Facebook Live Streaming for Coaches

Have you ever come across Facebook live streaming for coaches? This is an immensely useful technique for coaches to boost their client engagement, and it is thought that over half of clients are more likely to buy an offer when they have seen an online video about that offer.

Over 70% of clients also want to see more content from the coaches that they love best, and if you are looking for ways to increase the connection between your brand and your clients, this is one of the absolute best ways to do it.

Don’t neglect the power of live streaming content to captivate your audience and get them involved in everything that you are doing and the new services you have to offer.

Let’s look at how Facebook live streaming for coaches can catapult your coaching business into being extraordinary.

Why Use Facebook Live for Your Coaching Business

The following are four ways Facebook live streaming can improve your coaching business: 

1. It Allows You to Better Engage Your Audience

You can use live streaming to encourage potential coaching clients to actively engage with your brand. Try asking your audience questions, letting them discuss your coaching business, and responding to what they do and say. People love to talk about themselves.

Pay attention to feedback about your videos too. If people complain that they are too long or too short or don’t answer key questions, you should improve if you can. What your audience thinks of your content is key, and responding to it will show that you value them.

2. It Expands Your Exposure and Credibility

If you want to boost your credibility, live streaming for coaches is one of the best ways to do it. Videos are the ultimate method for getting coaching clients to trust you because they can get a sense of who you are and what matters to you. You can connect on a very personal level, and demonstrate the value of your coaching offers more completely.

With videos, you enjoy considerably more trust than with just pictures or descriptions – which we all know can be altered. By showing your coaching offers off in a video, you reassure your audience that they are genuine and as described.

You can also take the opportunity to get your audience involved by letting them ask you questions, and then responding to these in the videos. This gives a “behind the scenes” take on things, and increases your audience’s trust in you.

Videos allow you to demonstrate coaching offers in action and show off their effectiveness, and they are the best option for advertising. If you can make your videos catchy too, you’ve got a chance of them being shared, massively increasing your exposure.

3. It Increases Your Authenticity and Relatability

No matter how much energy and engagement you pour into your writing, you can never get “you” across to your audience. The words get in the way, and while humor and quirky writing are good ways to humanize your coaching business, video does it so much more intensely.

The value of Facebook live streaming for coaches is particularly high, because there is a sense of immediacy that will connect you strongly with your viewers.

Having a good sense of who you are will help your audience to trust you, because they have a face to put to the statements being made.

4. It Creates More Valuable and Reusable Content

Although you only enjoy the “live” impact once, you can keep reusing your content. Use it to make GIFS or as photographs alongside instruction manuals, and cut it down into little videos for YouTube or Instagram.

You can even embed scraps of your videos in your emails, or display them on your webpage. By creating good content, you give yourself a library of valuable resources you can pull from whenever you need to.

How to Prepare for Facebook Live Streaming

Live streaming may be an effective coaching business strategy, but it is a lot of work, too. You need to plan, practice, and then compose yourself before the stream.

With that done, you also need to process the content, and this can take hours. A live stream of ten minutes could easily take you several hours to plan, practice, produce, and then edit and turn into useful content.

So, what should you do to prepare?

Step 1: Plan Your Coaching Live Stream

Start by deciding what you are going to cover. Do not live stream without some content ready, even if you are going to allow the audience to get involved.

Write yourself some brief notes and practice a bit. You want it to feel natural, but a little rehearsing will help to ensure it runs smoothly.

Always test your equipment just a few minutes before you go live, and send out a quick warning so that your audience has time to log in and engage.

Step 2: Start Live Streaming

Start with introductory content so that your audience can get settled and tuned in. You shouldn’t immediately launch into the most important content. You might want to display some graphics first, and spend a bit of time chatting with the audience members. This will encourage them to show up early next time, too.

Make sure you greet your audience, acknowledging follower notifications, subscriptions, and donations. You might also want to make a post on social media to let people know you are live and encourage them to join you.

Thank your audience before you finish, and remind them to subscribe.

Step 3: Review Your Live Stream

When you have finished live streaming, take a few moments to relax and mentally review what went well and what you would like to change next time.

Next, review your live stream and work out which bits you can repurpose and use elsewhere. What parts of your coaching business would benefit from additional content? What could you use?

Step 4: Study Your Analytics

Check-in with your analytics a couple of times a week, so you know how your content was received. Look at feedback from the audience.

Speaking of feedback, remember to thank the audience afterward, reminding them to attend the next stream and acknowledging their presence. Invite anyone who missed it to join you at future streams, or catch up with your content (or bits of it) in other places – and provide links.

What You Need to Start Facebook Live Streaming

Here’s a quick breakdown:

A smartphone, laptop, or desktop

You will need this to stream from, and without it, you have no hope of going anywhere. Before choosing a device, think about what you are going to stream. If you’re just showing a technique, a high-quality smartphone may suffice. However, if you’re going to be gaming, you’ll need a good computer.

If you are using a smartphone, make sure it is good enough quality to be satisfying for viewers. Nobody wants to watch grainy, crackly, or blurry videos, so don’t use a low-end phone with a poor microphone and camera.

Green screen

While you don’t absolutely need a green screen, it makes your coaching business look more professional. It will stop you from having to worry about the background mess or chaos. If you don’t have a green screen, make sure you’ve got a professional background.

Good lighting – if you are showing your face, your audience needs to be able to see it properly. Play around with lighting and check the results before you set up a live stream.

High-speed internet

One of the frequently neglected “must-haves,” you cannot stream without good internet. Nothing will put viewers off faster than a video that is constantly buffering or lagging. You need a lot of bandwidth to successfully transfer live images.

Although requirements will vary, you should be looking at least seven megabits per second for a standard 720 resolution stream. For higher quality videos, such as 4K, you will need a minimum of 25 megabits per second.

It’s no good having low-quality or unreliable equipment when you want to stream. You are not going to have the opportunity to edit and improve the video afterward, and if your equipment fails during a stream, it doesn’t look good.

Do not try and live stream on a really tight budget. You don’t need absolutely top-end equipment, but it needs to be good enough to be reliable and produce a reasonable streaming experience.

The Best Cameras for Facebook Live Streaming for Coaches

If you don’t have a high-quality smartphone or builtin laptop camera, try these: 

Logitech Pro 

This webcam allows you to stream vibrant and high-definition videos at 1080 megapixels and 30 frames per second. Logitech Pro has premium autofocus features and two built-in microphones that capture your voice in rich stereo audio. In addition, this camera will record clear videos even in dim and poorly lit backgrounds with automatic light correction. It is compatible with Windows 7 and higher or macOS X 10.9 or higher. 

HUE HD Pro Camera

If you need a lightweight, affordable, and portable option, then HUE HD Pro is your choice. It is a full high-definition webcam that operates at 1080 resolution and includes LED lights and a high-quality microphone. In addition, it is a USB camera compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux.  

The Best Microphones for Facebook Live Streaming

For your viewers to hear you, you need to have a microphone. Don’t go live and not expect to communicate with your audience. If your viewers can’t listen to you, they will more than likely click on it. 

Here are some of the best microphones used for live streaming:

Blue Yeti Pro

This is the most popular option amongst streamers and content creators online. This is the only microphone that grows as you grow from a USB cable connection to a dual XLR breakout cable that allows you to connect to mixers and other high-end professional studio gear. This is the first USB condenser microphone to capture ultra-high resolution 24-bit digital recordings from your desktop. It offers four different pattern settings and three custom condenser capsules that direct high-resolution audio recording to your computer. If the pro is too high for your budget, they also offer a more basic one to get started that still offers studio-quality audio and pattern controls. 

Razer Seiren X 

The Razer Seiren X is the perfect compact microphone for those who stream video games. It includes an ultra-precise pickup pattern that records sounds at tighter angles helping to reduce unwanted background noise. Due to its compact size and the nature of video games, it can be easy to knock it off or have bumps along the way, but the built-in shock mount dampens those vibrations, ensuring clear sound every time. As a result, you no longer need to worry about having enough space while still delivering superior audio. 

FIFINE T669 USB Microphone

If you need a very affordable option to get started, including all the necessary mounting gadgets for streaming, then the Amazon FIFINE USB microphone is the perfect choice for under 100 dollars.  This USB condenser microphone is fitted with everything needed to run a live stream or podcast. It was recently updated to improve the low-ends and overall self-noise level, which helps lower the keyboard and other background noises and produce a more rounded sound. In addition, it includes a desk tripod, an arm that mounts to the desk and offers 30 inches of reach, and a detachable 2.5M USB cable.

Final Thoughts

Do you use Facebook Live in your coaching business? How has that worked out for you? If not, do you plan to use it? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.