We've established that Live Video is Important and discussed what to say, how to say it, and the best practices for going Live on Facebook… but, you're not done yet! After your Live broadcast, you'll want to ensure that you click the button to save the video to your Page, so that it can continue to get more traction and reach long after your broadcast has ended. Live video definitely has the best chance of receiving organic traction in the newsfeeds of your fans, however Facebook has announced that business posts are seeing less reach in the grand scheme of things. In many cases, it's becoming a “pay to play” platform. What I mean is, if you have not already, you will want to begin to explore paid Facebook Advertising.
3 Reasons to Love Facebook Ads
- Facebook Ads are affordable and can work with any budget. You only need $5 to run a really effective Ad leveraging your Facebook Live post!
- Facebook targeting allows you to really niche-down and target exactly the right people for targeting you Facebook Live Ad.
- After running your Ad, you can create an audience of people who watched the video. Then, you can run another Ad to them later. This is a great way to really build a relationship with your viewers and encourage them to do further business with you.
How to Boost Facebook Live Broadcasts
Do NOT Boost a Live Video (or any post) from your Facebook Business Page. Instead go to the Facebook Ads Manager to build your Ad. A couple other tips and tricks for navigating the Ad creation process within Facebook Ads Manager:
- Click the button indicating that you want to “Create Ad” and select the “Video Views” Objective. What this does (as opposed to other Ad Objectives) is tells Facebook that you really want people to watch the video. Facebook will do it's best to get you the most video views at the lowest cost for you.
- When targeting your audience, use your knowledge about who your ideal client is to set guidelines related to location, age, and sex. Then you will be able to layer on some interest-based targeting options. Think about your competitors and the type of things your ideal audience would also be interested in. When targeting a US-based audience it's recommended to have an audience size of 1-5 million people for this type of Ad. If you are a local business and targeting a smaller geographical area, then aim for 1-10% of the local population.
- Pay attention to whether you are setting a daily or lifetime budget, and set the duration for your campaign. Facebook will NOT refund you if you make a mistake, so double-check this!
- Once you get to the Ad Level, instead of creating a new Ad, you will select your Live Broadcast from your list of available posts. This will preserve the “was live” label and all engagement on the post – plus any further engagement on the video will stick to the original post. This helps increase Social Proof, the thought that “other people engaged with this, I should too!”