Have you ever experienced nail biting disasters
while streaming from your mobile phone?
So I’ve gone live on youtube over the last few weeks on my mobile phone and made a bunch of mistakes. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes as I did when you go live on youtube so I am going to discuss what to do before you go live, what to do during the live stream and what to do afterwards.
BEFORE you go live
1. Lack of a great title
If you don’t have a catchy title for your live video not many people will attend. Think about a punchy title that will encourage viewers to attend your live stream. It could be in the form of a question that addresses one of their biggest problems.
2. Bad internet connection
There’s been a few times that I’ve lost my connection during the live stream. This can be very frustrating for you and the participants. One way to prevent this from happening is to do a dry run before you go live. What I often do before I go live is to do a test run by putting the privacy settings on unlisted and then I can check the sound, the lighting etc. Another thing I do is reboot my computer and also remove other gadgets that are taking up the wi-fi connections. Also turn on airplane mode on your mobile phone then turn on the wi-fi connection. Also you can check your upload and download speeds by going to testmy.net
3. Bad audio
There’s been many times where I’ve forgotten to plug in the mic before I went live. As a result the audio sounded tinny or echoey. Absolutely don’t use the built in microphone of your phone. I use the Rode Smartlav Plus microphone. I’ll leave a link to it in the description below this video.
4. Inadequate lighting
During my first live stream I just used a light over my desk. As a result the video looks a little washed out. For future live stream videos I added a few softboxes and lit up the background. As you can see my lighting improved immensely.
5. No clear purpose
Don’t just go live if you have nothing to say because you’ll probably just ramble on and on and cause people to leave. Have a clear purpose in mind for your video and organize your content accordingly. For example start off with telling people what you’re going to discuss in your video, then provide the content and tell them you’ll receive questions later.
6. Low quality thumbnail
When you’re about to go live from your mobile phone it asks you to take a photo of yourself for the thumbnail. If you intend to use this thumbnail for your video to be listed in the search engines, make sure you’ve got a beautiful background instead of a cluttered background. What I typically do for my first thumbnail is to create a large graphic on my laptop then show it in the mobile screen. Keep in mind you can always change the thumbnail after you’ve finished the live stream.
7. Not switching to landscape mode
When I did my first live stream video, I thought you had to do everything in landscape mode but found out later that you first have to put it in portrait mode to enter your title and description and then when you take the thumbnail picture you put it in landscape mode and then go live in landscape mode. So make sure you start off in portrait mode then switch to landscape mode when you take your thumbnail and go live.
8. Forgetting to add your title, description, and call to action URL.
A great shortcut is to go to your upload defaults on your channel, then add your description, your tags and your call to action URL then when you’re ready to go live you just have to put in your title.
9. Not notifying subscribers
Your subscribers will immediately be notified by email when you go live. If they’ve activated the bell notification they’ll get an alert. Instead of expecting them to drop everything immediately to attend your event live, why not send them an email, tweet, facebook post ahead of time so they’ll know that they can attend later. This will give your viewers and subscribers more lead time to attend your event.
10. Inconsistent streaming times
Try to avoid streaming randomly at different days and times. This is a guaranteed way to only get a few viewers and subscribers attending your event and you won’t make much progress with the growth of your channel. Instead think about having a consistent schedule for your live stream events every week so people will know when to join in.
Also make sure you you respect the time of your viewers attending you live event by starting on time.
11. Not practicing before you go live
Sometimes I’ve had a brain freeze before I went live and forgot the points that I wanted to make. You can avoid this by typing up the bullet points on a piece of paper and keep it right next to you or having it on the computer screen. You can then refer to these bullet points should you lose your train of thought during the stream.
DURING your live stream
12. Disorganized thoughts
When you go live it’s easy to get distracted by the live chat feed. Instead of immediately getting distracted by your live chat feed, go straight into your presentation by introducing the content of your video. Then when people watch the replay they’ll immediately get the content first followed by the questions of your viewers. If you can handle it acknowledge the participants during the presentation or tell them that you’ll answer the questions after you’ve finished your presentation. Start off your live stream by introducing the content that you wish to cover, then introduce yourself, and what your channel is all about, and welcome the participants. After that you can get into the meat of your content followed by the question and answer session. Before you end your live stream make sure you thank all the participants for attending.
13. Not being yourself
Don’t try to imitate someone else but just be yourself and imagine you’re having a conversation with a good friend over coffee. If you look stressed and unprepared you may lose viewers that are unforgiving. Have fun with your live stream and smile a lot, and be energetic. You’ll then get more engagement.
14. No audience interaction
If you don’t acknowledge the people that are participating with you on the live stream, they may think you are ignoring them. Of course this may not be possible if you have 100s of people in the live chat stream. If this is the case think about hiring a moderator to moderate your live chat streams.
One big mistake that I made during my first few livestreams was that I forgot that can actually scroll through the live chat streams with your thumb. This stops the comments from disappearing in the live chat stream so you can read them and answer the questions.
Before you end your live stream, make sure you thank the participants for attending viewers and invite them to your next live session. This will make a big difference in your audience’s experience.
15. No call to action
If the purpose of your YouTube channel is to generate leads and subscribers then make sure you give a call to action during your live stream. Invite them to subscribe by clicking the subscribe button and tell them why they should subscribe. Direct them to the landing page URL in your description so they’ll know to go there after the livestream has ended.
AFTER your live stream
16. Lack of optimization of your live stream
Instead of leaving your livestream video “as is†make sure you optimize the title, description and tags after it has ended. You might also replace the thumbnail that you took at the beginning of your live stream and upload a customized one.
Also make sure that you share your live stream on social media sites so it will get more exposure. You can also repurpose your content to extend the reach of your audience by embedding it on your website, or downloading the video and uploading the native video to your facebook page.
If your live video was very long, you could chop up the content and create multiple videos with different titles.
That’s it!
Now you know of 16 mobile live stream mistakes to avoid and how to fix them.
Let me ask you a question..are there any mistakes that you made during
your live stream event? Post your answer in the comments below.
I’d love to read them.
Download my YouTube Mobile Live Stream Checklist for beginners at:
http://www.drostdesigns.com/live-stream-checklist/
You’ll learn the secrets to “going live†on YouTube just using the YouTube App on your mobile phone.
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