Welcome to the Being Found show. I’m your host, Chauncey Haworth filling in for Joe McKenna. In this segment, we discuss what’s changing in online marketing and what small businesses can do about it.

Chauncey: So, we’re going to dig into live video streaming. It was already big last year, but now it is growing bigger and bigger. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram already have integrated live video capabilities into their channels and other platforms are expected to follow. It is going to be huge. It’s so big that it affected the presidential debates. It affected the Oscars. Local news is all over it and people are sharing their own personal experiences. One reason why it’s really kind of important is that there seems to be some truth to that, all these platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram are playing favorites in their own searches and what they’re serving up to live video. Well, it makes sense if you have a business and you’re offering up a new service, that you’re not only helping the people who are using the service but also getting it out there. So it kind of is a double whammy. It’s marketing and fulfilling the deal.

Of course another reason the search engines and such like it is because the content is fresh, new, It’s what’s happening now and that is what the search engine wants to serve up. They want new, now, and with it. Because the bottom line is people want new, now, and with it. So what does this mean for small businesses and how to use it?

I would say that the most important thing that live video streaming does for a small business is it gets you to use video and your social media. It makes it incredibly easy. People no longer expect highly produced video. Thanks to years of reality TV and now live video on social media, along with all those YouTube stars that just had a cell phone. The average viewer doesn’t expect this highly produced video. They expect a human being to be doing it. This gives small businesses an opportunity to get out there and be able to involve themselves in social media.

So let’s say you’re building a home or let’s say you’ve finished a painting or anything like that. You can share that and do it immediately without having to worry about production value other than holding your hand straight and having some idea of what you’re talking about.

Jake: Facebook favors the live video so much. I teach at Cloud Wise Academy and I did a video just before our last class. To be clear it was kind of a bad video and I didn’t really know what I was doing, I kind of stumbled through it. Looking at the metrics, it was viewed something like 95 percent more than any of the other videos we had ever created. Facebook wants to share those live videos and they make sure they do.

Chauncey: Yeah according to Facebook , users spend three times more time watching a live video than pre-recorded video and comment ten times more often. So the engagement is up there, the viewership is up there and so there’s really very little reason not to do this.

Now don’t stop your regular posting. The point is, it gives people a chance to get involved with doing social media on their phone. Because let’s be honest most successful business owners have put years into being a successful business owner. Meaning they are older and have sacrificed a lot of their social life. They’re not hugely skilled when it comes to social media and they’re not hugely skilled when it comes to cell phones or at least the more advanced aspect of cell phones. This will be kind of an opportunity for them to get into that and realize how important they could be.

Jake: In fact, the opportunity is huge because whenever your business is the less adept to technology, your competitors are broadly in the same boat as you and I mean you have to have a shot to do something no one else in your industry is doing.

Chauncey: If you are already somewhat successful you are running with your peers and you are probably a good example. So don’t stop your regular posting, get that out there. Don’t post videos too often. I would say once or twice a week to post your live video and then support that with your text content.

I have this problem with social media. I don’t use it as often as I should mainly because I find it hard to believe that anybody cares what I had for breakfast.

So I don’t use it as much as I should but I do help businesses do it. It’s like you know exactly what others should do but have no idea what to do for yourself. So what should you share on Facebook for your business as a live video? Share your successes especially if they’re not your successes, but if there are successes of your clients. Or the successes of your employees, share these things without going overboard of course.

I was working for a web building company and I had the idea that every time we launched a website we needed to have a pizza party and blow up social media with our pizza parties. Then people will be all what’s up with all these pizza parties and then it will be because we’re getting stuff done. That’s why we’re having so many pizza parties. Of course, anything you do that’s helping the community is great to share and anything that’s inviting others to help the community. It’s a great way to get your brand out there. It’s a great way to help the community and help yourself at the same time.

As far as successes, anything that conveys that your business is a family that is working hard to help people. So if there’s a new baby, if somebody gets promoted, any of those things that can really show the community that your work is important to you and that you’re proud to be working together to help them.

Now there are things that you can do once and reuse, tour the facility and stuff like that. You don’t want to tour the facility once a week. Probably just do that once, sticking it to the top or something, or embedded on your site and you’re done. So live video is going to stick around and it’s going to keep dominating search.

Those who listen to the show know that I’m mainly an SEO and the SEO aspect that also helps is video, in general, gives you backlinks. When Google serves up searches, they like to serve up diverse searches. If you take a look you can see that there’s the map pack. There are organic searches. There’s maybe some products over to the right. There’s some video so if you have video and you’re showing up in the search, you’re knocking your competitors further down. You are taking up more real-estate and are therefore more likely to be clicked because as Joe says if you’re not being found who is?

We’re coming to the end of this segment. Thanks for listening to the Being Found Show, listen to the full show here:  Being Found Show Episode #41

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