Over the past couple of years we have seen many Tourism Brands using Facebook Live as a way to keep in touch with customers.
If you haven’t shared a live broadcast before and are interested in trying it out, now may be a great time to add live broadcasts into the mix of your social media updates, especially on Facebook.
Facebook Live is Facebook’s live broadcast feature, and allows you to share live video broadcasts with your Facebook community, which allows your Facebook community to interact and ask questions to you in real time, unlike a pre-recorded video.
In this article we show you how to use Facebook Live to help grow your tourism brand’s awareness and consideration.
Why share a Facebook Live video instead of a pre-recorded video?
Connect with your Customers
Live Broadcasts are a great way to interact with your customers in real time and maintain that connection with your business or destination. It’s a great way to authentically ‘show off’ your destination and experience.
Humanises Your Brand
Live video is a fantastic way to allow people to interact with your Tourism experience in an even more personal and intimate way than a pre-recorded video. It allows a two-way conversation with people, which is incredible for building trust and consideration around your brand.
Tell Stories in New Ways
It’s amazing for sharing happenings in your tourism experience that people wouldn’t otherwise be able to see. This could be viewing an event live (such as Animal feeding), watching a behind the scene process (eg in the kitchen/on tour/wine making process) or interacting with specialist staff they may not normally be able to talk to (such as a wine maker).
What could you share in a Facebook Live Video?
The main difference with sharing a live video broadcast instead of a pre-recorded video is it gives you the opportunity to have a real-time, two-way conversation with your community.
So think outside the square for topic ideas that can bring your community into the video and conversation instead of one-way, pre-recorded videos.
Think either inspiring, helpful or interesting stories that are relevant to your Ideal Customers and you could put them at the centre of the story, such as:
- Show an interesting process in your business, such as wine or cheese making, feeding animals or any other interesting activities in your tourism experience.
- Behind the scenes. Take people for a tour of your tourism experience or a specific location which they otherwise wouldn’t be able to see.
- Feature an expert staff member such as an animal keeper, chef, pilot, wine maker, business owner or tour boat captain and encourage them to share their expertise live and encourage questions from the live viewers.
- Share the unexpected. Experiencing something amazing, like a beautiful sunset, sunrise, unique weather event or special wildlife encounter? “Go live” and allow your Facebook community to experience it alongside you.
- An event. Broadcasting from an event live allows people who can’t be there in person to still be a part of the experience. A fantastic example in recent years was on the opening night of Vivid Sydney, where Sydney Opera House broadcast the opening event “Songlines” to a Facebook live audience of over 10,000 and a replayed audience of over 1 million views! You can watch a short 30 second snippet of the live broadcast below or watch the 80 minute replay here!
Tourism Brands using Facebook Live well
How to get Facebook Live on your Tourism Brand Facebook Page
Download the latest version of the Facebook App to your smartphone. The reason for this is if you have an older version, you still may not be able to see the Facebook Live button on your smartphone.
Once you have done both these things, you should then see the “Live Video” icon when you click on the “Publish” button from your Facebook Page in the Facebook app on your smartphone.
Tips on Sharing Engaging Facebook Live Broadcasts.
Follow are some tips to help share a more successful Facebook Live broadcast.
Practice!
We know many of our community get very nervous at the idea about sharing a Live Broadcast. The best way to overcome this is to have a practice first, where no-one can see it but you! To do this, head to your personal Facebook Profile > Post > Facebook Live, and set your privacy to “Only Me”, and have as many attempts as you need to feel reasonably comfortably talking live!
Pre-promote
If relevant, promote ahead of time that you are going live. This gives people notice you will be live and they can plan to join in advance. This will help you have an audience of people who you can interact with when you go live.
Catchy headline
Come up with a catchy and relevant heading for your live video. Use keywords to describe what you will be showing so it is more easily found via Facebook search.
Have a plan
Have a rough plan of what you are going to show and say BEFORE you start the broadcast. Remember, you are live and can’t edit as you go! Juggling a phone and talking to your live audience can be a bit daunting if you are new to live video broadcasting. Also check out where you are going to be broadcasting to check lighting and sound levels if relevant.
Engage with your audience
This is super important and where the magic of a live broadcast can happen. Without it, you may as well just share a pre-recorded video. Thank them for joining the broadcast. Encourage questions via comments and then answer them via your audio.
Don’t make it too short
Opposite to pre-recorded social media videos, you want to give people time to see you are live, and then come into the video and engage with you.
Get help
You may find it easier to have someone help you by holding the phone for you and helping relay the live questions for you to answer?
Ask them to subscribe
As you are talking, at a relevant point in time, ask people to subscribe in the top right corner of their screen, so they are notified when you are live again.
Tips for a better quality video broadcast
Good quality internet
Broadcasting when you are on WIFI will give you the best quality live video, so try and only stream when you have good connectivity. It can be done when you are off Wi-Fi, just keep an eye on signal strength. Facebook will let you know if the quality is not good enough via a notification just to you on the smartphone screen when broadcasting.
Keep it steady
When sharing a video live, ideally hold your phone horizontally with two hands, and keep your elbows tucked next to your sides. This helps create a nice, stable base for your video and will minimise any shakiness. Alternatively set the smartphone up in a fixed position using a prop or a tripod like a gorilla pod.
Pan Slowly
There is a good chance you will want to move your phone when broadcasting. However, make sure you don’t pan too fast; otherwise you may make your viewers dizzy. Plus the WI-FI may not be able to keep up, making the footage grainy or delayed. Keep your feet firmly on the ground and just rotate your upper body slowly, while your elbows remain on your side for a nice even pan.
Make your Facebook Live video work harder for you
The great news is Facebook Live automatically saves and shares your video to your timeline. This is great, as Facebook has found upwards of 60 – 70% of Facebook Live views happen after the event. Also use some of the Facebook editing features to make it more engaging for those watching a replay.
Add a call to action button
This will show up at the end, such as “learn more,” or “sign up,” to encourage your community to take the next steps with your brand.
Choose an engaging thumbnail
This is the preview people see from your saved broadcast in their newsfeed. Scroll through the frames in the video and choose the frame you are happy with, or upload your own.
Share the video on other channels
- Upload it to your YouTube channel, making sure you include relevant search terms in the description (remember YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google!).
- Share it on your website. Create a new blog article around the broadcast and embed the YouTube video on your Blog.
- Share it with your Twitter communities by uploading the video directly to Twitter from your camera roll.
Measuring Facebook Live Video Success
The great news you can track exactly what results your Facebook Live Broadcast had through your Facebook Insights and Google Analytics on your website.
Via Facebook Insights
Facebook has specific Facebook Live Metrics which show you the reach and engagement of your live broadcast.
Reach Metrics
These let you know how many people saw your Facebook Live video. These metrics indicate an increase in Brand Awareness for your tourism brand.
- Peak Live Viewers
- Minutes Viewed
- Unique Viewers
- Views
- 10 Second Views
- Average % Completion
Engagement Metrics
These show how engaged people were in your Live video broadcast. This is an indication of growing engagement and trust around your brand.
- Total Engagement, made up of Reactions, Shares and Comments
Via Google Analytics
Google Analytics gives you great insights into what action people took after viewing your Facebook Live Broadcast if they came to your website.
Engagement Metrics
Look at the date you ran your Broadcast/s, and head into Acquisition > Source > Social Referral > Facebook
- How many people visited your website?
- How long did they stay on your website and how many pages visited?
- Bounce/Exit rate
Conversions Metrics
Did they then take a step to find out more about your tourism brand? Remember though, Facebook Live and social media are all about building awareness, a relationship and trust – it’s not the best spot for sales. If you do get some conversions, that’s a nice bonus!!
- Signed up for your eNews
- Download a brochure
- Made an online enquiry/booking
- Contacted you via phone or email
Social Media Examiner also share other great tips on how to share a better Facebook Live broadcast which expands on some of the points in this blog post, so we recommend you have a read.
Over to you
Have we inspired you to give Facebook Live Video a try?
We’d love you to let us know in the comments below if you are using Facebook Live or going to give it a try so we can check it out and come and join your live broadcast!
We’d also love to update this blog post with more live examples, so do share below!
This blog post was first published in 2016 and was updated for accuracy in December 2022.
