What do you do when you get a couple dozen breathless emails from people planning a vacation to the place you live, folks who need to make a decision fast as to whether they should cancel their vacation or not, because there’s a volcano that’s about to erupt there…..?
Well, what I did was my first Facebook Live video experiment.
It was just me talking for several minutes about the impending volcanic eruption here in the island of Bali, Indonesia where I’ve had a place since 2005. Not hard for me to do.
Update on the Bali volcano situation Sep. 26
Is it OK for you to come to Bali right now? I've had a lot of inquiries from Wagefreedom.com readers so here's a fast update on the Bali Mt. Agung volcano situation.
Posted by Wage Freedom on Monday, September 25, 2017
In a few hours I’ll send it out to several thousand subscribers on my email list for that site.
Lately I’ve been writing here on Digital Media Minute about how Facebook and YouTube see much more engagement with live video, so their algorithms now favor it. I’ll translate that for those of you who aren’t marketing geeks like me. It means free exposure.
The thing is that live video done right can have both extremely low costs and be very effective. You could deliver whatever you’re doing in the form of tutorials, AMAs (Ask Me Anything), revies of products, interviews, etc.
As a viewer I know I’d be more forgiving of small production slipups, too many “ums” and a shaking camera (the last two of which you’ll see above!), if it was delivered live. It just seems more interesting because you feel like anything can happen.
A person told me after he saw this live video session that he was just mesmerized by the fact that I was speaking live from the other side of the world about what was happening this morning in Bali. There’s an immediacy with live video that you aren’t getting with the wall-to-wall non-live video Facebook is showing you in your News Feed n0wadays.
At any rate, I’m seeing both Youtube Live and Facebook Live video a lot more from marketers I respect, just in the last few months.
So why can’t I do the same? And, for that matter, why can’t you? What’s your expertise?
I can leverage a tropical island and I can talk about expat-ism, digital nomads and generally using the Internet to make money till the cows come home. A lot of people in the world aren’t too interested in those topics, but enough are for me to talk to them.
So tactic number one for me will to see if I can swing my subscriber list around to follow me on Facebook, and then see if I can get them to show up when I have something to talk about.
I think the plan for now is to go in with one narrow-ish topic that I can cover in two or three minutes, and just do so as well as I can and then sign off. Don’t waste anyone’s time and don’t bore them.
Of course if someone has questions I could segue into other answers or topics.
What I don’t want to do is the be one of these guys who, well, just talk. I wouldn’t disparage anyone’s business model but I the other night I saw basically the direction I don’t want to go: a guy with purple hair was walking around San Francisco looking for a place to eat. Several hundred people were watching his YouTube Live broadcast.
Finally, he ordered onion rings. That was the point of the video….. More power to him.
The ‘M’ Word
And making money with live video? My attitude is that if you have the audience there is always a way to make money from it. Especially if your intentions are good and ypu really do ‘provide value’, even if that value is entertainment.
Either entertain or help. Or both.
Lord knows I’m not very entertaining but I’ve helped a lot of people make money online and also make the transition to becoming an expat. It’s a start.
And it was fun.
Now I just need an Airselfie.