When looking to shoot live video to market yourself and your law firm, there are significant differences between YouTube Live and Facebook Live and the differences matter.
First, what is “LIVE” video? It’s a way for you to become a broadcaster in a live setting. There’s nothing prerecorded. Everything you say and do is going live on your YouTube or Facebook feed. It’s a way to broadcast your message right now and have viewers join your broadcast and ask you questions while you’re live. You can talk to your viewers and answer their questions in real-time. On both video platforms when you go live, your followers get notified that you are broadcasting live, and they’re invited to watch.
Benefits of Shooting Live Video
1. Be the first to talk about breaking news in your field of law.
2. Be in front of your viewer more often than your competitors.
3. Both YouTube and Facebook reward you for creating live videos by placing their importance ahead of prerecorded video.
4. You can download the video and use it later, editing it, chopping it up into segments, separating the audio for podcasts, using transcripts for blog posts and so much more.
5. Live videos tend to get MORE watch time than prerecorded videos.
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Drawbacks to Shooting Live Video
1. You have to be mindful of what you say and be polished when you say it.
2. If you’re prone to making lots of mistakes, you’ll need to practice a lot before pressing that live video button.
3. Ideally, you’ll still want good quality video, audio and lighting. Just pulling out your iPhone in the middle of the street and hoping to get great quality video, audio and lighting is unlikely.
4. You may be creating the wrong message for your audience.
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You’re Creating Content For the Wrong Audience
This is the key to this article. In a prior article I discussed the importance of knowing who my video was for. Likewise, it is critically important to know
who my audience is and where they spend their time online. In order to know that, you must ask yourself who your ideal client is and which social media platform they prefer. You do that by asking them and not assuming that your personal preference and usage of one platform over another is the answer.
Why Do People Go Onto Facebook?
There are lots of reasons, but let’s look at a few…
1. To see what their friends and followers are doing.
2. To see cool memes.
3. To keep up with news events.
One of the key problems I have with Facebook as a video marketer is that most people on Facebook do not use that platform as a search engine. Now…I know that you can use Facebook to search. But most people are not choosing to open their browser, click Facebook and then do a search for which attorney is right for their legal problem.
I don’t know anyone who, goes on Facebook to searching for reviews of big ticket items like cars or watches. If you were searching for reviews on the new 2019 Jaguar F-Pace SUV, you just wouldn’t go to Facebook to begin your research. Instead, a Facebook user might be more prone to ask someone in one of their private or public groups if they can recommend an attorney for a particular problem. They’re not on Facebook searching for information about their legal problem or how to solve their problem.
If they’ve been charged with DUI, they’re likely not posting “Hey, just got charged with DUI last night and looking at jail time and big fines. Anybody know a criminal defense attorney in Toledo who has a good record of getting accused criminals off the hook?”
Instead, they may want to learn how a DUI case works. They may want to learn about the field sobriety test. They may want to learn from a former district attorney the most successful defenses for getting your DUI charges dismissed. They may want to learn how a blood alcohol level of .08 may not be accurate.
Where do you think they’re more likely to go for answers to their questions? Certainly Google. But that will give them written answers to their queries. Where are they also likely to go?
The answer is YouTube.
YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world and is owned by the biggest search engine in the world…Google. (Fun fact: Did you know that in 2006 Google bought YouTube for $1.65 Billion dollars? Currently, YouTube has a market value of $160 Billion dollars.)
To be continued next month with —
• Why do people go onto YouTube?•
• Don’t forget other Social Media Platforms
• Conclusion
What are you waiting for?
Till next time, see you on video!
