Talk show hosts describe what it’s like to go live on Happs

“I just want you guys to know that what you’re doing isn’t just a morning show. It’s a way for us to escape the everyday reality.” A conversation about chat shows with hosts Doug and Ally from Frameable Faces, Jim In Chicagoland, and Helen Wallace.

Happs’ Peter Bittner recently helmed a roundtable about talk shows on Happs with some of our favorite talk show hosts on the platform: Doug and Ally from Frameable Faces in Detroit, Jim from Jim In Chicagoland, and Helen Wallace from Edinburgh, GBR. Some highlights below:

Doug and Ally from Frameable Faces in Detroit

Doug: I started playing around with livestreaming (on Periscope) and immediately I could tell it was pretty cool and my wheels started turning about the possibilities. We were thinking we’ll start doing some tutorials and some behind-the-scenes on our photo sessions. Then, it evolved pretty quickly beyond that into a community and the show just kind of spiraled and took on a life of its own. So we decided to go on in the morning and see what that looks like. Hey, it’s the Doug & Ally Morning Show here with you. And boom. It just kind of happened and we kept going. And almost six years later now, we’re still doing the Doug & Ally Morning Show every morning. And it was a very easy transition to come over here to Happs once Periscope shut down and we’re very happy that we’re here.

Ally: It’s a definite commitment and investment. What keeps us coming back are the messages that we get from people. We just got one the other day that was like, “Oh my gosh. That’s so nice.” Someone reached out and said, “I just want you guys to know that what you’re doing isn’t just a morning show. It’s a way for us to escape the everyday reality. We can all get together as a community and just kind of laugh and have fun.” It’s a little respite from life for a lot of people, including us. It’s just kind of a fun way to just kind of decompress and have some fun and escape from the everyday reality of what’s going on.

Doug: Yeah. We’ve got regulars, people that are part of our community, that have been hanging out with us in the mornings for almost six years now.

Ally: Like they’re our family, our friends.

Doug: We feel like we kind of owe it to our people to be there for them every morning. They rely on us and we rely on them. It’s hard to put on any kind of persona or act when you’re live. If you’re going to be on for an hour, it’s hard to fake it and do something that people would be drawn to — you couldn’t keep it up forever. At some point, if there’s interaction and it’s a live setting, your true self is going to come out. So when we do it, we’re in our element. The place that we spend more time or probably as much time as we do away from home, our studio. It’s our business. So we’re just there being us, doing our thing.

Another thing that’s cool about Happs is you can post stuff in your feed beyond just your broadcast. So in between your broadcast, if you have something that you’ve blogged about or something on your website or podcast or something else going on, you can post that right in your feed. Often, I talk about how this kind of reboot of the community here on Happs kind of feels like those early days of Periscope a little bit because something exciting is happening and it’s a new platform. I can see Happs having the potential to be the best parts of what we hoped Periscope would be.

We are a brick and mortar small business. And we always used to say, before there was a live streaming option for us, we used to joke and laugh about how man, our studio, the stuff that happens in this mall, and the drama and the stories and the crazy stuff that happens would make a great reality show. Well, now we have one! Things happen around our studio with people walking in the mall. Or our UPS delivery guy, John, has now become a character when he comes in. He’s known as Hot UPS John now. And he has an entrance song that we play. Just being in a business provides a little bit of structure. It doesn’t mean that we have to plan out every show from A to Z, but there’s a little structure that’s just inherently there because we’re running a business and we’re broadcasting as a brand.

So as far as a tip for that: If you have a brand or you are a business, there’s still a lot of people that underestimate the opportunity to tell stories around your products, services, or your brand. And there’s no better way to tell stories than to do it in this visceral way in an immediate, livestreaming format with an audience, where you can react to people in real time.

Don’t go live with an old school advertising mentality, where you come on and sell your stuff. Just tell your stories around your brand. We barely talk about photography on our show. But we’re sitting in our photography studio as Frameable Faces Photography. People know what we’re there for and what we’re doing and we talk about just the life of being a small business owner and an entrepreneur which is way more interesting than “come buy our latest widget.” So that would be my tip to somebody in terms of using livestreaming.

If you have a brand or you are a business, there’s still a lot of people that underestimate the opportunity to tell stories around your products, services, or your brand. And there’s no better way to tell stories than to do it in this visceral way in an immediate, livestreaming format with an audience, where you can react to people in real time.

Jim from Jim In Chicagoland

Jim: I started live streaming around 2015. I was just sick of politics on television. I was tired of this side versus that side. The news networks were fighting with each other. So I heard about livestreaming: people with phones going around, going live, uncensored without commercials. Actually, my sand volleyball team was my first broadcast ever and it was a disaster. But I didn’t give up. I kept doing it, I kept getting encouragement, and I got more comfortable.

I wanted to hear about other people’s stories. Everyone used to laugh at us when we were sitting there with our phones and then all of a sudden COVID happens and now they’re all like, “Wow. Who can we talk to? We have nobody to be with right now.” We had the advantage right there and then. Now we’re talking that and we’re transitioning over to Happs and we’re making it bigger and stronger and better than ever. It’s just a passion of mine to hear what everyone’s story is rather than focusing on me. I want to hear about what you have to say, what your story is. That’s why I created the late night talk variety show that I do every Thursday night.

We also did something called Thunder Crew. Basically, it was about positivity and motivation. It was pretty much freeform fun with a bunch of people from all over the world. And then that kind of faded out, and we had to rebrand everything. And I decided that late night talk shows, as good as they are, just aren’t as relevant to us here on live streaming media. We needed something that was going to be kind of a consistent source where someone could come in who is new to Happs and introduce them, get to know them, and get to hear their story about they like doing, whether it be somebody who’s cooking or into music doing something for charity. It was just getting people in there to hear each others’ stories, and being able to relate to somebody on a live, social media platform as opposed to being talked to on a news network or late night talk show on the networks.

You have to continuously rebrand. Stay fresh, stay relevant, but at the same time, don’t alienate your audience. I went from broadcasting cheesy softball and volleyball games at a community park to bringing in other broadcasters to do what we call “scope trains,” where we basically took one broadcast, followed it up with another broadcast, then another one and then another one. That way, if people were not into that first person, they knew somebody else they could relate to was coming up right after that.

It’s just a passion of mine to hear what everyone’s story is rather than focusing on me. I want to hear about what you have to say, what your story is. That’s why I created the late night talk variety show that I do every Thursday night.

Helen Wallace from Edinburgh, GBR

Helen: I originally started livestreaming in 2015 because I was working in and around the Edinburgh Fringe. I started showing the Fringe, going around the venues, showing people the world’s largest arts festival. It’s a big thing. And then I’d show bits of Edinburgh, but people didn’t really want to see that. They wanted me to sit in front of the screen and just talk nonsense and have a chat. And since I’m self-employed and don’t have any work colleagues, it became a way to have banter with people.

I think the reason Happs is such a great platform is you are engaging in face-to-face conversation with someone. The art of conversation is dying generally. We’re wrapped up in our phones, we’re used to texting each other, but we miss the social cues. When you’re having a conversation with someone face to face, you can read their body language, you know what they’re thinking. And that’s why Happs is almost addictive because you’re actually engaging in conversations. And essentially, that’s what a a talk show is: having a conversation with someone.

I’m not structured at all. I’ll hit the Go Live button with no agenda for what we’re going to talk about and it will just ramble on for two, three, four, even up to eight hours.

My tip for others: Don’t be nervous. Go live.“Oh. I’d like to go live but I’m nervous to show my face.” Take a walk around your neighborhood and show what’s going on there and then maybe you’ll get the courage to show your face. There’s no pressure for that.

There’s a lot of talk about branding and views. Look, you’re a human being communicating with other human beings, right? So be authentic. Just be yourself, and as long as you’re enjoying what you’re doing, you don’t have to constantly mix it up.

We’re wrapped up in our phones, we’re used to texting each other, but we miss the social cues. When you’re having a conversation with someone face to face, you can read their body language, you know what they’re thinking. And that’s why Happs is almost addictive because you’re actually engaging in conversations.

Interested in starting a talk show on Happs? Reach out and we’ll be happy to guide you.