Live Stream Like a Pro: Common Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

Most importantly, choose the platform that makes the most sense for your business. If this step isn’t carefully considered, you’ll fail to see the results you want. Key areas to consider when choosing your streaming platform are:

• Audience: Where is your audience most active online, and where are they most likely to come across your products? If you have an active and engaged audience on one platform, this will be your best option.
• Monetization: If you’d like to make money on your live stream, does your platform allow this? Two platforms with impressive gifting systems are YouTube Jewels and TikTok’s Gems.
• Ecommerce: If you’re running a live shopping event, use a platform that supports in-app purchases. TikTok Shop, Facebook Shop, and YouTube Shopping products can all be sold in real-time on their respective platforms.

A casual streamer may be able to get away with connection and quality issues, but as a business, you should aim to maintain professionalism at all times. To save you from any avoidable hiccups, run test sessions with friends or family members.

However, this doesn’t entirely rule out the risk of technical issues during the stream. If things do go wrong, expect users to lose interest and leave your stream, which could mean a loss of sales and customers. To minimize this fallout, it’s good to have a plan B in mind, such as alternative streaming locations or platforms.

Nobody will show up to your live stream if they don’t know it’s happening. By scheduling streams in advance, you have enough time to promote them and build awareness beforehand. Ways you can create hype around your live stream include:

• Promote your next stream at the end of a current stream
• Story countdowns and reminders 
• Cross-promote on your other channels
• Post teasers 
• Share the link 48 hours before

Viewers love routine. Allocating a recurring live stream slot into your social media strategy will build awareness over time and help viewers know what to expect from you. Many ecommerce businesses sell live on a Friday, since engagement is high and users tend to be in a more relaxed mood before the weekend. Or, you could set aside Tuesdays for Q&As.

The whole point of a live stream is to connect with your audience in a raw and unfiltered environment, and the best way to achieve this is by making them feel included. Ways to do this include:

• Live Q&A
• Games
• Polls and surveys
• Adding viewers to collaborate on the stream

You might think it’s fine to wing your live streams, but this tactic can take you off track. Live stream audiences are hard to manage. If they’re quiet, there’s a high chance you’ll lose momentum and run out of things to talk about, but if they’re interactive, you run the risk of getting distracted by questions and diverting off topic.

Creating a script will help keep you on track of the most important matters and ensure you have enough material to keep things flowing smoothly. By no means is a word-for-word script required, but it’s a good idea to at least know which topics you want to cover and how long you want to speak about each one.

There are plenty of platforms you can live stream on. Social media, such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn, are a popular option for businesses, since their audiences are already established. That said, Twitch and other dedicated live streaming platforms have more features available.

I really recommend YouTube for brands trying to build community relationships because of it’s suitability for live workshops, product demos, and interviews. TikTok and Facebook are a better choice for businesses looking to expand reach, engagement, and make money. However, TikTok is suited for businesses with a younger-skewing audience and Facebook is better for older demographics.

To reiterate, choosing the correct platform for your stream is a crucial step. Once you’ve decided this, you can start preparing the types of content your viewers will appreciate. Remember that mistakes are a natural part of any experimentation process, so don’t let them set you back!