool. And for cameras what do you recommend? Do you like and enjoy using multiple camera angles and stuff like that when you're going live? To me it's just like “Oh my gosh, yes!” If I could have like ten of them they'd make it a joke because I could just look at every camera as like a zoom-zoom-zoom. What do you recommend? Is there an “over-the-top too much”? What do you think?

Stephanie Liu: Oh my goodness, okay. Listen, if you're just starting out don't worry about the tech and equipment just then and there. Just get used to the fact of being on camera. Then later down the line if you feel like upgrading… I’ve always actually used the built-in camera on my Mac, but I noticed that for some platforms like on BeLive if I use the the built-in camera on my Mac the clarity is kind of lost in my camera. So, I ended up getting the Logitech C920, which pretty much everyone else has. But as an OBS user, I just use my built-in and if I feel like being super geeky, or if I've actually had enough time to prep, I'll go ahead and use my Canon Rebel T6i and I'll connect that just to have that little depth to it. So that's what I do, but I would say for events, todd.live - Todd Bergin, he was on my show too and he was talking about how you can use the Canon, an actual camcorder and go live with that. I thought that was pretty cool because you could go ahead and zoom in, especially if you're doing events. So there's definitely different levels of how you could go live, but for my show where it's just one talking head and then I have a guest come on board, that works out for me just perfectly.

Jason Rodrigue: Oh that's awesome, very cool. And as far as going back to the collaborations and everything when you have guests on, how do you get your guests to… cuz obviously you probably do really like your guests, you want to hang out with them, but you want them to bring their followers too. What's a nice way to put it to them? How do you tell them “Hey…”?

Stephanie Liu: Sure, so usually whenever I have a guest I give them basically the roadmap of “Hey, this is what's gonna happen on my part. I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going to create the Facebook event.” I go ahead and I make my guest a co-host of that specific event, so I'm doing all the legwork and all I really need them to do is just do the invites because again, is that I create that event I engage with their users, I engage with my users as well. The other thing that I do for them is I create the promo plan, which has the exact copy that I'm using for the event, for the Facebook post as well as my email blasts. I'll even put like a suggested tweet that they can use, the click-to-tweet, and I send that document over to my guests. Ross Brad who was on the show he was very like “You were the most organized live streamer” and I was like you know what, I think it just comes from years of working in the advertising industry. Once you have everything all set to go, you send it over to your guests, you make it stupid easy for them. So the click-to-tweet, click to tweet - we’re good to go. If they’re a host on the event, they could go in and invite whoever that they want, they could share it into their groups and they're all good to go.

Jason Rodrigue: Ok, very cool! Well unfortunately I don't have the comments in front of me. I'm gonna use my phone old-school here and Paul, we're just gonna say Paul D, asks “Stephanie, what if people start tuning in after the most of the content… [I’m guessing for a live stream] Do you repeat or…?”

Stephanie Liu: Sure, yeah. So okay, going back to that whole run of show that I told you about, right? You go ahead and do your “why/what/how/what if”, go into your “how” a couple of minutes into it just like “Hey, if you're just joining in right now Jason, this is what we're covering today. Don't worry about that, you could always watch the replay. But just go ahead and hang out for now, if you have any questions just go ahead and drop them in the comments.” And they're like cool, they don't feel like they have to sit out, they could still be invited into the conversation. But if you also find that people are asking questions, you're just like “You know what, you could catch the replay, in fact go ahead and leave a comment and I'll tag you when the show is done.” So you're still keeping that engagement going.

Jason Rodrigue: Ok and so no matter how many… You say you start off your show at 10, you've already given your intro and then all of a sudden 30 people are there. That'd be a good time I'm guessing to just kind of say “Hey, here's what we're doing and welcome to the show” I guess? Ok cool, very cool. So what would be like your number one live-streaming tip? Your best tip you could think of that would help out a new live streamer for the most part? We’ll go with one thing.

Stephanie Liu: The one thing…

Jason Rodrigue: Or 10 things!

Stephanie Liu: Or 10 things [laughs].

Jason Rodrigue: Cause there’s a lot, I know.

Stephanie Liu: There is a lot, but the one foundation for sure is to have one desired outcome for your show. Figure out what it is exactly that you would define as a successful show. So if success for me was if I get at least 10 comments, I'm cool and I'm happy with that. Right? I've had so many student like “But I want to have X many shares and this, and that, and that.” But then every time you say “and” it makes it harder for you to achieve that one goal. So if you just focus on one thing that's gonna make it super easier for you to feel like okay cool I'm getting in my stride, let me try this again. The second tip that I would give, which is probably the best one, would be just stare at the camera. I'm imagining that I'm catching up with one of my best girlfriends and I'm just like “Girl, what's up? Let's hang out, let's talk.” Position it that way because then at least it doesn't feel like I'm just talking to myself. I feel like I'm actually talking to a human being. You use the words that you would naturally use versus trying to follow a script, right? So you come off much more natural and much more approachable.

Jason Rodrigue: Yeah, I'm really bad at scripts. I'll script it out and then if I script it out I'll totally mess it up and crash it. So maybe some bullet points, as in one word (maybe a letter), that way I read… oh gosh, it’s bad.

Stephanie Liu: So one trick that I've always done is I will get a post-it note and I'll just put one topic on it, and I'll put it by the camera. That way it doesn't feel like I'm looking down, but I'm still keeping eye contact with you and talking to you.

Jason Rodrigue: Okay, that’s really good yeah. Mine would be covered with post-it notes, so that's a good idea. I'm envisioning like a thousand of them. But yeah, that's really cool. So I'll go through the comments again unless you have other stuff or anything off of the top of your head. I don't want to interrupt you. Let's see, so Eddy Garson says “Love Stories, it's at the top of everyone's newsfeed for free.” So that's definitely an awesome deal right there. And everybody really wants this media kit, so if you can somehow give Owen a media kit or… Wherever he went… It's hard to read these comments, I feel like I'm not engaging with you and I'm just looking at my phone and trying to listen, and trying to read. But yeah, if you could send Owen the media kit it'll be totally super.

Stephanie Liu: To-do list “media kit” for sure.

Jason Rodrigue: See and it’s on a yellow post-it note, correct? You’re going to stick it on your computer. So let's see what else, “super helpful stuff” … “Backlinks only do something if they follow links.” Yes, that’s probably true, let's say that. I'm trying to think now, there's some huge questions I had as far as… So, do you do normal videos as well or do you just do live videos? When I say normal videos I mean like pre-recorded, YouTube content. What do you recommend on the variety? Should you throw in… I do DIY tutorials, obviously I'm big on making a video, a how-to video. I really love live because I don't have to edit, it's lazy but my computer is really slow. But I really like the wow factor of a pre-recorded video. How do you suggest, what kind of ratio for each?

Stephanie Liu: You know, first it really depends on the tech that you have because some platforms will let you do any pre-recorded videos. So if you can drop it in there and that's awesome, that's cool. Then I would also take a look at your analytics. Do you find that when you do pre-recorded videos, when you drop them in there, are you getting a lot of engagement from it? If not, then go ahead and drop it. For me personally, the only pre-recorded stuff that I've done, and it's more of a hack, is I would actually play a video that has my background music on top of it and then it looks like I'm sitting inside of a Mac desktop dancing. And people are like “How did you do that?” For me, that’s kind of my pattern interrupt. When people are scrolling into their newsfeed, they're like “Wait a second, did I just see what I saw? How did she do that?” And then that hooks them in because then I go into the why, what, how, and what if of like “Hey Jason [and I got your attention], this is what we're going to talk about, how…” and it goes from there.

Jason Rodrigue: Right, and then that's another thing. So see if you're nervous about being live with all the new software available now - OBS, BeLive - and all this equipment, technically you can pre-record something and pretend you're going live. What do you think about that? Do you recommend doing that for someone that's just getting started? I know it's kind of cheating, it shows up is live but you're not. I like to have pre-recorded stuff in my segments, just because to me it's like a TV show. You're really with a guest all the time, so instead I'm going to show you a commercial I made a few weeks ago with my kids. Then it's just a lot of fun, I could take a break for a second, focus, and then boom get right back. So yeah, what do you recommend about the fake live?

Stephanie Liu: Well, I'm very conservative on that part because I never want my clients to get their Facebook pages shut down or the fact that they could get their Facebook Live features taken away from them.

Jason Rodrigue: So that’s illegal? I didn’t even know. So that's illegal to have in some of these… just wondering.

Stephanie Liu: It’s not necessarily illegal, it just goes against Terms of Service on Facebook. They say that you shouldn't do that. There are some brands, I don't know how they're getting away with it, just recently they had the Santa Nordic Tracker, right? They showed like Santa just going across and I was like “That is such a pre-recorded video, how are they getting away with it and not getting in trouble?” And I think as small business owners and entrepreneurs, if you're leveraging Facebook and you're building your audience there I wouldn't necessarily take a risk just to do a pre-recorded video, right? If anything, if you're gonna drop one in there just say “Hey, I'm gonna go ahead and drop the intro video right now, the bumper video. I'm just gonna show you real quick.” But I think if the whole entire segment was recorded, I think you're losing a really good opportunity to engage with your audience because you never know if Anna's gonna jump in and ask a question or Mitch Jackson is going to ask the question, and if you don't answer any of their questions during the entire show they're like “What is going on? This is weird.” You get that creepy feeling.

Jason Rodrigue: Right, absolutely. No, I've had that like I watched Roberto Blake, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him on YouTube, he's really big. And it's funny, you watch his lives and there's just so much fun and then people are like trying to call him out. He's like “It's April 14th” and he has to give the time stamp to prove. Oh goodness, you guys don’t even get it. But it's so funny, I totally dig.

Stephanie Liu: Yeah, I’ve seen him do that. I don't know, I guess some people, audiences are different on different platforms that's for sure.

Jason Rodrigue: Right, no absolutely. That's what I've noticed too is YouTube, that's where I was huge on and I would make my pre-recorded videos and I would share them on Facebook. But I was reluctant to share them on Facebook at first because I was thinking “Oh, I won't get my two cent ad revenue check,” but then it's like I just want to blow out, show everybody. And it’s funny, I put all that work into it, I want people to see it so why not share it on Facebook and do Facebook. The payment hopefully will come in later and just the enjoyment of it is enough of a paycheck for me, just having a good time. That sort of thing.

Stephanie Liu: I was gonna say that the way that I do my lives is actually backwards from you. So actually I go live on Facebook Live, or on Facebook, and then I share that onto YouTube. But in my description I always say, “Hey, if you want to watch the original broadcast and see all of the comments…” because I'm obviously calling people out, then I always leave a link there so again I'm just like connecting the two platforms together.

Jason Rodrigue: Okay, and on which platform do you have more followers on? Do you lean to the one you have more followers on personally or…?

Stephanie Liu: Yeah honestly, I use Facebook. I haven't really dove much into YouTube until I met like Owen over at Social Media Day San Diego and he was like “This is what you could do with YouTube” and I was like “Crap, I need a jump on that.” Somehow Roberto Blake and I became friends on Facebook, I was like I don't even know how that happens that I’m learning from him now with how to create awesome thumbnails. So it's really cool just this whole live streaming community.

Jason Rodrigue: Absolutely, it's really huge. I watched one from a Tim Schmoyer this morning about YouTube's artificial intelligence now being able to possibly read your thumbnail and tell you if the viewers gonna like it or not, and then now there's companies that have all that software. Kind of like on Facebook how it has your “With this person”, it knows your face and so now YouTube's using that technology to grade your thumbnail and tell you ahead of time “You're gonna have this many views versus this.” It's so crazy, so high techy. But yes, let's see. So Apostle in the comments wants to know how to get people to purchase coaching material. Do you have any recommendations on that?

Stephanie Liu: Ooh, coaching material… I would… This is just a guess, Apostle. So I'm thinking that maybe you want to set up like a coaching call or coaching packages. A lot of what I've seen is people saying “Hey, here's free coaching Fridays. Go ahead and type a question, I'll go ahead and I'll give you my spiel. But if you want more time with me, here's the link for you to go ahead and set up something with me via like an Acuity or a Calendly or something.” Or you could even like how the funnel into your chatbot and then you start doing your nurture sequences. I mean there's so much that you could do, but I will also say Apostle, something that I've been playing around with for my Facebook Lives is I've created a product catalog. And in my product catalog I'll put things like links to my course, I'll put links to my guests’ books or whatever, but it has my affiliate links to that. So I would imagine you could do the same thing, so that way when someone shares your Facebook Live it shows the products mentioned on the bottom and it could be your coaching material without you actually having to say it on the show or put it in the links. Does that make sense?

Jason Rodrigue: Oh very cool, very good advice. It's hard to read the comments, you have no idea, and talk. But I have a question for you. So like Facebook groups. I'm just gonna… OWen’s MIA, so hey. Facebook groups. I just started doing a bunch of them that I really enjoy. So I do like chalk panting, I did some demonstrations for the live, so I just really find it fun. Is it okay once you're a member of the community to share your live video? Would you recommend going live on their page as a group page or even is it okay to share your video on that group page? As long as it goes together.

Stephanie Liu: Yeah I think if you're sharing content into a Facebook group, if it goes in line with the group's guidelines then by all means definitely go ahead and go for it. There are some groups where they say things like “No, you can't do any affiliate links, you can't do any promos or drive links back to your page.” So just be wary of that, otherwise you're gonna get banned. But if you do want to take advantage of groups, I would say just start interacting in the groups. Start being known for that one thing, your niche, in that specific group and then as you start building that reputation then go ahead and reach out to the group owner. I've done this before, I've reached out to the group owner like, “Hey, I really love the group and I would love to offer a ton of value to them. Do you want to go ahead and go live together in the group? I'll take care of everything in terms of the tech, all you really have to do is just hop in front of the camera.” They usually give it a thumbs up, I go live into the group. Now I've actually created that affinity with them, the know-like-trust factor, and they find me on my pages or they start purchasing my products or whatever. So you could do it!

Jason Rodrigue: Yeah, very very nice. So what would you recommend for collaborating? Because I believe that's what the show is about. What's the biggest collaboration you have ever had? With who? Hey, he's back!

Owen Video: You guys are doing so great! I just want to say thank you. We're having some tech issues over here and I wanted to say thanks for picking it up and keep this party going, I'm listening to this interview and I can't jump in. So keep going, you guys rock! I just wanted to come back on, say that I love you guys. Stephanie Liu is an amazing guest, so keep up this energy. I have to fix this issue. Jason, back to you Jason.

Jason Rodrigue: Thanks, Owen! Well back to… Stephanie I have no idea what do you actually do. What is your channel, what is your Facebook? I don't know if you introduced it, I blanked out. Who are you?

Stephanie Liu: We've just met, it's all good, it's all good.

Jason Rodrigue: Okay good, I get nervous.

Stephanie Liu: It’s okay, it’s okay. I know you've got like comments coming in, you've got Owen (voice of God) popping in, and then you got me. I'm a digital marketing strategist you guys, I’ve spent the past decade working for advertising agencies. Some of my big clients were like P&G, Adobe, Clinique, Sephora and all that stuff. And when I had my daughter three years ago I was like, “Well hey, if I could do it for them I sure as heck can do it for myself.” So I have my own boutique social media agency where I help clients go from unknown to unforgettable by leveraging social media. In terms of live video, that's where I kind of fell into it with Claudia. She was already a client, we're already doing social media together, but then she had this big ask from T-Mobile and Master Chef saying, “Hey, I have to do my first Facebook Live. Can you help me out with that?” That turned into its whole thing, we had this really big case study, we started speaking at conferences together - Interactive Day San Diego… We shared our stories, that turned into an online course, which I have today called Lights, Camera Live!TM I basically teach people how they could go ahead and transfer their ideas, their skills and experience into a captivating Facebook Live show. So I teach them basically all of the channels, including BeLive, and that's it. So yeah, and my website is heystephanie.com, lightscameralive.com!

Owen Video: Stephanie, thank you so much for being on the show today. Everything that you have to share is always so fantastic. It's really been a pleasure.

Stephanie Liu: Thank you.

Owen Video: We'll have to have you back on. And Jason you have been an amazing co-host, bro. You just crushed it today. How do we stay in touch with you?

Jason Rodrigue: Who? Me? Just doingitwithjason.com, facebook.com/doingitwithjason, or on YouTube. Just Doing It With Jason, you’ll find me and we'll do stuff that’s. It's cool.

Owen Video: You have a great show, we're so glad that you would join us in. Guys, if you're gonna live stream you gotta BeLive. As I'm awkwardly shuffling through my images… Guys, thanks for joining us so much on BeLive Weekly. It's always such a joy to be here with you, remember you can type “5” and give me five. You'll subscribe to the show, you'll get alerts each week when we go live. It's been a pleasure, we'll see you next time on BeLive Weekly! [Music] Oh wait, I forgot, I’m supposed to talk out over this part, oh my gosh. There’s a brand new graphic.

Jason Rodrigue: Tune in next week on Monday for the Owen show!

Owen Video: And we’ll see you guys next time!

How do you make sure that people actually show up and engage when you go live? How do you effectively increase your reach into a different audience? That's where promotion and collaborations come into play.

So many times when people go live they do it spontaneously, without a plan. They get the adrenaline pumping, but no one is there! They think "What did I do wrong?"

To avoid that, promotion and collaborations are really about getting people buzzing about your show even before you go live.

So, here are a few tips on how you can leverage promotion, collaborations, and other live streaming hacks to boost your Facebook Live presence.

5 WAYS TO LEVERAGE PROMOTION AND COLLABORATIONS FOR FACEBOOK LIVE

1. USE A MEDIA KIT

Media kits help potential sponsors and collaborators get a better sense of what you’re all about and can bring great results, especially if you are an influencer who wants to work with brands or collaborate with others in your industry.

What is your show about? What are your stats? Who’s your audience? What brands have you worked with? Don’t forget to add the next steps for engaging in the promotion or collaboration with you.

2. MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM

Whenever you are collaborating with someone, give them a roadmap of what to expect and what’s going to happen behind the scenes of production - do all the legwork for them.

Bonus points for sending her suggested promotional copy for her newsletter or social media that she can then bulk upload to scheduling platforms like AgoraPulse.

3. LEVERAGE FACEBOOK GROUPS

Before going live, start interacting with others in groups. Build your reputation in your niche and build relationships, THEN reach out to the group owner and offer to go live together in the group once you have established the know/like/trust factor. And don’t forget to check the group’s guidelines, they often have rules about promotion.

4. MAKE A FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

Although you still want to go live on your business profile in order to take advantage of the advertising piece of Facebook, creating an event page will allow you to double up on notifications and build excitement about the broadcast days or even weeks in advance.

In fact, it can help you promote future broadcasts if themes overlap - that way you already have an interested audience in the previous event page.

Tips:

Make your collaborator the co-host of the Facebook event and allow them to invite their fans.
Put the broadcast link in the location section to make it easier for fans to access it.
Post the replay in the event once the broadcast is over!

Here's a sneak peek at all of the events I've created for Lights, Camera, Live: https://www.facebook.com/pg/heystephanieliu/events

5. FOLLOW A PLAN

To promote effectively, follow a promotional plan where you can check items off the list. Schedule your broadcast, create a Facebook event and invite people, ask them to invite their friend, get people buzzing!

Even when you go live, following a pattern will reduce the stress of memorizing a script. Greet your viewers, ask them simple questions so they engage (“Where are you watching from?”), remind them that they can always catch the replay, and even just stare at the camera to build that connection.