When we said we were committed to finding the best relationship-building platforms to connect with your audience, we weren’t kidding! (If you missed our blog on Instagram Live, you can read it here.) We’re back to talk about another live streaming app that could be the gateway to your audience – YouTube Live.
This year we’ve been working with our clients to strengthen relationships with their customers and move through the hurdles of a pandemic … not much opportunity for establishing real life connections, right? WRONG!
Live streams seem to be the answer for many business owners these days, and we’ve seen major success with YouTube Live streams.
YouTube Live starter checklist
If you’ve gone live on other platforms before, you might be familiar with some of the steps to get started. We found that YouTube is a bit more complicated right off the bat, but once you get started, you’re smooth sailing.
Here are some need-to-knows before going live on YouTube:
- You’ll need a Gmail account to create a YouTube channel, and likewise, your viewers will need a Gmail account to log into if they want to comment in the chat or like your video.
- You will need to enable your channel 24 hours before you want to go live. This is an important one! Don’t make the mistake of promoting a live stream before you’ve actually enabled your account.
- To go live on a mobile device, you need at least 1,000 subscribers. Bummer, we know. If you’re building a community on YouTube you’ll have to start your live stream debut on a desktop – but hopefully not for long!
Why YouTube Live is a great relationship marketing tool
Unlike other live streaming platforms, YouTube allows you to go live in a few different ways. You can go solo and simply use your webcam to connect with your viewers, you can broadcast a Zoom meeting to do live interviews, or you can connect to a streaming service to make the quality top-notch.
We love this! Why? Because no matter how tech-savvy you are, you have an opportunity to connect with your audience. Want to make your stream high-end? Invest in some software to bring in multiple screens, audio, and graphics. Looking for something more low-tech? There’s nothing wrong with a simple live stream where you speak directly to the camera!
If you plan to go live solo, you can pre-schedule your live stream, optimize it, and share the link with your followers. We know, amazing. Promoting live shows can be tricky, but this way you can give them a link that goes straight to a scheduled video, and gives them the option to set a reminder, significantly increasing the likelihood that they’ll remember to tune in. This user-friendly feature might make YouTube one of the best platforms to start a weekly show!
What we don’t love about YouTube Live
We know you’re probably wondering “Can I invite guests on a YouTube Live?” You certainly can. However, it’s not like Instagram where you can invite multiple guests directly on the platform. With YouTube, you have to broadcast a meeting from another platform. While this knocks off a star on our rating, it’s not difficult to do.
We found that the easiest way to have guests on YouTube Live was to broadcast a Zoom meeting. There are a few steps involved with enabling your Zoom account for YouTube Live streaming, and you can find them here. Keep in mind that if you’re broadcasting from another platform, in order to schedule the live stream ahead time you’ll need to use a custom live streaming service. You can find all the instructions for this here.
Don’t miss opportunities to build relationships online
We know how difficult it can be to find the right way to connect with your audience. But when you find that sweet spot, and you foster relationships with your customers over time, everything else will fall into place.
If you need help finding your way to your customers, send us an email at hello@sambawebstudio.website. We’d love to help you out!
About Fesyk Marketing
We’re a boutique agency that believes great relationships are the key to having a successful and sustainable business. And we see opportunities for connection and collaboration everywhere!
Our amazing team specializes in creating content and leveraging social media to help our clients strengthen relationships, increase referral rates and attract new business. As a vision based company we create bespoke marketing plans with the end goal in mind and then work right alongside you to make it happen.
One of our favourite mantras is, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” and have proven time and time again that authentic, meaningful content is the foundation for building a community of loyal customers.
Does this sound interesting to you? Send us an e-mail to connect and learn more about how relationship marketing can help your business.