878 – Level up your online streams: Tom talks Live Streaming Tips

Episode 878 – Live Streaming Tips
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 878 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about live streaming tips to make your live streams really pop. Live streaming gets kind of a boost in the world because it's so live. But you can turn it into recorded stuff too. All right. So hope you didn't miss episode 877 and 876. 877 was on trend surfing kind of newsjacking basically getting a lot of traction on your stuff because something's in the news and influencer surfing is using influencers for free to get your stuff to pop more. So anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, then the episode number. Trend surfing was 877. Influencer surfing was 876.

[00:01:21] All right, let's talk about, uh, live streaming tips. And of course, I want you to grab a copy of my automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And that'll really help you have more time to live stream. How about that? Okay, so I used to do a Sunday night show and it was part entertainment and part internet marketing. And the only reason I quit it was because my dog died. And I just, I mean, I was just devastated. And it was rubick's my protection dog that we had and literally hundreds of hours of training. The dog would lay his life down for me. I mean, I just didn't feel like yukking it up anymore.

[00:02:03] And I kind of stopped doing the show. But let me get back into live streaming here, uh, probably with my highly educated idiots, uh, book that's coming up. Okay, so first thing you got to do is have a streaming type, uh, software or mechanism. Now, I happen to use StreamYard because it's easy for a mere mortal to figure out and to do right from your browser, and it's got a lot of great features. Now, there are tons of other streaming places like OBS and other things, I think Wirecast and I mean, these are way more complicated. Yeah, they can do way more things, but, uh, you're going to have to probably have a geek help you, you know, set it all up very complicated. Streamyard is not. That's why I do it. So one thing, uh, so this is a bunch of random tips on, on doing this streaming. And one thing is that you should have a regular time. And I hate that. I like to do things spontaneously. And yes, I still do, but if I was going to start a show, another show, regular show, it would be at a regular time and day. Um, but you can go live anytime and you should go live even if nobody's listening, because you can always repurpose the material into shorts and to recorded videos and all kinds of stuff. Say now, yeah, another thing with streaming, you need to have a good internet connection.

[00:03:36] So you need to, you know, use different ways to to test that. And hard wired is better Ethernet cables from your router and all that is going to ensure that you have the best possible signal that you can get. And, um, you should have a good camera. All right. Live streaming is mostly you know, I don't know anybody that's not live this live streaming, just audio. I mean, I'm doing an audio only podcast, but we even turn it into video. But it's not me on camera, but for live streaming, yes, I am on camera. And another thing you should want to do is make sure you can stream to multiple platforms. And in the beginning, this wasn't possible. Uh, and then and then it became possible, but then it had a problem that you couldn't consolidate all the, the comments, like if I was live streaming on Facebook. Well, comments from YouTube and, you know, Twitter and stuff didn't show up and people thought I was ignoring them. So that problems pretty much been fixed in all the platforms. Streamyard goes to a whole bunch of different platforms. So, uh, do that, make sure you can stream to multiple platforms. Whatever system you use, make sure you got good lighting and good audio, good quality microphone and good lighting doesn't cost a lot nowadays, and it doesn't take a lot of electricity or heat with the new LED kind of stuff.

[00:05:05] So in the old days when we used quartz. I mean, the whole room would light up like the, you know, hot yoga. But nowadays with LED stuff, you don't have to worry about that. But get good lighting, good audio and what I just mentioned, comments consolidating them. So you see them and and talk about them. So it's kind of an engagement thing. You can show them on the screen the best comments. And so that's a cool thing of engagement. Engagement is a big deal with this to make people want to show up because they get talked to and they, you know, have direct contact with you, the big shot, you know, all that. So it's and then you make them look great when they say something nice, put their name on the screen, those kinds of things. Now you can show videos on your live stream, but make sure here's the tip. Make sure that you have it turned on so that that audio gets on the live stream. It's nothing dumber than to say, hey, let me show you a video and you show the video, but they can't hear it. Okay? So in some cases that might not matter, but most of the time you want to make sure that they can hear it. So that's usually a setting that you have to turn on and all this stuff that you want to show during your live stream, we call assets, have all your assets ready or have your ass ready.

[00:06:28] That's a good short short for so that you're not fumbling around. And and along with that, make sure you practice with the system. You will get better if you practice. Get some friends together and practice before you, you know, go out full public and then don't know what you're doing. Um, learn to use the system. Now, one of the things that I've been preaching for 100 years is the value of having a second monitor. I actually have four in my lower office down there. I mean, I look like Star Trek pretty much, but it's just increases your productivity like crazy just in your regular work. But in streaming, it allows you to preview and see what the audience is seeing or preview what you what you want to bring up next, uh, for the audience to see. So having a second monitor. And so it's very easy to hook up nowadays. And it doesn't have to be a fancy 4K monitor. Very expensive. You could go down to a pawn shop and get an old monitor to do it. So so because it's just for you to see what's coming up. It's not for the broadcast or, uh, the main monitor. You got to decide on what kind of content you're going to have, or you're going to have a variety show. Like, I had a variety show where I had funny stuff, and I had the internet stuff, and I had different segments each week.

[00:07:52] And, so you have to decide, am I going to do interviews? Am I just going to do teaching? Uh, are you going to do commentary or reaction type of videos or combination of them? But just you need to have it in your mind. What's the goal of this? Uh, this live stream is to get business. I mean, that's what we're all about here is getting business from stuff. So you have to be clear in your mind so that you don't confuse the the people. And you want to promote the thing, uh, by announcing it ahead of time. Hey, I'm going to be going streaming, uh, you know, certain days of the week, certain times of day, and then write, you know, an hour beforehand, give people a heads up, you know, send it to your email list to remind people and give them a little time to get over there. Uh, let's see. And once they're on there, you want to encourage them, especially in the early parts of it, to, uh, share it and like it so that it's shown to more people. And, and that's why you should not do, like, a two minute live stream. All right. You should live stream long enough so that people have a chance to number one trip on you and find you accidentally. And number two, for people that are on there to refer it and get their friends in 5 or 10 minutes to see the referral and come over, see.

[00:09:19] So don't do super short live streams. I do a lot of super short podcasts, but that's not the way it works in live stream. And you can always repurpose the content, you know, into shorts, you know, YouTube shorts and reels and Instagram stuff, posts and everywhere else. So like I said, encourage people to like and share it and make your your your friendly, SEO friendly titles and descriptions. You know, I'm not a big SEO fan, but I do believe that you should do stuff that doesn't shoot you in the foot, and it's you have to make a title and a description anyway, so why not make it so that you at least have a chance that your keywords are be found when somebody is out there searching and. The thing about this that I had to fight with, because I'm kind of a laissez faire, you know, I get an idea. Bam! Run with it. Um, any time I feel like it. But, you know, you got I had to reel that in a little bit and be consistent every Sunday night. I don't know what it was 8:00. I was on there and people knew that. And so that's how you grow because people know what to expect and when you're going to be there. And, uh, so there's some tips for you. Let me see if I missed any of the tips I had for you.

[00:10:41] Good camera. Uh, multiple platforms. Uh, yeah. So so let's see. Show videos. Yeah. Make sure your audio. Yeah. So I got all the kind of tips I wanted to throw in there for you, but, you know, it all boils down to you got to get something like StreamYard. That's simple to get started. You can always improve later, you know, to a fancier one. But if you tried to go with one of the real sophisticated ones right off the bat, you'd have to have a producer or a geek sitting there running it for you. And and it's just going to probably won't work for you easily because you're going to spend a lot of extra money. And, um, you're probably going to be discouraged to do it with StreamYard. You could be doing some practice streams later today with probably what you already have on your computer and webcam and stuff. So. So there you go. Uh, check it out, uh, and relisten to this and make yourself a list of all the things you need to cover to do a good live stream. This is episode 878. And hey, if you want tips like this and the other billion things you need to be successful online, check out my mentor program. Longest running, most successful ever in the field of internet and Digital marketing, and check it out at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com all right, we'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.