Written By: Elizabeth Victor
With all the buzz and hype surrounding Facebook Live, you might be wondering how you can take advantage it, and make it work for your business. If you want to capitalize on this big trend, there are certain things that you can and should be doing to connect with your Facebook audience for that live engagement. Facebook Live isn’t only for events and big announcements. We have 6 easy ways to use Facebook Live to help your business, and these are things you can do every day, not just for one-off events.
1) Respond to Comments: Having a Facebook Live session where you respond to comments either from your blog, Facebook, or any social channel is a great way to bring interested individuals to your Facebook Live session and will create an environment for engagement. The content is laid out for you, so you can choose the comments you will respond to ahead of time, announce your live-cast ahead of time too, and even craft your responses in advance. Just be sure not to sound rehearsed or like you are reading from a script. You always want your live video to sound like it is genuine; you will be much more engaging and better received that way.
2)Give a Behind the Scenes Look into Your Business: 
Everyone loves to catch a glimpse of places they normally can’t go. This is why doing a behind the scenes tour of your business is a great idea. You can tailor the content of the live session to show off what you want and decide how ‘behind the scenes’ you want to make it. You can show the inner workings of your office, how services are performed, etc. Of course, this will be different for every business and perhaps you may instead show a ‘behind the scenes’ look at new products being developed. This can create interest in a new product or breathe life into an older product that you want to feature. You can also go behind the scenes with your staff. This might help with your recruiting efforts or just give your consumers a better understanding of how your business works.
3)Answer FAQs: FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions are asked frequently for a reason. Obviously, your customers want to know about them. Therefore, doing a Facebook Live session will not only answer those questions for those who have asked them, but also for anyone in your audience who wanted to know but didn’t think to ask. Learning more about your business also helps potential customers or clients learn more about your company.
4)Walk Your Audience through Your Customer Experience: One of the best ways to convert those customers or clients who are “on the fence” is to show them exactly what they can expect when they make the decision to do business with you. A Facebook Live session can help potential customers make the decision to do business with you when they see what it is like to come into your store, restaurant, salon, or any type of business. This can be especially helpful if you have a unique business that consumers might be unsure about.
5)Feature the Employee of the Month: 
Featuring an employee of the month each month not only shows your audience some insight into your business but shows your audience that you care about your employees and want to share their greatness. At the same time, it can help employee morale.
6)Share Industry Tips: You are an expert in your industry and your consumers likely want or even need to know information if they are buying your products or services and if they are interested in your business. A restaurant might share recipes or cooking tips to make their most popular dish at home. A salon might share beauty tips. A store might show a box opening of popular products so that people can see what they are and how they work. Those are just a few examples to give you an idea of what you might do with a Facebook Live tips video.
Summary and Takeaways for Your Business
Facebook Live sessions have the potential for a huge impact on your social strategy and are an excellent way to boost engagement. Of course, you might lean towards doing Facebook Live only when you have an event or special announcement, but it can be great for plenty of other daily uses too. It is a great way to boost engagement and capitalize on this exciting trend. We hope you have enjoyed reading and already have some great ideas sparked from our 6 examples: respond to comments, give a behind the scenes look into your business, answer FAQs, walk your audience through your customer experience, feature an employee of the month, and share industry tips. Once you get comfortable with Facebook Live, you might venture into some more truly live experiences with variables like live interviews or even offering live online classes. Remember that anything can happen during a live cast, so be ready for it and practice your live response skills. Consider doing a practice video before actually going live, this will give you a chance to be prepared for the live environment and the need for quick responses. You might also consider setting a policy for instant feedback so that your staff has guidelines for responding to the live responses.
Bio: Elizabeth Victor is Brand Advisor for Isentia. With 18 offices across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe and the US, Isentia provides more than 5,000 clients, including many of the world’s leading brands, companies, and governments, with media intelligence software and services that help drive more informed and timely business and communication decisions.
