While Facebook by no means is credited with the idea of online live video, the social media giant has essentially ushered in a new era in content marketing. With this change will come disruption but also opportunity for the franchise brands willing to adapt to the medium.
Why Live Video?
It’s visual and we’re visual creatures. And with the power of the smartphone in everyone’s pocket, you can go live to the world right now. There are no technical requirements, which means you don’t need to spend hours editing and planning in order to execute against your content objectives.
What Separates Facebook Live from Traditional Video
Users, and viewers for that matter, are in the moment. And viewers want to share that moment with you as a brand. As a marketer, it allows you to play into an immediate emotional connection with your target audience while appealing to their most basic instinct of instant gratification. Also remember that viewers in a Facebook Live Video are also active participants. Allow them to contribute with feedback, questions or even influence the narrative of the video.
The Statistics
Don’t just take my word for it. The statistics prove the point.
- According to Facebook, users watch Facebook Live videos 3x longer than videos that aren’t live.
- In April 2015, Facebook Video had 4 billion per day. By November 2015, that number swelled to 8 billion daily views. Assuming trend in growth continues, that puts Facebook Video on track to see more than 64 billion views per day by August 2017, and around 32 billion views per day currently.
- Facebook Live is a dream for engagement, driving comments at over ten times the rate of non-live videos.
What can my Franchise Brand do?
No longer do franchises have to settle for just publishing content – they can broadcast it now. That means there are exponential new ways to interact with your brand loyalists and potentially convert new ones.
- Host a Q&A with your CEO to directly interact with your most loyal customers. This provides an excellent opportunity to reinforce the core values of your brand while demystifying the corporate structure behind it. Start with a list of pre-selected questions and be prepared to take questions as you go.
- For franchise sales, use Facebook Live to give prospects and up-close-and-personal look at the inner working of your brand and what it means to be a franchisee in your system.
- Host a mini Discovery Day to showcase what your franchise offering is all about.
- Introduce or spotlight a new LTO and actually demonstrate it live.
- Host an expert panel with vendors and industry influencers to provide customers an opportunity to ask questions about how their favorite products come to market. For example – think potato farmer to transportation to production to store to employee in the life cycle of frying a French fries.
No matter the brand or what you sell, Facebook Live has a multitude of applications for you. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. But like with any marketing strategy, Facebook Live Video benefits from proper planning and seamless execution. All you have to do is try. Drop us a line at Seed on Facebook or Twitter to see what our digital experts can do for you.