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Is the lighting on point, the products at hand, the monitors rigged, and the script rehearsed enough? Going live can be intimidating; that's why we dedicated this Cheat Sheet.
Ease your mind and go live with a bang every time by following these steps ahead of each live show.
1. What's the reason you're going live?
Define your main and sub-goals. Once you're live and the questions and comments come pouring in, it's easy to get off track, forget your script, and miss your marks. Remembering a well-defined reason will get you back on track.
Some examples: to get more followers, introduce a new collection, create awareness, produce new content, have fun, educate, etc.
Formulate in one sentence what the actual reason and end goal is:
2. Create a sharp script
Once you get the reason and subgoals down, you can start putting together a bullet point script covering the important marks. Going live and bringing in people comes with a responsibility over people's time. Being well prepared and setting an agenda doesn't bind you, but it makes you come off as professional and probably is the thing that makes you comfortable going off-script while hitting all the right marks.
Write down a few but crisp bullet points from hello to goodbye:
3. Check hardware and network quality
Always, always test the camera, microphone, and streaming quality of the chosen service before going live. There are actually some simple ways that can dramatically improve the quality for the viewers.
Close down all other open tabs and applications you won't be using during the live stream. This is to free up as much memory and processing power as you can.
Make sure you're on a stable Wifi, 4G, or better network. You can stress test it on www.fast.com. Start the test and click on "Show more info"; look at the upload speed. Repeat the test two times with a two-minute break in between. If the result is similar and the upload speed is above 50 Mbps, you're in the green. The higher you can get, the better quality for the viewers.
Make sure your operating system is up to date or at least not older than two generations. Go to your device settings and see if there are any software updates available.
If you have two or more devices at hand, you can start a private show, send the links to the other devices, and test that all the features work for them.
4. Prepare your audience
As we're sure you know, people have busy lives, and for them to make room in their schedule, it's good to send out two, if not more, prompts informing them about 1) what your live show is about, 2) when you will start, and 3) how they can attend. Use your social media accounts and preferably create a short video for the story, a post for the feed, and a text for the bio. Checklist:
5. Conversation starters & engagement boosters
So you already got your main reason and subgoals down. However, it's hard to predict the outcome of a script, and if engagement drops, it's good to have some encouraging conversation starters or call-to-action prompts ready, which you can sporadically throw in on a need basis. Furthermore, extremely successful live shopping hosts have personal prompts or even one-liners to engage their followers and often offer limited-time and stock deals. Examples of call to action: We’re getting heavy traction on this product, click here before it’s sold out, this is a limited edition, don’t miss out, get it now, we think that the stock will run out in 30 minutes
Formulate some different phrases to try out:
6. Final prep
You’re almost set and only got the fun bits left. Final checklist:
7. Go LIVE and have fun!
Live shopping is so much more than financial transactions, it’s an opportunity to bond and really get to know your audience. If you’re having fun it’s very likely that the feeling is mutual.
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