8 Tips to Promote Your Live Streaming on Social Media

Here are 8 tips for getting the most impact and visibility from social media engagement for your live video streaming event. You’ve worked hard on your production, and your event is ready to stream live. Of course you want as many people to see it as possible. Naturally, you’re going to promote your live streaming event on social media, but what’s the best way to do that? Here are eight tips for getting the most impact and visibility from social media engagement for your live video streaming event.

 1. Start Early Enough You want to leave people who are interested in your event time to schedule it in. Notifying them at the last minute is a recipe for getting, “Oh, hey, I’d really like to do that, but . . .” as a response. Of course, it’s possible to overdo the early notice; an event that’s too far in the future is easy to forget about. Depending on the length of your live video streaming event and the amount of time commitment you’re asking for, between a week and a month is probably about right. Follow up notices should go out as the date approaches, especially to those who have expressed an interest. Those people should go on a contact list. That’s for the event itself, but naturally you should have a social media presence long before the event enters the planning stage. As an ongoing participant in the social media conversation, you’ll build recognition and make people more likely to pay attention when you announce your event.

 2. Locate Your Audience You should have an idea of the interests of the people who would want to watch your event going in. Those interests will be reflected in participation in social media communities where the platform supports them (true of Twitter, Facebook, and Google+), and subscribing to relevant blogs. (Perhaps including yours, but certainly not limited to yours.) Tips to Promote Your Live Streaming Event on Social MediaTargeting your social media communication to those communities helps get the word across to the right people. It’s a much better approach than simply casting the word out into the public. The social media conversation is enormous. You have to narrow it down a bit. It’s a good idea to participate in communities relevant to what you expect to be doing long before you actually put on an event. Make yourself known. That way, when you announce your event, it doesn’t look like you’re a complete stranger whose only interest is to advertise.

 3. Remember the World is Round Time zone is important! If your event is scheduled for 6 p.m. and you live in New York, that’s 5 p.m. in Chicago, 3 p.m. in Los Angeles, 2 a.m. the next morning in London, and midnight the previous night in Sydney. Know where in the world your audience mostly lives and schedule your event so they will be reasonably able to participate. In publicizing the event, unless you know for certain that your entire audience shares your time zone, make sure you identify that it’s 6 p.m. Eastern Time (or whatever) to avoid confusion.

 4. Use the Internet Grapevine People are much more likely to participate in an event when they’re referred to it by someone other than the event’s promoter. It’s a matter of trust and perceived disinterest. It’s your event, so you’re not a disinterested party, and everyone expects you to speak well of it. A certain skepticism automatically applies. You can jump-start this process by enlisting the help of those who are already familiar with your productions. A tweet or a Facebook post from such people is worth a hundred from you. “Hey, I know these guys, and this is something worth seeing.” Wouldn’t you be more likely to click if it’s presented that way, than if the event promoter is blowing his own horn? Especially if it comes from someone you know and trust?

 5. Take a Coattail Ride Tips to Promote Your Live Streaming Event on Social MediaDo you have an established artist or other well-known person participating in your event? If so, you can expect that person to do his or her own promotion. Monitor what your star is doing on social media, and re-tweet or share accordingly.

 6. Use a Teaser A short teaser video relating to the live video streaming event is golden. Your teaser shouldn’t be too long. A minute and a half is about the upper limit. Put your best foot forward with something exciting that promises your viewers a cool experience or a chance to learn something. Or both. For a longer event, it might pay off to produce a series of teasers revealing more about the event over the lead-up time. Which brings us to:

 7. Reveal Details Gradually As the day of your event approaches, reveal a little more detail about what’s coming. This increases interest in seeing all of your revelations. It builds suspense, and for those who have been following along, boosts interest in seeing your production.


 8. Monitor the Response Okay, this isn’t really promotion, but it’s important to gauge the response to the event. The best time to do this is during the event itself or within 24 hours afterwards. This will give you an idea of how much reaction you’re generating and what kind. Tips to Promote Your Live Streaming Event on Social MediaIt’s also a good idea to measure the response to the promotion itself. This can show up as shares and retweets, and as comments on your posts, or on those of others about your promotion. There are software tools for measuring social media activity objectively. Monitoring the response in this way reveals a number of things.

It shows how much energy your social media engagement is generating. It can also show how people perceived your event itself, and let you gauge whether it had the impact you wanted it to. This can be an important guideline for designing future events and for promoting them on social media. It’s a Long-Term Relationship The most important thing to remember about social media promotion is that it’s all pull and no push.

It’s not advertising in the traditional sense. Everyone has the power to block you. Yes is for now. No is forever. You’re looking for a long-term relationship with people rather than for a short-term response. Anyone who likes your presence on social media will tend to look kindly on events and other offerings that you promote. Offer quality discussion and content rather than mere advertising, and you’ll do well. The rest is just the details.