Skip to main content
Facebook is an important element in many company's social media mix. With Facebook's worldwide membership now over a half a million strong, your well defined and executed strategy for this destination can have a significant impact on your brand.  Many marketers are familiar with the platform's basic features and are integrating feeds from their YouTube and Twitter channels into Facebook.  I am really intrigued by an emerging new trend on Facebook - live video and integrated chat! This is a screen capture of a live discussion from The White House with The First Lady, Michelle Obama, regarding her program to tackle childhood obesity "Lets Move" During this 30 minute live broadcast, Facebook's audience was invited to engage with Mrs. Obama via questions submitted within a concurrent text chat.  A reporter/moderator reviewed the incoming questions and presented selected ones to The First Lady for her live on-camera response. The questions that were coming in to the chat window during this timeframe were not moderated.  The audience was engaged and asked about multiple themes associated with Let's Move including how best to promote physical education within schools, tips on gardening, and healthy eating.The early adopters of live video on Facebook are finding that this is a way to significantly increase their fans. When a live broadcast of the Red Carpet event for the  movie "The Twilight Saga: Eclispe" was announced, the dedicated Facebook public event page saw "event guests" increased from 8,000 to over 34,000 within 24 hours. As many as 16,000 viewers actually tuned in to the live broadcast which was then archived as on-demand content on The Twilight Saga's main Facebook page. Marketers with their own live video enabled websites are also embracing Facebook.  Case in point is ESPN's presentation of their X-Games event live starting on July 29th.  ESPN required that people "like" their page for access and had a strong prompt for this audience to invite their friends to this event. Facebook's audience is not solely comprised of youth. At time of writing this post there are over 40.6 million USA based Facebook subscribers who are in the age bracket of 40 years old or more; 58% are females with 42% males.  With the cost of producing and broadcasting a live Internet video & interactive discussion feed now a fraction of what it used to be, marketers within multiple industries will find this new "broadcast channel" to offer substantial ROI and increased engagement with their brand.  Hospitals who have been Tweeting live surgeries can now affordably step up to a live interactive video experience for prospective patients and referring physicians. Financial Advisors can hold weekly video enabled discussions with consumers. Auto  insurance companies can present live car service maintenance tips. Companies could present a live "town hall meeting".... the potential applications are endless - any instance where the audience would be interested in engaging live with your subject. Furthermore these live Facebook events can be recorded and accessed at a later time on-demand. Are you also intrigued by these possibilities? Share your thoughts and certainly let me know if you have any questions on live events - I have well over 1200 live video webcasts under my belt! Alex