Live video streaming is a proven way to sell products and grow your audience. Most people focus on creating the best possible video experience. At a certain point, upgrading your Internet service or buying a better camera will not improve your video streaming experience further. That’s where your live chat can make your live video streaming more engaging.
6 ways to leverage Live Chat in Video Streaming
1. Make your audience feel valued
Humans are social creatures. That fact hasn’t changed just because your audience is attending a virtual event. On their own, video streaming services can quickly become a one-way conversation if you exclusively focus on speaking into the camera. As you speak, your audience is going to have comments and questions to share. The only question is whether you will respond directly or not.
By adding live stream chat rooms to your live stream video event, you can make your audience feel valued in several ways. Use these simple ways to show your audience you care via a live stream chat.
- Welcome people to the event. When a new user joins the live stream live chat, you can welcome them by name or username.
- Pick good live stream live chat questions to answer. During the livestream, set a reminder to pause two or three times to answer questions. It is your right as the host of the event to choose which questions you answer. As a guideline, use popularity to help you decide what to ask (e.g., if five people ask if a product comes in an extra-large size, answer that question).
2. Provide support and tips
Livestream experiences are getting more popular, but they are still relatively new. Avoid assuming that everybody attending your event knows how to participate in your live stream chat rooms. Instead of continuously interrupting your main presentation to provide tech support, use live chat instead. For example, let your presenter focus on delivering great content while your tech support team monitors the live chat to answer questions.
To provide high-quality support using a live stream chat, prepare in advance with these tips.
- Make a list of essential links. Posting a 10-step answer to a tech support question in live chat may disrupt the experience. Instead of posting such a response, respond with a link to your FAQ (frequently asked questions), knowledge base, or support webpages. Before starting the livestream, make a list of links that you can offer to answer questions quickly.
- Offer alternate ways to get support. Some people may prefer to request support by phone or email instead. Let event participants know of other ways they can get help.
3. Reduce livestream technical problems
“You’re on mute!”
By now, nearly everybody has heard this kind of problem during a livestream event. There is even greater potential for technical problems in large-scale live stream video events with hundreds or thousands of participants. You can use a live chat application to cut down on livestream problems.
Specifically, make a list of ways that attendees can prevent common problems. You might recommend a specific browser (e.g. Google Chrome) for the best experience as a starting point. In addition, offer tips on how to “unfreeze” video and audio (e.g., suggest attendees close other programs or get closer to their wireless router).
4. Make it easy to buy
When your livestream event is focused on selling products, start with the end in mind. You are ultimately aiming to sell more products. Now, put yourself in your customer’s chair for a moment.
While they are watching your livestream, they probably have other programs open. They may be listening to you while writing an email or posting on social media. You can’t assume that you have your customers’ undivided attention. This kind of distraction is even common in the workspace. Stanford University research finds that people are more likely to multitask in meetings with more than two people. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that your customers are likely to be multitasking during your livestreams.
When you make an offer like offering a special discount for the duration of the live stream video event, make it easy for attendees to buy. Using a live chat application is an excellent tool to supplement the video presentation. If there are special coupon codes or links that people have to use, provide those links in the live chat.
Tip: You can also use live chat to provide social proof. For example, you might only have 100 units of a limited edition dress. Once that product starts to sell, post a few updates in the live chat (e.g., “Half of our promotional inventory has already sold. Order by 9 pm to save 50% off!”).
5. Qualify leads for follow up
Seeking an immediate sale is not the goal of every business livestream. For example, if you are selling complex consulting services like Deloitte or Accenture, the sales process takes multiple steps. The same principle applies to high ticket consumer purchases like cars and homes as well. In these cases, live chat can help you to qualify qualified leads.
For example, let’s say you offer a livestream event for business owners who want to improve their sales results. Your solution might be to offer sales coaching and better sales technology like a customer relationship management system. However, your solution works best for companies with at least ten sales representatives. In this situation, you can ask attendees how many salespeople they have on their team. For each participant who responds with 10 or higher, please send a private message inviting them to book a call with you.
6. Gather feedback to make the next event better
Providing engaging livestream events takes practice. After each event, it is wise to take a few minutes to evaluate how the event went. You might start by looking at your analytics and the number of attendees. That type of event data is helpful, but it is incomplete. You also need to gather insight from your attendees on what they like and what they didn’t like.
There are a few ways you can use live chat to gather feedback to make your live events better.
- Ask short questions close to the end of the event. Asking simple questions like “what did you like most about this event?” or “what topic should our next event focus on?” can give you rich results.
- Download the live chat transcript. With more significant events, reviewing the live chat transcript is helpful. To make the most of this review, look for patterns like questions asked multiple times.
After reviewing the live chat feedback, choose at least one improvement you make to your next livestream event.
Get Started With Live Chat In Less Than An Hour
Adding a live chat platform to your website or livestream used to be complicated. You had to ask the development team to organize a project and wait weeks for the live chat to be set up. Installing Arena is entirely different. Most of our customers install live chat in less than an hour (sometimes in just 5 minutes). Click here to start your free trial of Arena Live Chat.
