How to tap into the power of Facebook Live

Mattie Orvis, director and partner of Disney specialist agency My Magic Holiday, has been using Facebook Live since 2017, and now posts once a week for an average of 45 minutes.

“I use it to talk about park news, product updates, offers and live competitions,” says Orvis, who has even filmed from the parks themselves.

“I can also talk about my USPs, explaining why people should book with me versus a competitor.”

Orvis says Facebook Live is particularly effective for communicating with customers.

“The Q&A element works well – people love asking us questions.”

Facebook Live broadcasts have helped showcase the agency’s expertise, he adds. “People call up who haven’t booked with us before and say how impressed they are with our knowledge. It’s helped us build an online community of followers too – we started with 3,000 likes and now have more than 14,000.”

Homeworker Martin Sandland-Owens, who runs The Holiday Village, has used Facebook Live for various ship visits.

“After live video streaming on two music-themed cruises with Royal Caribbean, we generated around £500,000 worth of business. They’ve now become a good partner for us,” says Sandland-Owens. He’ll often ask his audience on Facebook what they want to see onboard before the live broadcast.

“Then it’s their experience too. We’ll often get comments saying, ‘show us the pool’ or ‘take us to the martini lounge’, then we can take them there. We also film us walking into our cabins for the first time so they see our genuine reactions.”

When Kate Holroyd, co-founder of Strawberry Holidays, began using Facebook Live 18 months ago, content revolved around the family market.

“But we saw in the feedback that people were asking questions about solo travel and the over-50smarket. When we started creating videos for this new target audience, our engagement improved dramatically.”

Holroyd now broadcasts every week to discuss destinations and travel trends.

“We’ve recently started doing dual broadcasts – for example, we’ve had a client join me on there, and a car hire specialist too – and these work well.”

To those who are worried about nerves, Holroyd says: “Don’t be afraid to script them, or at least write down some bullet points as a prompt. Be authentic and be yourself, and you’ll be fine!”

Bruce Martin, social media consultant at Ginger Juice, shares his Facebook Live advice

Prepare: Find a quiet spot; invest in a tripod to keep the phone steady.

Practise: Record a video or post only to yourself first to see how it will look, bearing in mind lighting, sound and angles.

Announce: Give fans one day’s notice of when you’re going to be live so they know when to tune in.

Timing: If you can, go live in the evening when there are more people online.

Engage: Encourage viewers to comment or ask questions, as this will help your video reach more people.

Shout out: Give viewers a live shoutout to thank them for tuning in.

Smile: Try to be interesting or funny, and avoid long monologues.

Front-load: Most people will only watch your video after you’re live and will not stay long, so lead with your strongest content first. Bring a friend: Introduce a guest slot to keep things interesting; you’ll find it’s easier than doing it on your own too.

Promote: After all this effort your content deserves to fly, so boost it for a small cost for greater reach.