You must get comfortable with doing ‘Live’ Video to help you enroll people into your community and to your cause. Here’s your recipe!

If you want to change the world, you must be visible.

That means getting comfortable with being on video, and even more so, being relaxed and secure when going ‘live’. Yet we know that even the thought of doing an FB Live or an Instagram story puts the fear of death into many speakers, authors & coaches.

When people see you show up authentically, in real time, they start to make a connection with you that is invaluable. That enrolls them to your cause, gets them into your community and helps them decide to sign up to following you more quickly than anything we know. And as a Changemaker, you want and need that kind of relationship with your audience.

We want you to make peace with this fear of going ‘Live’.

We thought we’d share what’s worked for us as well as some tried and tested ways to get you ‘Live’ (and even loving it!). We’ve now done well over 100 FB Lives inside our ever growing community. We add one every week. Ours are jampacked training sessions that help speakers, authors and coaches to build their businesses one topic at a time. We know that our Lives are one of the key reasons that our crowd is engaged and connected to us and to each other.

The key way to overcome this fear is planning & practice.

We did 7 rehearsals before our first ever FB Live! After those practice runs, we finally just hit the button and went for it. Both of us were much more comfortable as a result, even though that moment was nerve wracking!

Even if you are confident in doing a FB Live, preparation is still important to ensure that the content you want to share is making the impact you want it to and that you are engaging your audience, rather than waffling. There are two main stages to this:

1) Making a plan and

2) Following the plan!

These really are the key to showing up well for your audience or prospective audience, in a way you will feel proud and satisfied with.

In order to plan, we always say ‘start with the end in mind’.

That starts with WHY you are doing the FB Live and WHO you are doing it to. For example if you are a guest on someone else’s FB Live, your planning might be different than if it’s for your own page and company.

You don’t need to think things up, you can just canvas your audience on what they want.

We go Live every Tuesday at 1pm on our Page. The planning for that is scheduled into our week as are the topics for the next three months. We generated this plan and these topics by creating a survey in our group, asking the members what they wanted training on. We are always listening for the common questions that arise and then working out how we can teach or comment on those as part of our ‘showing up’. That’s something you can start right away. Start a list of ‘possible topics’ and just keep adding to it as you get inspired and hear things that you can address.

Remember we want you to build a business ON YOUR TERMS™.

The first thing to do is work out whether you want to simply show up on other people’s platforms, or if you want to do your own regular FB Live. We highly recommend the latter if you are looking to build a community and connection with your audience. You need to make the commitment and then keep it up.

If you’ve established that you do want to do a regular FB Live, then choose a time that works for YOU — your audience will catch you on the replay or will start to gravitate to you and begin to make space for you. Please don’t choose a time just because the stats say your audience is there — you will give it up if you feel you are putting yourself ‘out’ and that will do more harm than good.

Here are 8 things to do to help you prepare for your FB Lives (which will let you gain confidence AND make an impact too!)

1. Determine why are you doing this (or any) FB Live.

What purpose will it serve? Here’s a starter list of suggestions. Knowing the reason will help you frame the ‘conversation’ with your audience:

• Is it a contribution or value add piece (these are key!)?
• Is it to showcase your expertise?
• Is it a call to action — for example to attract more people to join your group?
• Is it a chance to ‘rant’ about something that you care about?
• Is it to publicise something you are promoting?

2) Decide from where are you doing this FB Live:

• On your page
• In your group
• On someone else’s page / group?

The reason why we do Lives on our FB page and not directly in our group is primarily so that others can share them out from our page to their network. If we did them just inside the The Connection Hub group, the Lives would only be able to be seen by group members. That limits the reach and impact you can make with your information.

On the other hand, it might be that you are sharing ‘exclusive content’ within a group which also has it’s place and builds the connection and relationship with those that are already fans of yours.

And finally, it might be that you are doing a guest spot on someone else’s page or inside their group. Establish which it is, and then go back to point number 1 to determine the content you share 😊.

3) Consider WHO this FB Live is for

Thinking about your audience makes a difference to the style, delivery, length and depth of the information you might share. Is it your usual (own) audience or is it someone else’s? Knowing this allows you to tailor your delivery and offers a degree of comfort (weirdly — some people feel more comfortable doing Lives to those that know them, whilst others feel the other way around and prefer to do them into ‘new to them’ audiences — work out which you are to help you get confident by starting where you are most comfortable!)

Here are some things to consider about those who’ll be watching:

• What are they expecting?
• What do you know / can you find out about them?
• What assumptions can you make about them?
• What do they want?
• What’s troubling them?
• What problem will you solve with the FB Live?

Just thinking about these answers might just give you the content you want to share.

4) Establish the Topic & Title, and let the content be guided by these

• Good ideas for topics are ‘how to’s…’, telling them how to overcome a problem, how to achieve an aspiration etc.
• Define your topic — will you go broad or niched? You could introduce a new concept & be very general, or you can go very specific & focus on 1 thing.
• FB Lives should primarily raise awareness of a subject — give some insight or tips but then have a CTA where they can learn more.
• Are there regular things you say / must say?
• How will you get engagement? What questions will you ask?

5) Decide how you’ll manage & run the FB Live, so it (and you!) stay on track.

This is where a rehearsal can really help you. Decide what you will do with comments — will you answer as you go, will you tackle them after the FB Live and simply broadcast, will you say hi to everyone as they arrive — again this might be for engagement, so that might work for you / your audience. Always check in with your Audience and what they might prefer.

We really recommend that you prepare a set of bullet points so you stay on track in your delivery. You want full engagement and connection. Waffling or ‘filling’ in is likely to lose your audience — unless you are a consummate entertainer and that’s what you’ve set up as an expectation for your FB Lives.

Remember that planning helps to honour people’s time. They will respect you and stay with you. Now consider what you need to help you remember what you need to say. Is it a bunch of post it’s on the tripod? A flipchart above the camera? Maybe you prefer a script or print out?

6) Set up your equipment and environment so it supports you.

We know that for many speakers, authors and coaches, it’s the tech that stops you so here are some things that you might find it highly useful to do, have and check EVERY TIME you do a FB Live:

• A Tripod (hell yes! It means no wobbles or making people seasick you if it’s a long one — aka over 5 mins!)
• Your phone — it really is all you need (make sure its charged!)
• A laptop / Ipad for questions (it makes it easier for you)
• Set up your ‘stage’ pull the black out blinds, turn on the lights, do a background tidy up, and make sure you are not sat in front of a light source (you will be thrown into the ‘dark’ and people wont see you as well)
• Check you’ve got some brand colours / props or ‘interest’ led things in the shot — and do the obligatory check so you’ve not got a plant coming out of your head etc
• Wardrobe management — as much as possible make sure that you are wearing video friendly clothing and accessories
• Have you turned on the do not disturb button so notifications and calls don’t interrupt you FB Live?
• Make sure you turn your phone so it’s in landscape mode before you hit Go Live

7) Do a test run

If you are new to FB Lives, or even if you’ve been doing them for a while, it’s a great idea to have or set up a private group to test in. It allows you to check what your audience will see, and will reassure you that you can be heard, that there are no unsightly things in the background and that your internet seems to be working. We still periodically do this just to make sure we are delivering the best quality possible. Doing a test run will also help you to:

• Understand how your equipment works together — especially if you’ve just added something new!
• Practice answering and making comments — does your phone require you to swipe up or left for comments and how many can you see at a time on the screen etc
• Know how your Live might go — do you have a countdown timer when you hit the Go Live button? How long have you got to sit down in your ‘staged’ area? Do you need to type a title in or can you copy paste it from somewhere? What’s your internet connection like today.

All these will help you feel more confident about the variables that could pull you off track. Doing a test will just calm the nerves.

8) Advertise your FB Live

Give your FB Live the best chance of being seen ‘Live’ — whether it’s on your page, someone else’s or in a group you manage. Share that it’s happening, get people excited. Here are some ways you can do that:

• Put a post out about it in advance
• If it’s a regular feature, publish a regular meme
• If you have an email list that is used to hearing from you, tell them you are going Live and what the subject matter is, invite them to join you
• Remind people (put out that same meme from above at a few different times, so more people see it)
• Get others to share it for you (this works well if you are going Live in someone else’s arena)
• You can even set it up as an event — this notifies people when you go Live
• Remind people to sign up for notifications for your Lives so they don’t miss them

Our Final comments on Doing FB Lives: Consistency vs spontaneity

We suggest you have a regular time slot where you do something of value for your fans. It will get them (and you!) used to showing up as you, sharing your content, your way that’s of benefit to your audience who love you. Planning and practice and following these guidelines will help you get over that hurdle. Just start!

We also suggest that sometimes it’s just fun and useful to get spontaneous — pending your brand! — and just show up with a little rant, tip or recommendation because it happened to show up in your consciousness or in the news! As ‘Changemakers’, it’s very likely that you might be at a speaking gig, or launch of some kind and you get the impulse to share. Documenting spontaneously is a great way to share you with your audience. FB Lives can definitely be spur of the moment, fly on the wall events — but even so, we still suggest you make a mini plan, and follow as many of the steps above as possible.

Please don’t underestimate just how much love and respect you’ll get from doing this. People ‘lurk’ around you and FB Lives are a great way of inspiring people that you didn’t even know where paying attention to you. That’s changing the world, one person at a time, simply by you choosing to share what you know, authentically and from the heart around something you (and they!) care about.

Most of all, have fun and be you.