Live Streaming and its uses

Hi all

Today I’m writing about the values of live streaming. Live streaming video content can be an important part of social sharing. its great way to bring your customer base or social media followers closer into you social circle. I’ve talked many times about the importance of building relationships in business and in social media and using videos is one of the ways that you can develop these relationships.

Live streaming can be used to increase engagement also since it is one individual sharing something of value with their social circle. I’m going to discuss just a few content ideas for live streaming and their benefits. I will focus on Hosting Q&A’s or interviews, taking your audience behind the scenes, introducing new products and Finally training, how to video’s or sharing knowledge.

 

Hosting Q&A’s and interviews 

Companies or sites can interview other people relevant to their brand or subject or you can personally host a question and answer session to explain certain things to your followers or customers.

This can be a great way to create a two-way dialogue with your audience. You can address issues your customers have raised, interview experts in an area you know matter to your followers or just take the opportunity to explain who you or your company is. Some video sites even allow for viewers to comment on the live video as it’s being streamed which can give you an opportunity to address your audience directly. All in all this way of creating dialogue is not only positive for engagement but also for allowing both sides to get to know one another better which builds relationships.

 

Taking your audience behind the scenes 

if you are having an important event or just want to introduce people to further to your company and its work, you can take people behind the scenes and show them how an event is pulled together or what takes place every day in your offices.

This can be a great way to expand you pages presence and advertise an event or simply give people a better idea of the work your company does. Today people on social media like to feel involved and personal touches such as this can be a great way of breaking down the barriers that can make a company seem impersonal.

 

Introducing new products 

When you as a business are trying something new or has a new product to introduce, live streaming can be a great way to share this with your audience.

This can be a useful method advertisement for a new product with either an in-depth description or a short punchy video to attract people to your product. Sharing new methods or areas of work can also beneficial on both sides since it can provide businesses with useful feedback and can keep customers up to date on current processes.

Training, How to videos or sharing Knowledge 

Videos that instruct on how to do a particular task or teach someone on a specific subject have become very popular and its well worth using live streams to take advantage of this successful trend.

whether you use the live streams to train employee’s remotely, to demonstrate a craft or skill, share presentations or speeches or even just to advise on local home repair this can be another way of forming that direct two-way communication since it one person passing on their skills or knowledge to another. These videos can be very informative and an excellent way of boosting your brand since you’re not just selling products, you are providing learning.

 

There are a number of sites that facilitate live streams from sites that permanently store content such as YouTube or Vimeo or Apps such as Meerkat or Periscope that keep videos for a short period of time. There even sites such as Blab that allow for multiple users all in the same stream. This trend is gripping the world of social media fast so it’s well worth jumping on the bandwagon and taking advantage of the engagement and communication benefits that live streaming has to offer.

 

 

sources:

How to Get Started on Blab: Group Video Broadcasting for Marketers

and various video’s from Lynda.com that I can post here since only members can watch their content.

Building your Brand with Social Media

Hey all

So today I’m here to talk about building your brand with Social media. I’m still learning on this subject so I’m just going to write what I have so far and I will update it as I go:

• Your Brand is the one thing that identifies your business and its products such as a name, term, design or feature
• Brand equality is the reliability and consistent transaction that happen between the customer and the business which builds loyalty and positive word of mouth which is a relationship
• Social media gives a worldwide connection to customers. its a way to communicate with the masses and build both your brand and brand equality
• As I’ve discussed before Social media is a tool to better connect with your customer which can only help you to build the loyalty and positive word of mouth that is needed for brand equity.
• this equity can lead to greater brand awareness which is where more people have knowledge of your company and its reputation which then expands your customer base.
• Then you can use social media to reach out to these new customers create a better relationship with them which cause your brand to grow.

This cycle is just one of the ways that social media can be used to help build your brand. Another way is to create detailed profiles so that your customers know you and your company or using the Hashtag search tool to find people with similar or relevant interests and reaching out to them. Social media is all about being connected and in business, those connections are so important. So as I hope I’ve briefly explained Social media can help businesses to build their brand.

Here are my sources in case you want to check them out:

How to Plan a Rockstar B2B Social Media Marketing Plan

 

Picking Platforms

Hey Guys

Now I’ve done a little basic research on all of the major platforms my next step is to look at the all and work out which few suit my social media needs Aka the ones I’m going to be research further.

So the best way I know too that is to sum up all my research and create a mini conclusion for each platform which I can use to pick my Platforms.

• So first up Facebook:  So from all my research I’ve done on Facebook I’ve picked that its a platform that helps to build better relationships between your business and your customers. The idea of Facebook is that we like what we like so customers will like a business they already know and have a good relationship with. Then the business can use the page to provide useful content for that customer which the customer then interacts with forming a better relationship between them.

E.g a customer likes their local bakery’s Facebook page. That bakery uses the page to regularly post simple recipes for the customers to try at home. The customers regularly likes these posts then on one post the customers comments that they are struggling to make a cake from their friends birthday party. So the Business gets back to that customer by saying hey have you try this recipe and here is a video with step by step instruction of me making said cake let me know how it goes. This builds a strong relationship between said business and customer.

So Facebook in my Conclusion is for interacting with your current customer basis to build stronger relationships.

• So Next up is Twitter: My research here has taught me that unlike most social media sites who can gain new customers from the process of accidental marketing (you see your friend has liked a certain business page so you like it too) Twitter works a something the call the domino effect (your post gets re-tweeted which gets re-tweet potential again and again possibly reaching hundreds of people who wouldn’t know about your page otherwise). This domino effect is much more likely to generate new people who follow your page and, therefore, your business all because they find the re-Tweeted content valuable.

So my Conclusion for Twitter that your business can have a much higher reach drawing in new potential customers so it could be argued that Twitter is a tool to create business awareness allowing your business to grow more customers.

• Now for Linked-in, a is a business page for business people that are there advertising business, looking for businesses and working with businesses. So it’s simpler to sell yourself, your business and its products because that’s what it’s therefore. People use Linked-in to connect with businesses that are relevant to them whereas on Facebook or Twitter they might not be using the site for that purpose. if you only use Facebook or Twitter to keep in touch with your family and friends for example and don’t like pages for that reason then a businesses Facebook or Twitter page won’t be interesting to that customer. However if that person is on Linked-In and using it to connect with a business that having your company on Linked-in can be Valuable.

So my Conclusion here is that Linked-in is a worthwhile business site that can allow you to sell your business to the new and current customer on a social platform where they are looking to connect with businesses.

• Next up Google+:  The obvious yet important thing that my research has taught me here is that Google+ is Google. simply meaning if your business is on Google+ then Google knows more about your business and that makes it easier to search for. if Google can see all the recommendations that customers are leaving about your business, the content that you are writing about your business and the data you’ve entered on Google+ about your business then they know all about your business. All this allows Google to provide relevant results to potential and current customers searching for your Business.

for example, if a customer is looking for a plumber through Google search Google is more likely to put a plumber business that they know has good reviews from customers, post regularly on Google+ about basic house repair and has all their business information on Google+ to the top of a search list over Plumber business that it doesn’t know. It’s a similar principal to asking a friend for advice on which plumber to use. The friend won’t pick a random plumber out of the yellow pages and say here use this one. They are more likely to recommend a business they know and trust. The Same is true of Google.

So my Conclusion here is since Google is the most commonly used search engine putting your business on Google+ can only improve your customers chances of finding you online. So Google+ can be considered vital to any business looking to set up an online presence.

• and Last but not least YouTube: My research has taught that YouTube is the second biggest search engine Meaning people aren’t just using it to listen to music but also to learn. Business can use this to their advantage by providing video content that’s valuable to customers and using that to sell their business. for example, a Local florist creates videos on how to care for certain household plants with her business information such as her website, business address, phone number soon at the end of the video. People who search on YouTube about how to care for their plants then watch the video and learn about the business therefore potentially increasing their customer base and reaching out to the current customer with helpful information.

So my Conclusion about YouTube is if you can create valuable content then it can be a useful business tool however it is all about the content; people are unlike to search for what your business does or sells on YouTube that sort of information will get more success on other sites. YouTube is a tool for learning so unless you can teach your customers useful content through your video’s you are unlike to get many views and even fewer interactions.

I hope you found all that useful I sure did. Please try to remember these are my own personal conclusions, not facts but based on this conclusion I’m choosing to study; Facebook, Twitter and Google+ more. I believe these three sites are the ones that I will need to know in depth if I hope to get a Job working in social Media. I will still be posting about other social media topics but these three will be my main focus.

Using YouTube

Hey all

As regular readers will know I’m currently exploring some of the different platforms of Social media, So I’ve had a little look at Twitter, Linked-in, Google+ and Finally were on to YouTube.

So I’ve good two sources this time:

So as usual I’m going to just dive in it:

• YouTube is essential a search engine people don’t go there just for funny Cat Video’s, they also use it as a learning tool as I’m doing now
• YouTube is not the place to sell your products its all about making useful content that is Valuable to your customers.
• you can use video’s to drive potential customers to your website and business.
• be sure to use key search words in your video title to attract people such as ‘how to’ or ‘top ten’
• people watch your video’s and then if they find the content useful then you are already forming a positive relationship with them meaning they are more likely to watch other video’s, subscribe to your channel and visit your business website.
• it can be a good tool to engage with current or potential customers by answering important questions about your business
• a significant number of people now research items before purchasing so its well worth having an accessible online presence that encourages people to buy your products and have faith in your business.
• Top 3 rules for all You tube business you tube users 1. entertain your audience 2. educate the audience and 3. inspire your audience
• you can add annotations such as your website in text boxes over your video
• use the description boxes to your advantages there are probably tons of video’s to chose from so being clear about what your video’s contains is really important.

So this is the end of my preliminary investigation into the many social platforms. so now I’m going to review my notes and decide which platforms I wish to study more in the hopes becoming fluent in them. So stay tuned for more news