A quick-guide to Live Streaming and promotions

A recent trend on social media has been the explosion of live streaming capability. Periscope, Facebook Live, Meerkat and YouTube have proven to be hugely successful ways to access live streaming due it being a cheap and instant way to interact with mass audiences and individuals alike.

From Times Square, New York to hatching baby eagles there is nothing live that cannot be seen (or unseen) and brands have been quick to catch on to the fact that live streaming is an innovative and exciting way to run promotions. Here are just a few we’ve seen:

Mr Robot

To promote the launch of TV show Mr Robot to its target audience of gamers, producers used Twitch, a livestream platform, to run a 17-hour event where they gave away $100k. The stream showed videos of “hackers” who played video games with the audience and gave back to the people the “stolen cash” by revealing codes every 30 minutes. Winners were announced live on the stream and paid out in real time via PayPal. The campaign received over 1.5m views and nearly 400,000 entries.

BMW

Instead of a usual motor show, when BMW launched the M2 they did it live on Periscope with six cameras offering a thrilling ten minute ride around the track. However the day before the launch they ran a teaser campaign which led fans on an Instagram trail to win a real-life day at the track with the car. BMW received 48,000 social engagements.

 National Lottery

To celebrate their latest online instant win game, Win Gold, the National Lottery used Facebook and Twitter to livestream  40 minute live races to engage with viewers. Throughout the event the public were encouraged to vote on which competitor they thought would win and for challenges they wanted to be in with a chance of winning £2000. PromoVeritas were on hand throughout the event to verify that the competition was being run fairly whilst the tag #WinGold reached number three in Twitter’s trending chart that day.

Doritos

For their #DoritosRoulette campaign, livestreaming was used to show fans’ reactions to eating the hot Doritos variety hidden in their bag. Doritos scored a double whammy by using YouTube personality Fun for Louis to judge the promotion live guaranteeing maximum exposure.

If you are thinking of running a promotion using livestreaming make sure you consider the following tips:

Create a buzz – Post across all platforms about your event and the prizes on offer during the week before to encourage maximum engagement and shares – and don’t forget to include the link

React – Let your viewers know you’re really live by encouraging them to interact with the stream. Answering their questions and mentioning them by name creates genuine excitement and engagement.

Monitoring – It is important to remember that feeds need to be monitored for abuse

Don’t be shy – ask your viewers to tap to Follow you during the live broadcast to ensure that they are made aware the next time you go live.

Timing is everything – make sure your broadcast is at least ten minutes or even longer to guarantee people can find it and also share it amongst their friends. Giving stuff away during the broadcast is also a sure-fire way to keep people glued to the screen.

Testing testing – It is essential that you test your livestream before you ‘go live’. Buzzfeed’s first live stream was a famously cringe-filled interview with President Obama.

A strong connection – we mean an actual internet connection here! Make sure there’s a backup plan if your wifi signal suddenly dies. Also using a decent camera or Smartphone is essential too.

For help with shaping and implementing your next promotion contact PromoVeritas on info@promoveritas.com.