How to Plan the Content for your Live Video Shows

3 Shares

One of the biggest struggles my clients and audience face when planning their live shows is knowing what to say.

In a way, this is kind of odd because live stream video is just another kind of content — just like blog posts, podcasts and regular pre-recorded video.

But, although live video shows are just another type of content format, they are unique and they have their own challenges.

So, how do you work out what your live shows are going to be about?

In this episode of the podcast, we're talking about planning, formats, themes and more so that you can plan your live shows with confidence!

What you’ll learn:

[5:24] What’s new at Confident Live
[10:55] How to plan your live video content around themes
[12:07] How to create content around your guests’ expertise and content
[15:07] How to create content around type
[23:09] How to structure your live shows
[26:05] How to build content around your products
[34:19] Build your content around your audience

Plan Content Around Themes
Listen at [10:55]

My Confident Live show has three main themes: Building confidence in front of the camera, the tech and gear and content marketing.

See if you can come up with two or three themes for your own show that will really resonate with your audience or three main themes of your business or of things that you help people with.

Create a document with your three main themes and try to focus on one theme per podcast.

Create Content Around your Guests’ Expertise and Content
Listen at [12:07]

I like to do a mix of solo and guest episodes.

Solo shows are great for building your brand awareness and your expertise but I definitely recommend having guests on your shows. It keeps things interesting and makes your lives varied.

Remember though that when you have guests on your live videos, the spotlight is more on them. It’s more about showcasing their expertise so make sure you do some solo shows too so you can showcase your own.

That said, guest shows provide a great opportunity to get your guests’ audiences watching you and to get yourself in front of potential new viewers.

Inviting guests onto your show is really useful too if you want to cover a topic that is relevant to your show but that you’re not an expert on yourself.

For example, although I’m experimenting with chatbots myself at the moment, I’m certainly not an expert yet, so I’ll be inviting an expert on to come on to talk about them.

Create Content Around Type
Listen at [15:07]

I have a really useful acronym here, created by my friend Sam Ashdown, to demonstrate how you can create content around types of live video show.

Let me introduce you to BLAST.

B - Behind the scenes.

People love a glimpse behind the scenes and I recently gave my audience one all about my home studio setup.

L - Local.

Your audience will be interested in where you’re based. Highlight people in your community, perhaps a local business owner. I’ve done a few lives in my local park.

A - A day in the life.

There’s the potential for this to be different every week (Covid allowing!)

S - Sneak peek.

Show people what you’re currently working on. I did one about the course I’m launching on how to launch your own Facebook live show. It gives your audience early access to the new product or service, makes them feel special and means you get valuable feedback.

T - Tips and advice.

This could be content which answers a question your audience has. It shows your expertise and gives value to your audience.

How to Structure your Live Shows
Listen at [23:09]

This is also one of Sam Ashdown’s acronyms and it relates to the different emotions you can evoke in your audience during your live shows.

Let’s break it down:

A - Affinity

Create empathy in your audience. Talk about a common problem, for example, for my audience it might be getting in front of the camera. Often I ask my audience to comment and let me know if they feel the same way about something.

R - Reassurance

This is where you can reassure people that they’re not alone in feeling a certain way.

E - Explain

Educate your audience but give them a quick win, some easy steps to take. For example, I can tell people that if they follow just the first three steps in my confidence guide they’ll already be well on the way to great live video.

N- Nutshell

Summarise what you’ve been saying in the show. Avoid any feeling of overwhelm by running through quickly the main points you’ve made.

A - Action

Add in a call to action. Make it audience-centric, with them in mind. For example, when I ask people to subscribe to my bot I make sure people know it’ll help them as they’ll be reminded about upcoming live shows so they don’t miss them.

Create Content Around your Products
Listen at [26:05]

Building content around your products is something that Janet Murray talks about quite a lot. The importance of planning the year ahead by each quarter and considering what’s going to be happening in each period. Check out episode 30 for more on this.

For example, I have my Facebook live course coming out shortly so I know I need to be creating content around the power of Facebook live and why you should buy my course.

I know it can feel difficult if you’re a business using Facebook live to sell products or services. It’s something I’ve struggled with until recently. Now the way I see it is that I have something which is going to genuinely help people and all I’m doing is sharing that with them.

So bear in mind throughout the year what launches or promotions you have planned in and build your content around that.

Dan Knowlton suggests creating three different types of content:

Awareness Content - Helping out your ideal customer.
Consideration Content - Helping people in the process of buying your products/services.
Purchase content - Aimed at those who are at the point of working out whether they want to spend money with you or not.

For example, with the upcoming launch of my Facebook live course, my awareness content needs to be aimed at those who my live video course is really going to help.

My consideration content should be aimed at those who already know I have a Facebook live course but they need to understand more why they should (or even shouldn’t) buy my product. My course won’t be right for everyone and this type of content could help those who it isn’t right for, come to that realisation.

Interestingly though, sometimes this type of content has the opposite effect. For example, my blog 7 reasons not to use HootSuite, actually seemed to persuade people that they should use Hootsuite! I noticed a lot of people purchasing it through my affiliate link.

In terms of purchase content for my course, it might be that during launch week I go live telling people I’ve just launched, letting people know how they buy it and encouraging them to go for it!

Create Content Around your Audience
Listen at [34:19]

Think about who your ideal audience is and make sure you’re creating content that will resonate with them. There’s a danger for all of us in slipping into creating content about things that we really enjoy, things that we want to talk about.

But it’s actually all about what our audience wants and what will really help them. Ask your audience what they want to see and ask them what they’re most struggling with so you can create content around that.

Resources

Subscribe to my bot
Restream
ContentCal
Listen to episode 58 of the podcast where I talk you through my Confident Live Process.
Listen to episode 12 with Andy Lambert of ContentCal
Listen to episode 30 with Janet Murray
Janet Murray’s Media Diary
Read my blog: 7 Reasons NOT to use Hootsuite

This episode is sponsored by Content10X, InVideo and StreamYard

Watch Episode 71

Brought to you by Content10X, InVideo and StreamYard

Content10X

Do you want to find ways to create more content?

You won’t after you meet the team at Content 10x!

My friends at Content 10x are a specialist content repurposing agency, they can take one live-stream, or a blog post, podcast, or video, and explode it into a plethora of new platform-specific, on-brand content..

If they don’t do all of this for you via their service, they teach you how with their podcast, blog, book and toolkit!

They’re smart, responsive, creative, and effective. If you want to take the stress out of content marketing, Content 10x are the people you want to go to.

Visit www.content10x.com to find out more.

StreamYard

StreamYard is my top recommended live video streaming web app tool. Because it works in your web browser it works for both Mac and PC users.

It's so incredibly simple to use and has so many amazing features such as:

Being able to highlight comments on the screen and add your own titles
Have up to 5 guests on your show without any extra software
Being able to share your screen
Add your own brand colours
You can stream to Facebook, Periscope, LinkedIn Live and YouTube
And now you can use greenscreens!

All of that on the free version!

The paid version gives you even more including being able to add your own logo, overlays, backgrounds and videos and multicasting to up to 5 destinations.

StreamYard has got a great deal for Confident Live Marketing viewers and listeners. You get a 30 day trial with a 16% discount on the annual plans.

To find out and have a play, visit iag.me/streamyard

Please Subscribe!

Don’t miss an episode! You can subscribe on Apple podcasts here - or on other podcast players.

The Confident Live Marketing Show

The Confident Live Marketing Show is a weekly live video show and podcast. It’s aimed at established entrepreneurs who want to level up their impact, authority and profits through the power of live video, webinars and podcasts. We’ll focus on knocking down the 3 main barriers these entrepreneurs face when creating live content - camera confidence/mindset, tech/gear and content marketing.

It’s hosted by Ian Anderson Gray. He is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He’s founder of Seriously Social - a blog focused on live video and social media tools. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK.

Listen Now

About Ian Anderson Gray

Ian is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He's a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, and trained as professional classical singer. He lives near Manchester in the UK. Find out more