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Platforms for LIVE
Let's kind of understand the landscape right now, the platforms that are out there, where you can publish live content, right? Let's look at the key players, by the way, the key players at the current recording of this 'cause it will change. We got YouTube, right, we got YouTube Live. YouTube Live is fantastic if you already have an audience built there. Honestly, it's a fantastic tool no matter what. There's a Google search and there's YouTube search, right? Like YouTube is an amazing search tool that is incredibly popular. Currently right now, just like side note, as you're thinking this through, you can currently only go live on YouTube Live on your desktop. It's probably going to change, like, honestly, it's probably going to change in the next week to a month. They'll release it on mobile. But right now, you can only go live on desktop. You guys can follow me on YouTube if you want, Sixfigurephotography, I'm there. Facebook, I love Facebook Live. Facebook is fun because, if you're...
like me, and you started your business six years ago, seven years ago, you probably actually have an audience there, right? That used to be where your audience was. Maybe even still as a wedding photographer, maybe you still have an audience there. But Facebook Live is fantastic because you can go live on your desktop, you can go live on your mobile device, you can go live from your personal profile, you could go live from your business page, you could go live into a group that you manage, right? There's so many different options within Facebook. And then the other cool thing about Facebook is, you can either only have that video out for the people who watch it live and then don't actually post it, or you could put it up there, post it, keep it for the whole world to see forever, right? Facebook gives the opportunity to keep your videos up online and actually build a catalog, right? So that people can go back and watch. This is really helpful when you want to do a re-occurring segment or episodes, right, you want to do something that's re-occurring. I do Facebook Live videos almost daily. I do them as often as possible. I have a live show called SixfigureLive. I'm on like 200-some episodes of it. And you guys can follow it there, sixfiguresphotography. Once I go back home to Ohio, I'll be live tomorrow, right, doing things, so hop on and say hi, right? Instagram, Instagram's fresh, it's newer, right. The Instagram Live kind of course has been really volatile in terms of all the changes. It changes daily. It changes weekly, currently, right now. Live contact is great on Instagram because it currently breaks the algorithm they have. Right now on Instagram, the algorithm is not, it's not chronological, but your stories do go chronological. At the top, you know those little circles, your stories do go chronological, and live content goes chronological and Pfft, slides over. Your live content goes chronological so everyone sees it. Obviously, it's only on mobile. And Instagram is different because it's only 24 hours. It's only up there for 24 hours of time, right? And then it goes away. Facebook, it lives on, your good, it's there. Or maybe you're good if it disappears. Maybe that feels better, I don't know. You guys can follow me on Instagram at JBenHartley, right? I'm, I'll bring up Twitter because it's a live thing, but I'll just be straight up with you. Twitter required Periscope. Periscope is another live platform. I'm not, I candidly, don't use it. My audience is not there. But you can essentially go live right from Twitter. It'll send you out to Periscope where you can create live content from . Don't follow me on Twitter. I'm just kidding, I'm there, but I'm just not posting anything. Alright, Snapchat, I bring up Snapchat despite the fact that they currently don't have any full live functionality to it, right? Snapchat doesn't do live content right now. I bring it up because I think that's only a matter of time. I think they're going to enter into the live world in probably a really different way, a really impactful way, and I'm excited to see how it kind of changes the platform. But they do have something that I do want to bring up. I affectionately have kind of called this pseudo live content and I'll explain that later, but Snapchat. I'm late to the Snapchat game, by the way. Anybody else late to the Snapchat game? Okay, good, don't leave me hanging, thank you. You guys can follow me there, JBenHartley, I'd love to get in on that. Alright, so, look, we have all these, all these different opportunities to go live. Like, how do you decide? What do you go live on? Do you go live on Instagram? Do you go live on Facebook? Do you go live on YouTube? Is it Twitter? Like, what do you do? Here's what I would do, right? I go live on everything. Okay, so that's the first answer is go live on as many as possible. But, go live on the ones where you actually have an audience to start. Go live on the ones you actually have presence. If you have your presence on Instagram, go live there. If you have your presence on Facebook, go live there. And then also, be keen on looking out for the next opportunities. When Insta- or when Facebook, sorry Snapchat, goodness. When Snapchat introduces live to it, you all better be on it, right? 'Cause it's a land grab opportunity, right? The people who are early adapters to Instagram, they benefited way more than us who are coming on now and we're trying to build our audience and we're trying to build a platform and so be keen and looking out for that. And I already brought this up, I think all future big players are going to be using live as a key component. Actually Vimeo, Vimeo is another video hosting site like YouTube, maybe a little bit artsier, a little bit higher quality, but, Vimeo just acquired live stream and they just started Vimeo Live now. This just like happened this week, right before I was leaving to come here. It's like Vimeo Livestream, now there's Vimeo Live, right? Pay attention. So earlier, I said this, I said, go live on everything. Go live on everything. Here's what I mean. You can multicast. Look, if you're going to do the work, if you're going to put yourself out there to an audience, hey guys, right? Go live, I'm pretending this is a a phone, thank you, hey guys, you might as well send this out to multiple audiences simultaneously. You might aw well maximize your reach while doing it. And there's a couple opportunities to do this. Two of them, the best ways are paid options, right? That tends to be how it works. So one of them's called Restream.io. The other one's Wirecast. But it's like 500 bucks, like Wirecast is 500 bucks. I don't know about you guys, but my guess is 500 bucks isn't in the budget just to make more live videos to reach more people, right? Maybe it is, maybe when you start, become a power player in this whole thing, it is. But this is what I like to do. I like to do things differently. And I like to do things differently for a couple of reasons. One is it's free. And the second reason is, it treats the platforms differently and it gives it a different native experience. So this is how I like to multi stream. So multi stream has a desktop computer, right? Everyone's got the desktop, the laptop, cool. Right now you can only go live on YouTube on a desktop. Cool, YouTube Live, right here I'll get a nice little st-up. I'll pull up a chair, hey guys, what's up, YouTube Live, right here, right? Okay cool. Everybody got a cell phone, right? Take your cell phone, get a light stand, tape it up to it, clamp it, you know. If you want to get fancy, get a little, no, you don't need to get fancy, right? Go live on Facebook, right here. And so now you've got YouTube here, you press live on Facebook. You go, hey you guys, what's going on, you know, Instagram, And Facebook's over here, checking you guys out. And then, let me ask you this, anybody have that other phone that's like, in a drawer somewhere with the cracked screen. Maybe it's out of date, it's like an iPhone 5C. And now we're on the iPhone 8X? Right, you hae that old device. Go get it back out. The cool thing is you don't actually have to have a service plan, right? Here in the United States, you can just get out your phone, you don't have to have it paid through Verizon or whatever it is, and you can just turn it on, download that one app, 'cause it probably can't run too much more, download Instagram on it, and now, I can take my broken, junky phone, and I can put it over here on Instagram. And what I like to do is this. I like to give different experiences. So I will intentionally move one of my cameras further away. YouTube right here has the nice perfect little thing. I got like my intentional coffee mug right here. I've staged it, got he plant here, the lighting looks great. Facebook's looking okay, but maybe Instagram, I intentionally pull the camera back. And now they get this behind the scenes view, right? They get to see the light stands. And they get to see everything that I'm in. And you get to treat your audiences differently. You can say, Hey, YouTube what's going on? You guys got the nice clean look. Facebook here, Instagram's getting the behind the scenes view, what's up Instagram, right? And you can begin to communicate to different audiences in different ways, right? This is native to that platform and it's a really fun way to do it. I love going that way, right? If you go the other route with Wirecast or Re stream, it literally takes one stream and completely duplicates it, whatever I say, the exact picture goes out to YouTube, goes out to Facebook. It's all right, but it's not native, right?
Ratings and Reviews
Andy Martin
Ben!!! My New Best Friend! You are so awesome brotha! Such good content. So much encouragement! So many great ideas! I am ready to do this thing! Thanks Ben!
user-4e171d
WOW what an amazing challenge to all of us! Ben gives compelling reasons for why you NEED to be using Live content in your business, as well as practical tips for HOW to make it happen. I'm planning to go live for the first time this week thanks to this push from Ben. I would absolutely love to learn more from him, and I hope to see him again here on Creative Live!
My Treasured Memories
It is so refreshing and informative to see Ben Hartley's passion for what he does! Live content has always been something I've been scared about and it's nice to see how important it is. I am so ready to jump online and start my life content to help make more people aware with my brand thank you Ben Hartley for this great class I hope you get to do more because I'm ready to soak it up!
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