How to Use Instagram Live for Brands

Welcome to the new age of Live Videos. It’s only been a few weeks since Live was announced(Nov 21st) and the feature is already, well, live.

Instagram Live brings the idea of being more engaged with your community. This is a new interaction that brings customers, followers, enthusiasts, and brand ambassadors to you real time. For brands this is a fast way to gain authentic data and interact with their audience.

Things to note:
- Live videos cannot be saved for later. This is not a recorded video
- Only followers get notifications. Can still trend on “Top Live Videos”
- Instagram currently holds the highest Influencer ROI out of all platforms ($6.50) *burst media study
- Hybrid of Facebook Live and Snapchat(stream but no saving)

1. Real Time Interaction/Engagement

Having real-time conversation with your audience is strong. You can gauge the immediate reaction through chat and likes. People may have positive or negative initial impressions, but this provides you immediate insight into how you can adapt or change your product/service. The auto industry does this quite well: a concept car is designed and the market’s reaction is carefully studied to see what features need to change, improve or even remove during the actual mass production stage.

2. Increased Sales Conversion through Inclusion

Live offers a new road for your brand to include potential customers in the buying process. Millennials don’t like being marketed to. We do, however, like to be included when you are developing something. This means we’ve taken a part in making the product/service what it is. You’ll have a much better chance converting sales. If I had a say in designing my next pair of Adidas/Nike sneakers, you can be sure I’m going to buy it.

3. Increased Brand Exposure/Viewership

If we can learn anything from Facebook on live videos is that it is much more effective than prerecorded ones. People spend 3x longer watching live videos over prerecorded ones. Live videos have 35% more organic reach than photos. Facebook generates 8 billion video views on average per day. This is double the number in 2015 without live. In short, expect people to view these live videos much more attentively and have more organic reach.

Harness the Power of Influencers?

Brands can exponentially scale reach through Influencers and we’ve seen this time and time again on Youtube and Facebook. Do you remember the person or channel you first saw Psy performing Gangnam Style? You were influenced to check out what everyone was talking about . This phenomenon is deemed the grail of marketing and also known as “Going VIRAL”. This form of word-of-mouth exposure is becoming more and more regulated as brands leverage bigger Influencers. Our industry has become progressively more mature month after month. This has caught the attention of regulators worldwide with the FTC(Federal Trade Commission) leading the way. Influencers are now required by law to include tags like #ad or #sponsored to ensure transparency with their audience.

Notes on Working with Influencers

• Influencers come in all shapes and sizes. It could be your best friend recommending your next pair of shoes or your favourite Youtuber bringing you the latest and greatest news.
• Most influencers are not businesses. They have jobs, careers, and families to take care of. Please be aware that brands need to allow a certain amount of time to communicate and complete a collaboration with an influencer.
• These individuals value freedom of creation tremendously. Do not set stringent guidelines because they’ve amassed a following for who they are and how they express themselves. Putting them in a box only devalues their authenticity and potentially hurts their image.
• They have the right to turn down your campaign/project. As important as the elements of brand image and equity are to a brand, influencers also need to maintain authenticity and transparency with their followers. As such, if they feel a brand does not align with their personal branding, they will turn down a potential collaboration.
• A positive collaboration experience can lead to influencers becoming ambassadors for your brand in the long run. Just look at L’Oréal’s beauty squad. They were picked for very specific reasons and not because they have the most following. Influencer collaborations are not one-offs, but a long term investment.

Creative Ways to Work with Influencers 101

1. Launching a new product or service? Get influencers to make a post about it. If the influencer is having a hard time with the tag-line then offer some guidance. These posts should not say “Hey go buy these new shoes”. It should cater more along the lines of “Hey Adidas reached out to me as an avid sneakerhead and let me try their new shoes, these were my thoughts”. This can be through a picture/video and keeps the content authentic.
2. Get feedback from influencers and include them in the development phase. Looking for focus groups to do some small-scale market research? Influencers are experts in their space and can give you the low down without the fluff. You can even take this a step further and ask their following for feedback. This develops long term invested relationships by these individuals to advocate for your brand and can create brand evangelists.
3. Include Influencers in events! Instagram/Facebook Live along with a bagful of social channels allows brands to amplify their reach during events. Recently, Honda embarked on this journey with numerous influencers across various social channels in hopes to reel in the Millennial market with their Civic model. Hey, thats me!
4. Influencers are content creators, so go ahead and repurpose these valuable assets! They are some of the best content creators in the world. Influencers are talented in their craft and have built a sought after voice in their communities. Re-use their photos and make sure to give them a shoutout(always ask for approval). This is beneficial for both parties as a brand can build their exposure, while influencers can grow their audiences.

TL;DR
Instagram Live serves as an extremely fast and direct way to interact with your potential buyers. This can be further amplified by Influencers, exponentially. This new form of reach has become so successful that it has become highly regulated and is projected as the highest growth channel for marketing for 2017.

Final Words
Have experiences(good/bad) with influencers and live videos? Share it with me here! I’d love to hear everyones’ stories to help our industry move forward. I’m more than happy to also help answer any questions.

*This advice is based on data from influencer marketing campaigns run by MuseFind and the combined experience of industry professionals.

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