Lessons

Lesson Info

Pro Tips

Some pro tips, pro tips with live. These are just some kind of random ideas that I wanna make sure that sink in, if you need to just get your feet wet, you're still a little apprehensive about the thing, remember how I mentioned pseudo-live content on Snapchat? This is like stories, right? Just get your feet wet with like Instagram stories, Facebook stories, and Snapchat, cause what you're gonna do is, it's not live content at all, it's not live, but it feels like live to you, right? Cause it's the same motion, you gotta press the button, and you gotta deliver, but the value is, you can actually see it afterwards, and decide like, "I don't wanna post that, actually." But start doing stories, start doing Snapchat, start doing Instagram stories, start doing Facebook stories. It's like the pseudo, very brief live content that'll hopefully allow you to build that confidence and step in. Document, don't produce. My man Gary Vee drives this point home all the time, document, don't produce. R...

ecall all those three videos that I showed you guys? The actual live videos that I showed you? Was that high production value, or was that just documenting what was going on? Document, don't produce. Don't get caught up, and this is especially us creatives, we want our lighting to be amazing. We want everything to be perfect. We want the perfect script, all that kind of stuff, but just document what's going on around you. Furthermore, don't over-produce your life. Don't make it like, you don't have to be like the greatest top 10 photographer in the world to make a live video, right? Just bring people in on your journey. Document. "Hey, I just started up this year. "I can't wait for next year, I'm hoping to keep scaling "this, or hopefully go full time." Bring people in on that journey with you. Document what's going on, don't produce. And as time goes on, you'll get better. The audio'll come in, maybe you'll level it up, like that studio that I did. That didn't happen for like a year, right? I just slowly started to getting better: better audio, better video, it'll happen over time. Another pro tip that I find really funny is a good assumption that you should have, cause I see this all the time. When you go live, if you were to go live right now on Facebook, what's gonna happen is you're gonna see yourself and you're gonna be able to move on the screen, and you'll get feedback, and you press "Go Live," and then suddenly your screen freezes, and you're not moving any more, and there's like this little spinning wheel, right? And you're like, "Am I live? Am I live? "Am I live? I'm live! Hey, you guys!" And when you go back and watch that video, all that stuff is in it. Assume this, when you press "Go Live," whether you got a pinwheel or not, you are live, okay? Start talking, okay? When you go live, start talking. Engage. You must engage. This is really the value of live content. If you're not engaging, then it's not valuable. Engage, because you get to respond in real time back with people, okay? I already brought up Gary Vee, right, document, don't produce. Gary Vee has over two million followers, he's like kind of a big deal, right? And so, I'm at home one day, and I get a notification on my phone, Gary Vee is live, right, on Instagram. Because we have attention, it just pinged me. Hey, Gary Vee is live, right? Did it say Gary Vee just made a status update? No, it said Hey, Gary Vee is live. Okay, so anyhow, you get it, I pulled out my phone, Gary Vee is live. And he's just chilling in a taxi, he's like, "Hey, I'm just in New York, driving from X to Y, "and just wanted to say hi to you guys, "answer some quick questions, see what's going on." and I'm like, "Whoa, okay." So I asked Gary Vee, two million plus followers, a question on Instagram, and he calls me. He goes, "B Hart! Great question!" B Hart, Ben Hartley, B Hart, right? Instant fan, there's something this did to me, and I felt recognized, I felt acknowledged, I like it was so cool that I was able to actually have some sort of dialog and communication with this person who's all the way in New York, right, doing his thing? Engage with people, call people out, right? And so on that note, call people out. Call them by name, right? Hey, Drew! Hey, Josh! Hey, Amy! Thanks for being here. Call people out, and don't ask too much. Engagement's great, but sometimes I think the easy, I see this a lot, it's like AMA's, Ask Me Anything. Or Q and A's, right, just do a full Q and A. A lot of times with when you do those, it puts the burden and the responsibility on the question asker to ask a really good question, which is great later on once you start to build an audience, but up front, people might, they don't want to put themselves out there, so you might get crickets. You might not get any interaction or questions cause they're like, "Oh, man, I gotta come up with a really good question," right? So instead, a little bit more chill. "Hey, if this is your first time here, "catching me live, can you say hi? "Can you throw up some hearts and some thumbs up," right? Just very passive, basic interaction to start, right? "If anybody agrees or relates with what I'm saying, drop your favorite emoji in there." And when they do, say like, "I see your silly face, Amy," right? Call people out, recognize that you acknowledge that they're there, right? Say, "Thanks for posting." The all-seeing eye, another pro tip for you guys. This eye is terrifying. This is the little eye icon that sits at the top of your live feed, right? When you go live, it's there letting you know, there's a little number next to it, letting you know how many people are watching. And, if you get caught up in it, you're gonna freak out, right? Cause it's gonna start, and it's gonna be the number one. You got one person watching you. Then it's gonna go to three, and then it's gonna drop to zero. Then it's gonna go to two, and then seven, and then one, right? Don't look at the eye. Don't look at the eye. It's like the eye of Sauron, like the little flaming eye from Lord of the Rings, but anyhow, don't look at the eye, right? Don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. When you start, you're starting. Everyone started at zero, right? It takes consistency and time to build that up. And on top of it, you're gonna get a lot more views on your content after it's posted. When you go live on Instagram, it stays up there, right? It stays up there for 24 hours. And so even if you don't have in that exact moment all the viewers, you're gonna get viewership afterwards, okay? Today it's one, tomorrow it's one, next week it's two, the following week it's two, the next week it's three, then 10, right, and they'll start to scale up, okay? I created a little bit of a structure for you guys, just to help kind of give you an idea of what it looks like to kind of create a flow for a live video, right? What do you do when you first enter? How do you transition to your content? How do you close up and wrap up a live video? Cause sometimes it's like, "Well, I guess I'll "just start talking about this thing now." So I've created a flow system for you guys. Again, same link, it's right there for you guys to go check out. Go download it, if you feel like, "I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to transition," go check that out, okay? Here's the thing: because again, you all can go live right now, you know it. You know it has value, right, there's one thing that's stopping you. It's the false narrative, it's the false narrative that you currently believe about yourself, right? I have to be an extrovert. I have to be an extrovert to go live. You don't, you just have to be willing to step out in fear. Like, I'm not asking you to overcome your fear, I'm not asking you, don't be scared, I'm saying be scared out of your mind, and then do it anyways, because if you love this, if this is what you wanna do for the rest of your life, if you believe that this job is your career, and that it has meaning and value to you, then isn't it worth it to step out in fear and do something, right? I have to be good on camera, right? I've gotta be good on camera. The false narrative, right? You just gotta be honest, not self-deprecating, be honest. You don't have to be flashy and loud and bold, "Hey, I'm like really kind of scared. "This is my first live video, you guys. "I'm just starting off in my photography. "Anyhow, I just wanted to go live to you guys and just let you know, see how everyone's doing," like, just be honest. Just be honest. You don't have to be bold and loud and boisterous. But don't be self-deprecating, and when I say that, what I mean is, sometimes I see people who, in an effort to be honest and humble, they become self-deprecating. And it's an effort to make themselves feel better, right? Like, "Oh, my god, this is what I look like? "I hate the sound of my voice. "No one's watching, I just went from "seven people watching to zero. "I suck." Right, like you're trying to make yourself feel better, but in the process you're making everyone else feel uncomfortable, right? So don't do that. Don't make other people feel uncomfortable at your expense. Okay? It's true. "No one's watching, no one cares." The reality is everyone started at zero. The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today, right? Everyone started at zero. It's one today. It's one tomorrow. It's two, it's five, it's 10, right? Also, again, you're gonna keep getting more views than you realize. You keep hosting this content up. That's what's great about Facebook. Like, my videos that are like a year old now still will get hits, still get views. I'm not interesting. I'm like a basic person. I'm not interesting, eccentric, like I'm not interesting, right? Let me ask you this: are you a human? Then you're interesting, right? Then you're interesting. And the good news is this: even if you think that's a lie, it doesn't matter because live content is inherently interesting. You don't have to be interesting. The fact that you are currently live right now means you are, right? There was this whole giraffe thing at one point, what was it, April the giraffe? They did a live feed, anybody know what I'm talking about? This live feed of this giraffe that was gonna give birth, and it didn't give birth for two months. And there was a live feed. They had over like 200 some million views, right? Like 7.6 billion hours of people just watching this giraffe sit there for two months. I open up Facebook, admittedly you guys, and I'll just get lost in live videos. They'll be like, I don't know what this is, but there's these people who go on and they sell pearls. They shuck clams on live. They shuck clams on Facebook live and sell pearls. "Hey, you wanna buy a pearl?" "I'll shuck a clam for you live." It's like a business model, I don't know. Or like LulaRoe, have you seen this? They go live, and there' like spinning wheels and stuff, they're like "Check out these leggings," right? And I can't look away. It's just interesting, it's just interesting watching people be people. It's interesting watching people be people. Live content is just interesting. So when these moments of doubt start hitting you, and when you're questioning it, right, and you go to leave here, and you wanna put yourself out there, and you're scared, I'm gonna go back one last time, cause you got this, you guys. You got this. It's right there. You got this. The really exciting thing about live content, it's practice for the original live content.