Users watched 1.1 billion hours of live video in 2019. This number is expected to grow to 184.3 billion by 2027. With these kinds of numbers, it’s time to consider ramping up your live video efforts. However, you don’t want to just go live for the sake of being live. You need to get something out of your real estate live streaming.
You need to take the right approach, use the right tactics, and avoid common mistakes. This guide will help you get more out of your live video.
1. Go Live Together
Partner with other people to interact with in your live streams. While you could host them, this only gives you so much benefit. A better approach is to partner with the other person. Plan a dual-channel live video. This gives you exposure to their audience, and they get exposure to your audience. This mutually beneficial relationship encourages more higher-profile people to work with you.
Even if you are live streaming by yourself, don’t do it on just one channel. Instead, there are tools available that let you live stream from multiple social media platforms at once. It aggregates the process so that you have one portal for managing comments and engagement. This makes it easier to obtain a broader reach and stay present in the moment while live streaming.
2. Use the Right Keywords
Don’t forget about your keywords when streaming your live video. YouTube will understand the audio in your video, so saying specific keywords will help the platform’s algorithm know what your video is about. You don’t want to overuse them, but naturally sprinkle them throughout. You should also use them in the title and description. This reinforces the main point of the video and helps you to rank better for your target keyword.
3. Promote the Completed Live Video
When trying to rank well in the Google search results, it is a long game. The exact opposite is true for YouTube. The first 24 hours are the most important for your videos. The better it ranks in this time, the better it performs over time. This means it is crucial to put all of your efforts into promoting a video for maximum viewership in the first 24 hours. Share it on your other social networks, send out a link to your email subscribers, trigger push notifications, and send text messages. If you don’t have a large following and are just starting out, then dedicate a small amount of money to paid ads for the first day or two.
4. Ask Questions of Your Audience
The whole point of live videos is to give you a chance to interact and engage with your audience. One way to do this is by asking questions to your audience. Speak directly to the people watching and ask them questions about themselves. People are more likely to respond and interact with you when they are talking about themselves. It also gives you a chance to find out about who is watching your live videos. People are more likely to keep watching when they are interacting directly with you.
You can also use the responses you get to your advantage. Perhaps there are leads for you to follow up with. Or you find out there are people with a particular background that are watching. You can tailor your live video to speak directly to those who are watching. Let’s say you are doing a live stream on preparing a home for showings, and you find out that people in your audience have already moved out of their homes. You can then talk about home staging and its benefits.
5. Relax on Quality
Don’t misunderstand me. Quality is important in your videos. However, you don’t need to spend a fortune and countless hours on video production. People are much more forgiving when it comes to live video vs. produced video content. They understand that there are glitches and technology issues. You can produce quality live video content with your modern smartphone. Choose a location that is relatively quiet and has decent lighting. Set your phone up on a stand, and you’re ready to go.
6. Focus on Long Tail Keywords
Don’t film one live video and expect to see a massive rush of traffic. Just like many other SEO tactics, live video is a long game. Commit to a steady schedule and film videos for at least a year. This gives you enough time to build a following and establish a presence. If you are curious about the potential ROI from your live videos, start asking people about how they found out about your real estate services. You might be surprised to find out that they saw one of your live streams, and that intrigued them to look into you more.
7. Put Your Video to Work
A live video creates content and boosts engagement. Leverage this benefit by putting it to work on other platforms. Once the live video is over, strip away the audio and turn it into a podcast. This is great for people who prefer to listen than watch. You can then post the audio as a podcast on platforms like Spotify, iTunes, and the Google Play Store. This broadens your potential audience.
The next step is to turn your live video into a blog post. You can send the video to an independent writer who will turn it into a blog post. This isn’t a transcription of the video. It is an interpretation of the video and its content. The writer should take the information and content and turn it into an informative blog post.
8. Stop Directing People Away Mid Live Stream
When people leave your live stream, your viewership goes down. The social media algorithm doesn’t understand that it’s because people are following your directions. The whole point of live videos is that they increase engagement, which increases your influence and reach on social media websites. A better solution is to wait until the end of your live video to direct people away. That way, you get the benefit of the viewers during the video and direct them afterward.
9. Strategically Go Live
Don’t do real estate live streaming just for the sake of going live. Your live videos need to have content and substance while also being interesting to the viewer. If you constantly go live and say nothing, you will lose viewers. However, the more you go live, the more your audience grows and the more traffic you have. Try to go live as much as you can while also producing quality content. If you could only manage once a month, then that’s fine. If you can manage once a week; if you have the time and ability to go live three times a week, then that’s great too.
10. Relax
No one is perfect, and everyone is a little bit awkward. Just take a deep breath and remember that practice makes perfect. Your first few attempts at real estate live streaming may feel awkward, uncomfortable, and a bit jerky. The more live videos you do, the more comfortable you will become. You will develop a rhythm and find your groove. No one will judge you as hard as your judge yourself. The insecurities that you have about yourself are most likely things that no one else will notice.
Optimize Your Real Estate Live Streaming
If you find that your live videos are not generating the traffic that you hope for, then it is time to try revamping your approach. These ten tips will help you optimize your videos and efforts. Remember, you can’t directly track ROI from your live videos. It can be tough to see the benefits from your efforts. Commit to making changes and stick with it for a few months. You can also ask people how they heard about you and if they have seen your live videos.
I can help you turn your live videos into engaging written content.
