USAGov Facebook Live Guide as of June 2017 - USAGov-Marketing-and-Outreach/facebook-lives GitHub Wiki

Why go LIVE?

  • To demonstrate agency transparency and accessibility
  • Serve your audience and provide customer service where they are; deliver answers in real time and on video.
  • Gain insight of your audience's biggest needs and questions
  • Targeted reach of your audience
  • To raise awareness about a service or product and educate
  • Support agency outreach efforts
  • Fulfill agency mission to serve the public

BEFORE THE EVENT: PLANNING, LOGISTICS, AND TECHNOLOGY How to choose a topic:

  • What's your most popular topic on Facebook?
  • What topic do people have questions on mostly?
  • Pick a topic that is timely or tied to a special promotion or release
  • Select a topic or issue you want to educate people on.
  • A topic you'd like comments or input on from the public or stakeholders.

Prep Work:

  • Preparation is everything, like any event. Test, test, and test, your equipment. Have a plan B and C for when technology fails you. Usually have anywhere from 2-3 devices ready on hand.
  • It is also recommended to have a hotspot, or other form of connecting to Wifi besides your main network. Determine the location for your interview and do a site survey if possible a week in advance. *
  • The purpose is to ensure it is operational in terms of space, lighting, heat or A/C acoustics, seating and outlets
  • Create a mock Facebook page to test live streaming for sound, video quality, and look and feel.
  • Create a separate Facebook account if you think this is manageable and meets your audience's' needs, this allows you to keep track of comments more easily for example.
  • Some agencies mentioned even creating a Facebook profile of one of the speakers, since this is a more personable/relatable approach.
  • Broadcasting to a page is ideal, it is not recommendable to use a personal account.
  • Have a script ready of what you're going to discuss. Will it be a Q&A or a webinar or a lecture? Rehearse script and time it to estimate how long the FB Live event will last.
  • Decide what roles each speaker will take, have brief introductions to those speakers, and whom will be taking live questions.
  • Test equipment and have backups just in case.
  • WiFi speed can sometimes be unpredictable, try to plan around it.
  • Use tripods, lights, microphone and anything else you need to improve quality, but try to keep it as casual as possible.
  • Using an Iphone or Ipad is practical, but not recommended. There are more advanced cameras that you allow streaming from your computer.
  • Do several run throughs with the technology you plan to use especially for sound. Have an Ipad or phone to view questions as they come in on the Facebook live and respond to them.
  • If possible, have a live captioner join your event, that way your video is ready to be shared. If that’s not possible, caption the video after the event. Once your video is closed captioned and a transcript is available, add it to your YouTube account and promote.
  • Other tips: If you are looking to conduct a Facebook live session using an external camera, you may need some additional encoding equipment and streaming to platform software.
  • For example, an external camera set up using a Mac may be something like this: Gear needed:
  • HDMI Camera
  • Tripod
  • HDMI to Mini HDMI Cable
  • Thunderbolt Cable
  • Black Magic Studio Mini Recorder (you need an encoder to bring in video from your camera to your computer. Most computers do not take in external video natively)
  • Shotgun Mic, External Mic or Lavalier system, etc
  • Macbook Pro
  • WI-FI or hard wired net source
  • Wirecast (software that streams to Facebook, YouTube, etc from laptop)
  • Set up (these are very basic steps, there are more exact steps you can find online)
  • Connect camera to Black Magic Device, connect black magic device with thunderbolt cable to your Mac
  • Set up your Facebook Live session using ​"Publishing Tools". Note: you can set up an event lobby just like youTube up to 7 days before the actual event. More info available online about this
  • Fire up Wirecast and configure the output settings to stream to Facebook
  • Bring in RMTP and output settings from Facebook to WireCast
  • Start your stream!
  • Wirecast is great because you can switch to different cameras with it, add titling, add video, etc. It's pretty powerful.

Timing: Agencies expressed gaining additional traffic in the early evening, than during the day. Facebook lives can be anywhere from a half hour to an hour, this should be in step with your outreach strategy. It is recommended to do live events during the day for stakeholders, and in the early evenings for the general public.

Promotional Tactics:

  • Build a Facebook event page, it can bring more traffic. Ask for questions, these will help you kickstart the conversation the day of the event.
  • Facebook groups are a great way to promote events as well, such as a Facebook group you currently manage that may be particularly interested in the topic.
  • Announce the event on Facebook and through your other social media channels throughout the week, and definitely right about the time it's going to take place.
  • Email blast the public and partners to inform the why, when, how, what of the event.
  • Have partners promote a half hour before the event begins, and then share the live feed when it begins.
  • Facebook Lives offer a great opportunity for inter-agency partnerships, with other organizations and influencers.
  • Create a blurb if you missed the event here's a link to it, people will still have questions, provide a response.

THE DAY BEFORE - 24 HOURS BEFORE GOING LIVE

  • Create a Call Sheet. Ideally, send this the day before the event. This is a production outline for the staff who is involved in the show.
  • The document is put together by the production manager who ensures the room, the guests and interviewer and the equipment are ready on time and everything goes as planned.

The Call Sheet includes:

  • Listed at the top of the page is the date of the event and location(s)
  • List all staffers involved in show, all contact numbers/emails.
  • List each staffer’s specific assignment before, during and after the show .
  • List times for when staff is to be onsite for the event
  • List of equipment
  • It outlines the timing from what time guests will arrive to set-up to break-down of equipment.
  • Add script or run of show to ensure everyone knows timing of segments
  • If possible, have a final rehearsal the day before the event to eliminate any production or equipment issues, room noise, chair height problems, logo is hanging correctly or script/run of show issues such as introduction is too long.

THE DAY OF THE EVENT

  • Have your script finalized and ready.
  • Activate live closed captioning and inform viewers to active this setting if needed (508 compliance/accessibility).
  • Recommended to have speakers in the same room.
  • When going live, be sure to wait 3-5 minutes to allow people know you're going to get started soon, so that others have time to join.
  • Repeat every 5 minutes "If you've just joined us, today we're talking about (insert topic and theme)" to recap what some may have missed.
  • Keep it friendly and relatable. Dress attire could be (depending on your agency) more business casual.

AFTER THE EVENT - CONTENT OPPORTUNITIES, METRICS, MORE OUTREACH

  • After an event is done, there is an opportunity to repurpose content and include it on web presences: on relevant pages, on a blog or even on a home page.
  • Content from the live chat can be repurposed for messaging on dissemination channels (social + email blasts).
  • Compile metrics, measure success and lessons for improvement.
  • Conduct a post-event debrief within a few days of the event to capture lessons learned, strength of event, what were the weaknesses and improvements.for next event.

USAGov's EXPERIENCE AND RESULTS We chose to do a Facebook Live because this is the channel where we have the greatest engagement. We found this medium to be a bigger bang for our buck than Twitter. We held our first Facebook Live on March 7 at 2:30 PM. Our partner was the Federal Trade Commission and the topic was 10 Ways You Can Avoid Fraud. We hosted the event during National Consumer Protection Week.

Results:

  • Over 24,000 people reached on Facebook.
  • Over 3,000 video views.
  • 93 post shares on Facebook.
  • Approximately, 50 questions asked between Twitter, our Facebook wall, and during the live broadcast.
  • We noticed a drastic increase in the performance of other posts after the broadcast.This post ballooned to a reach of over 500K after the Live.
  • Over 73,000 email subscribers opened our emails about the event.

We held our second Facebook Live on April 20 at 7 PM. Our partner was the Social Security Administration and the topic was opening a "mySocial Security" account and preparing for retirement. Results:

  • Over 224,000 people reached on Facebook.
  • Over 12,000 video views.
  • 92 post shares on Facebook.
  • Over 400 questions asked between Twitter, our Facebook wall, and during the live broadcast.
  • Over 110,000 email subscribers opened our emails about the event.