11 things you should know before you start live streaming - Teacher: Juma Bannister with Sri Mahabir

Hello and welcome to the Useful Content Podcast and today's podcast is going to be slightly different. So what we're going to hear and look at today is a recording from a pop up live stream. I did with one of my favorite creators to live stream with Sri Mahabir.

She's a video coach and a video marketing producer. So we got on the stream together to talk about live streaming and about live streaming strategy and the conversation went so well that I asked her to send me the recording and then I just cut the recording down so that you can hear her asking me questions and I'm responding to that. Some of the live streaming things that you will need to know in order to get started and in order to have a co host and some of the other practical things surrounding live streaming. I think it'll be a very good episode and you'll learn a whole lot and to help us along what I've done is that after I get asked the question by Sri and I respond to the question I'll add in some more information just to make it a little more robust.

So enjoy today's lesson in the useful content classroom about Live streaming. Here we go.

So I want to ask you, like, why did you start adding live streaming to your strategy?

So at the time when the live streaming came about, of course most people were still inside. It was that time of our life where everyone had to stay inside for the most part. and one of the best ways that we could have connected with people was by live streaming because we couldn't go out in person to have these real time interactions.

And so live streaming had developed as a tool rapidly in that period. And I felt based on our content strategy, it was important to add it so that we could have real time interactions and build community and relationships with the people who were important to us and with people in our peer group and our ideal client as well to come and look at what we were sharing and the, how tos, tips, tricks, strategies.

Live and because it was such a big community building tool and a big interaction tool, we kept it as a part of our content strategy. And so now that's the way we work it into the overall marketing.

so obviously what I'm referring to here is the pandemic and the fact that we were inside and of course at that time everyone had a lot of extra time on their hands to focus on things they could do remotely and it was a good time to test out live streaming for us.

it turns out that that was a really great idea that it got us a lot of mileage and we even won some business. directly from the live streams and the format of the live stream I was doing at that time was an interview live stream. So it's this very same show. It used to be called the useful content creation show and it was very visual.

It was focused on looking at the actual content. Of the individuals and so it was hard to turn that into an audio podcast because it was basically Leveraging looking at content particularly video content With the person in the studio and there was a really nice structure to it And maybe one day i'll go through the exact structure one of the segments included a new short tutorial, whether that was a piece of equipment, whether that was a method, whether that was a lighting tutorial, something to help people practically produce video content or some other type of content. And so during that time the live stream really developed. It got a massive following as far as I was concerned starting from zero and we developed a language around the live stream So the reason I have a bulb here and for those who are listening to the audio You can't see my studio. There's a bulb shining behind me a neon sign of a bulb The reason I got that bulb because part of the language was Throw your bulbs up and people used to spam bulbs in the comments and that meant we were shining light On how to make better content we were shining light and giving people sight of things that can make their content better.

And so there was a whole language and a culture on the live stream. It was very interactive. We used to answer questions. And so that development of that at that time was very, very good for what we were doing for our service offerings. So that's what that was. Let's move on to the next question.

So I wanted to get into when you thought about going live, like what was the first thing that came to mind for you? Was it that, you know, I'm going to go live on this platform or this platform? Like, how did you figure out what platform?

Well, I had gone live on some of the social media platforms before, like I'd gone live on Instagram and Facebook, but that wasn't really for business purposes. That was kind of like testing things out and I never really felt at home because I always felt like the quality of those lives were not really targeted and they didn't really produce anything. So I didn't really have a plan, but when I got live on LinkedIn, because at the time LinkedIn was picking and choosing who they were going to give live access to. And because I was active on LinkedIn at the time, I was hoping to get live access. In fact, I had pretended that, and I was testing out.

Doing long form videos on LinkedIn, just preparing to be live. So at the time the video limits on LinkedIn was 10 minutes and I would deliberately do videos that were 10 minutes long and act as if it was live, just preparing for the time when I was able to go on live and so. LinkedIn was the first thought but then I realized when I got into some of the platforms, which I guess we'll name later I was deciding on which one.

I think I ended up on StreamYard. I realized that you could broadcast on multiple platforms. And so while LinkedIn was the primary platform that I had other places that I wanted to broadcast to as well, but LinkedIn was the first place I felt, yeah, I'm going to do it here. And then it was broadcasting to YouTube and to Facebook as well.

so I want to point out something very important that I said there that you may or may not have missed. I spoke about practicing to go live and not just practicing as in I have live already and now I'm going to practice on a live stream. I was doing a recorded video. Pretending as if I was on a live stream.

And that is how I began to develop the ability to go live because going live, you always have to keep talking. You always have to fill the space, just like one of my good friend, said Daya. It's like live radio. You can't have dead air. And so what I did in order to develop, is that I created these long form videos on LinkedIn.

That's really set me up to do live streaming. So I had the mic, I had the whole setup as if I was going live. And then I said, I'm going to get on and I'm going to do this video. In one take, I'm going to do this video, set everything up as if I was going live. I'm going to have my script down. I'm going to have my pieces of content ready.

And I'm going to do this video as if I was on live. And what ended up happening is that I would do videos that were ultimately like 10 minutes long, which was the maximum time that you could do on LinkedIn at the time. Of course I would go back and I would edit it, but the whole practice, the whole practice of getting on to video and speaking constantly as if you were live was very helpful in developing my skill and my ability to deliver.

When I actually started to go live for the community. So I think that's important. Let's move on to the next question.

So for anybody who's thinking about going live, first thing is where is your audience? Like if you're wanting to go live on Instagram, cause that's what people are telling you to do, but none of your audience is there, you're wasting your time.

Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. 100%. And I would add to that, that I discovered that too. So I was doing testing on Tik TOK. I rapidly gained followers. I got like 7, 000 followers in a short time on Tik TOK. And I went live multiple times, but I discovered there were only a ton of people who will not do business with me done with my comments.

And it was nice and engaging, but it didn't really benefit the business positively, at least for me. So I know some people have gotten benefit from that, but for Tik TOK in my area of the world. And for the thing I was doing, it didn't work. So I agree with you. 100 percent go where your customers are. If you want to maximize on live streaming.

So some of the principles of content in general apply to live streaming as well. where you want to live stream to an audience and to a place that is useful to you where your ideal clients actually live, where they hang out, where they come to consume content and where they can possibly hear from you and buy from you.

So if you know that most of your business would usually come from LinkedIn, it doesn't make sense to go and stream on Instagram and vice versa. So that's just something, a general content principle to note that applies to live streaming as well. On the other hand, there is some benefit to streaming on platforms that you don't do business on as practice, and I think later on, I go on to describe doing that in order to get better at live streaming. Let's move on to the other question.

How do you come up with topics? You've been going live for three years. So how do you get topics?

Well, okay. So I already have my content strategy set out. So I have, these are the. core things that I'll talk about my, my pillar topics. So it has to be video content, strategy, photography live streaming and the things that my business offers. So for example, I first focus on the service offerings that we have because we are doing the live streaming for conversions.

And then we get people on the show that could talk inside of the area of content and that determines the streams. Now we've also developed a framework called the useful content framework where. you can triangulate what content topics you can come up with 

but other than that, I get a lot of ideas from listening to podcasts. I get a lot of ideas from reading books. I get a lot of ideas from commenting. I got a lot of ideas from listening to other creators, but generally my topics are based on my content strategy and the core pillars that I usually would share.

So this is another general content principle that can apply to live streaming. Live streaming should be part of a wider strategy. It should not be done in isolation unless you're doing the live streaming, like e commerce live streaming, like Amazon has or some other thing. But even that needs a strategy connected to it.

What are the goals? Why are you doing it? How are you going to use the content later? Because you're not just live streaming to leave it there. You're live streaming so that you can take that recorded video content and use it there after

So you have to be very, very strategic about the way you set up your live streams, how you structure it, why are you doing it was the end result, how are you going to use the content, how are you going to repurpose those things thereafter, and of course the people who you have as guests, if that's the type of show you have on the live stream.

And so if you have that locked down, then the content topics are very easy to get. You can get topics from many different places, but if you work out of your strategy, you would have already determined the parameters with which you want to share information. And usually if you're a business that's based on your service offerings and you go deep inside of how you help people, you get testimonials, you show how to's, you give tips and tricks, but then you start to show the deeper things like the outcomes, how you actually go through the process of solving problems for people and things of that nature.

So you get all of your content topics. Out of the service offerings or the products that you make, and then you can create things out of that. But that is all tied in to already predetermined strategy, which you should have done before you start making any content at all. 

So let's move on to the other question.

Now, when you are coming up, cause this is, this is really good stuff, guys. I hope you're taking note. The thing is, is that how do you know your audience really wants to listen to that? Are you doing a post or are you just saying, you know what? I'm just going to go and talk about it.

Very good question. One of the parts of the process that we went through is, and if you don't already have customers, this might be a little difficult, we go back and we ask customers about like, what were the things that stood out? To them when we approach them or why did they hire us and what were the best biggest benefits of our service and what were the things that they want to know.

We sent out a questionnaire and they give responses back and then we, you know, you look at it and say, okay, this is important to them. This is important. This is important. And you're going to rank those things. And when you have those things ranked, then you say, okay, I'm going to assume that if I want more customers like this, these are the things that I'm going to need to talk about.

And then you can center your strategy around that. Now, if you're already in business, and you already have service offerings, one of the easiest ways you can slide into that space is by just making the content about the services that you offer. If it's new, then you might not have the stories to tell.

You might not have the testimonials, but as you serve more people, then you'll get the testimonials, the stories, how you overcome challenges. But at the start, if you don't have anyone, then you just do the things based on the service offerings. Or you could even look at somebody else in your industry and see what they're doing and kind of match those things up.

But as soon as you get clients, you start to record and share those stories and that's how you get better content.

Let me just interject and say here that the only way you're going to get better at making content is if you already know who you're making it for. And the way in which you find those things out is by talking to the people who you make it for. If you have customers, you already have a goldmine of information and of data that you can base your content strategy on.

Of course, if you have no customers, you have to figure it out and there's ways to do that, as I mentioned earlier. But if you have customers already, they've already bought from you, seeing the patterns, and hopefully you're getting feedback from them. They're filling out forms. Then you have the data in order to make the content that makes sense to them.

And that's how you know that they want it. They have to tell you, they have to communicate that to you. And there are many ways that you can gather that information. One of the easiest ways is by filling out a questionnaire and sending it to them post sale Or even if you have lost the sale sending some feedback We recently did one where we put in some bids and we did not win the bid and we sent a Post bid feedback to find out, well, why didn't we win this bid?

And they sent some really good information. So now we know how to structure our future bids in order to make it more competitive. And so those are the type of things you want to do. You want to be talking to your customers and your clients constantly to find out what they want and then make the content according to that. So let's get back to what I was saying. Sometimes we think that it's got to be this extravagant idea. Past weekend, I had somebody, I asked her, Hey, you know, what's you, what do you want to do your show about? Why do you want to go live? And she was just like, well, I'm not trying to get any leads. It's just something I want to do for fun, but I don't know what topics to talk about.

Especially on a platform like LinkedIn, and that would apply to other places too if you have a business, ultimately you want conversions there is a way in which you, you're saying, okay, I'm going to do this as a form of content marketing where you just help people.

You don't try to get the direct sale is not like an advertisement or advertisement. You take questions, you help people, you share your experiences, but you have a very succinct topic that is in alignment with the thing that you want to talk about so that people can know what you do. And yeah, of course, I, if somebody wants to have it for fun.

Then they could talk about almost anything, but if you have a goal in mind, you have to be very careful about the parameters of the topics you want to cover, because you don't want to mislead people. The thing about the thing about live shows and content in general is that what you put out there goes out there.

People see it and essentially. You can send people down the wrong road, or you could get known for something that is not necessarily useful if you don't very much manage what you say and what you share on live streams. Yeah.

So I wanted to ask you, Juma, if you're thinking about having a live show or somebody that has come up to you and they say, I want to have a co host, what are a few things that you say you should, or you should keep in mind?

You know, interestingly, that is something that is a topic that I've been thinking about in recent time. Okay, so here's my thing about that. So first of all, you, you'll have to have some type of aligned goal. Like what is the reason that you're going to come together and do this live stream? What is the point of this whole thing?

And that could be many different things. Like in your instance, there was a misalignment of goals. One was having fun, one was getting leads. And you want it to get more deep into it and do sponsorships and have people probably run ads on the live stream, maybe turn it into a podcast. And maybe they just wanted to exercise their live streaming chops.

That may have been the case. So the main thing is that when you come together to talk about something like this, having an aligned goal, like we are here to serve this group of people in this way. Once you decide that, do we agree on that? Yeah, we agree on that.

How are we going to do that? Okay. What's the structure of the show? Are we going to have conversations? How is it going to work? Are you going to take one episode? Am I going to take one episode? Am I going to host one? Are you going to host one?

And so it helps too that the person is in the kind of the same industry that you're in. And that helps as well because you don't want to have somebody who is a, a, a chef talking about chef things, and then you have a biochemical engineer talking about biochemical engineer things that will have a clash in terms of the audience.

You don't want that the person has to be in a similar space with overlapping interests that you have, and that is a major, major thing as well. And the final thing I would think about is you are gonna have to talk about how is this content gonna be used on each of our platforms? Are we gonna have one?

Live show that's broadcast to both of our platforms. How is this content going to be repurposed? Are we going to use it? What can I use on my side? Because I have an audience. What can you use on your side? And so all of those details need to get sussed out before and pretty clear before you decide. All right, let's start this show.

If you just started for fun without talking about those details. At some point things are going to get shaky and fall apart so you need to be clear on the goals similar, industries and how you're going to use the content. I think those three things are very important. 

So let me just reiterate some of the things I'm saying about live streaming are just general principles about content and how you should plan things. The fact that you want to have a live streaming co host. Is the same way you would pick a person for any type of content you want to create with that person over a long period of time.

Think of it as a partnership. Think of it as something that is mutually beneficial. And I did mention you have to be kind of in the same industry. It could be a complimentary industry. Like one person could be doing brand identity, and the other person could be doing say print or something to do along with the production part of it, or it could be a case where.

You are upstream and they are downstream in your industry and it complements each other. And so you both have different perspectives on the same thing. One goes before the sale. One goes after the sale. There are many different ways you can find an appropriate co host, but that is a small part of the equation.

You actually have to get along, you have to like the person, you have to be able to synchronize schedules because if you want to do it over a long period of time, you're going to be in that person's space a whole lot. Most times these things work best when it's somebody inside your own company that you already know, you know, each other's flow, you know, each other's emphasis, you know, their likes and dislikes, and you have a general sense of the personality of the person because personality is very important in live streaming, and hopefully you have a complimentary personality when you choose that person.

So there are many factors. Those three things I mentioned are three major ones, but there are also other things that go along with choosing a live show co-host yeah. I think that's not something you should take lightly. You shouldn't just rush into it. You should do your due diligence before committing to creating a live show or a podcast together.

So let's move on to the next question.

So a myth that comes up from this is that I have done live streaming before, but it has not worked. Yes. Yes. But then the question comes, why didn't it work?

That's a big question. I think part of the answer, obviously, is why were you doing this in the first place? What was the purpose of it? And here's the thing. It's just like saying this. And we've all heard this example before.

If you don't know where you're going, there's no way you can know if you get, there, right? So when you say it didn't work, how do you measure the fact that it didn't work? How do you measure it? How do you measure the fact that This didn't work. What does that mean? What does didn't work mean?

Is it you didn't get enough sales? Okay. Well was the point of it sales? If it's yes, then maybe you could go back and revamp and look at that. But if you don't have a goal set beforehand, then there's no way you can measure it properly. And that's why people have all these fancy terms called KPIs and yada, yada, yada Basically, the show has to do what you want it to do.

That's basically in simple terms. You think that you want it to do? It has to do that thing. And the degree to which it does that thing will determine whether you're successful or not. And of course, inside of that, you learn a ton of other stuff too, but it has to do what you made it for.

i think this one is pretty self explanatory and if you don't know why you're making your show and you don't have a goal, it will accomplish that goal, which is nothing. Let's move on to the next question.

So going back, what makes a successful show depends on what are your goals. Don't look at the number of people that show up. Sometimes I don't even have anybody, but you know what is those lives, those shows, those posts too, that you gets the most leads.

Yeah, and I think that's a really good point you made that regardless of if one person turns up or no one turns up, just act like you're speaking to a stadium full of people, you know, that you're broadcasting to the world. Have the same energy. Just delivering the way plan as you would if there's a crowd of people there because ultimately part of it is that you are getting benefit as well you're getting better at the craft of doing this thing and you don't want to go in halfway because then you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing your future clients a disservice as well one of the myths People face with live streaming is that you need a large following to start.

You can start at zero, you can start at zero and and you share it, you promote it, you take clips from it. You do whatever you need to do. And over time, more people will be added. More people will be added, you know? But the main thing is that you advertise beforehand. People have expectation, and then they can come to and join your live stream.

So one of the things I did not mention there is that if you are having a live stream, don't just have spontaneous streams, actually schedule the stream ahead of time, send out the invitation. So if you're building a community by other forms of content, they can then see you have this live stream at this particular time on this day. And when it comes to choosing the time for your live stream, look for a gap, look for a space that not many people are occupying that may help choose a day, when you think your audience may be available.

My first set of live streams were done at 9 PM on a Thursday. Because the show was designed to be a late night kind of content variety show. So the structure of it was segments, and it was done in a way to have different parts of the show that would be interesting But the nine o'clock time was done to be late night because at the time. No one was occupying that space Everyone was running live shows in the morning and at lunchtime and I felt that that space was wide open and that worked very well for me.

Now there are some people who never came to the show because it was too late. 9 p. m where I live was five hours behind like people in the UK and other parts of the world but people in the Caribbean and people in the US will always log on and support the show because they were fans of what I did and they knew I would share useful content.

But the key thing there is that I scheduled it beforehand and they knew that every week the live show would be at this time on this day. And that is what allowed people to set up their own schedule in order to be in attendance with the live show. And that's important. Let's move on to the next question.

I see sometimes you go live by yourself. Sometimes I see you with a guest for you. Why did you choose to bring a guest onto your show?

So, initially, that was the easy way for me to get experience and when I first started off. Like anyone, I was inexperienced in going live and having a guest, especially someone who's already knowledgeable. They may not even have to have been a live streamer themselves, but having someone who was there to talk with, it took all the pressure off of me having to speak for 25 minutes by myself.

And so having a guest there bolstered the, strength of the show and it, turned it from me just talking to. People online to me having a conversation with someone in the studio. And that really did help. And then over time, as I built confidence and I got clearer on what I wanted to say, then I was able to have live streams on my own.

And even when the stakes were lower, like I would practice on TikTok, that's a low stakes live stream on LinkedIn is a higher stakes live stream. So if you want you could practice on another platform, and then you could always, you know, get better at it and then come on, platforms that really matter to you thereafter.

and though it might be obvious, another reason you could have guests on your live show is so that they can share their own expertise with your audience and they can get benefit from it too because you are sharing your audience with them as they share their expertise and improve and help your audience.

That one is a kind of obvious one it wasn't just because of my preference to learn how to live stream with a guest. But it also was because I knew that the people who I was bringing on would have useful content to share with my audience who I cared very much about.

So that was the complete answer. Let's move on to the next question.

I've had guests who are CEOs and founders of large corporations. So you, you can have a variety of guests. You know, one thing that's a pet peeve of mine is that when folks only want a name on their, on their podcast and on their live show, and I'm more of what about the people who are building up.

But also I think that you're missing opportunities if you think that only the big names can deliver useful content to your community. There are many people this is one person who I had I was on her show and she was on my show as well, she does content strategy.

She's not well known her posts. Don't get a lot of engagement. But she's so good at what she does. And I don't know how come she doesn't get more engagement with the things that she does, but she's so good at what she does. And I'm like saying, she is like, a hidden gem. She's, she's like, people are sleeping on her skills for real.

And so you don't have to get big names, you just have to get people who you feel could talk to your community, who can bring something very useful to them, and who are aligning with the goals that you have. And that's all you really need.

Now, I know there are some people who would say, get the top of the line guests, the best guests you can get, and there is some benefit. Actually, there's great benefit to getting guests who are experienced and who can talk about the topics that you want to talk about and that are useful to your audience, there is great benefit to that. However, I would say that not only the popular guests are the ones who will give you the best content. There are people out there who are lesser known who will also deliver.

Very excellent content for your live show. And so, yes, go try book the big names, those people that always busy always booked and it might take a long time to get them on your show, but then to also consider that there may be people who are doing great work, just less known.

And we'll be able to give value to your audience as well. Let's move on to what I think might be the penultimate or the ultimate question. I love that you said that because there are a lot of gems out there, hidden gems. Even sometimes I feel I'm a hidden gem. You're a hidden gem to some, but those who know us know what we can do. And I'm all about finding that talent. But this is just me. If you want to go live with me, if you want to be on journey of an entrepreneur, which is now turned into a podcast called adventure of an entrepreneur.

I asked that you have a profile on Instagram. I asked that you have a profile on LinkedIn. The reasoning behind it is that it's really just, you're going to get in front of some folks that want to work with you. And some people don't like leaving LinkedIn. Some people don't like leaving Instagram. That's the truth.

Just have the profile. And you can go live with me. I don't care about followers. What I care about is that you've, you have something to share. If you don't, let's revisit this in about six months.

So when people fill out the form for my podcast now, it asks like like a couple of questions but really, it's to determine, do you have a point of view? Can you articulate three things based on the point of view?

And that is just to say, well, when we come into the podcast and this is not live anymore, this one is recorded. You have to be able to share something that is useful to the people because it's for their benefit. I care about the people who I'm talking to. I care about my audience. You know, if you're coming on, the show, the live show, just for yourself.

Then, that is something that I would prefer not to have, you have to care about my audience, not as much as I do, but at least to the point where you want to share something very useful with them. And so in order for me to determine that there has to be a filter. And so the filter is answer these questions, this topic and these three sub points.

And I could get a sense of what you can share obviously after that I go check you out Go see what you've been doing if you get invited, then, you know, i've checked you out already but there has to be some standard so I have no problems with having a standard

there are many different schools of thought concerning how you should vet or screen your guests before they come onto your show.

Uh, there are some people who say questionnaires are no good. That is not something that you should do. It indicates a low quality show. There's some people who have pre interviews and without a pre interview you can't get on the show. There's some people who ask almost nothing, just the time booked and your name and then they go and do all the research independently.

As I mentioned, my process is a form with a few questions that really try to get to the heart of what you want to share and identify your point of view and the things that you might want to share with the community. And then I go and do more groundwork and find out who you really are.

And find out the depth of what you can actually share. And of course, if I knew you from before, then I'd already have to do that groundwork because I've already engaged with your content and I know the point of view you have and what you say. What's the best way to do it?

I am not totally sure. I've had different systems and both systems have produced very good interviews. But the main thing is that when you find a person, you need to go and see what they've done before, see what kind of content they share, see if what they have is in alignment with what you want them to share. The topics are the ones that you would like your audience to get, and the content itself is something that is engaging, and that really speaks to your ideal client or your ideal audience. And so doing that will ensure that you at least have something valuable when you bring someone on your show to share 

So that's it for this episode. I was going to do a summary, but I decided against that.

If you think you've missed anything, go back and listen to the podcast again. And really soak it into your mind. All of this stuff concerning live streams. I want to thank Sri for having me on her pop up live stream and for the topic that she picked. And of course, I want to thank you all for staying till the end of this lesson. Useful content classroom. Dismissed. Ooh, la la. That was a marathon of recording right there. Hmm.