Hey kids! It’s time to take part in that oldest and most noble of traditions: brand building. Brand awareness is the peanut butter to the center of the Reese’s Cup of success. Do you follow the metaphor? Me neither, but you know what a Reese’s Cup is, and do you know why? Brand awareness. QED.
There are dozens of ways to increase the public’s awareness of your brand. Some are brilliant, like the minimalist iconography of the Ghostbusters logo. Some are ill advised, like that time everyone got scared the Mooninites were going to blow up Massachusetts.
For the purpose of this article, we’ll be focusing on methods that don’t end up terrifying everyone. More specifically, we’ll be talking about live streaming. Slightly more specific than that, we’ll be talking about the sorts of live streams where you don’t convince anybody that cartoon characters are going to blow up a decent-sized chunk of the East Coast.
There, that’s about as far as an eleven-year-old reference can get stretched, and it feels like it’s time to move past it. Let’s take a look at the ways you can utilize live video broadcasts to build your brand.
Webinars
Here it is, the easy answer. Ever since Steve Jobs started clasping his hands and quasi-beat-poeting his way through new product reveals, the live seminar has been considered step one for companies hoping to get the word out about their new financial baby.
This is the go-to option for tech companies. It’s a simple, impressive way to show the world how impressive your work can be, and with a little creativity, it can be an experience no one will forget.
Of course, doing it wrong can be pretty memorable too. Tread cautiously, young hobbit.
Live Events
There are many approaches to the use of live video in the business world, but this is one of the few which affords you the opportunity to begin your broadcast with the greeting of “Sup?”
There’s no arguing with the efficacy of live online events like concerts and performances – you can even live stream church services! Pull these events off correctly and they’ll always draw a crowd.
The added bonus is the element of permanence that these projects have. Leave them up for people to see after the fact so new viewers can check them out.
Do this correctly and you’ll have viewers coming back for more, and they’ll never want to miss whatever you do next. The FOMO marketing hype is real, dawg.
Company Tours
There’s an old adage about people not wanting to see how the sausage gets made. As metaphors go, it doesn’t hold up. People absolutely want to see how the rhetorical sausage is made. This is true of just about any product you might be creating, besides actual sausage.
Disclaimer: Don’t try this one if you make real sausage. If you make sausage and you have video of how it’s made, sharing it would be a bad decision. It’s going to attract the wrong clientele.
Now, for all of you who aren’t salumists, consider the following. First, it’s more than a little impressive that I know the word “salumists.”
More importantly, you make something and, presumably, you are proud of what you make. You have an interest in the process of making it. Good news: so do the people you’re marketing it to. Everyone likes to know about how the things they love come to be. Take them on a trip around the room where you work, or the office building, or the factory floor. Show them that you’re proud of your process.
Demonstrations
Congratulations! You made something! Something so good that you think you should sell it to people -for money, even!
Live internet demos can be a great way of showing the citizenry what it is that you create and how it works. More importantly, live streaming adds an interactive component to the equation. If people have questions about your product, they can go directly to you, the undisputed experts on the subject.
A little showmanship will make this a spectacular way to spread the word about just how impressive you are, and this can help to organically grow your audience.
And these are just a start…
The real genius of live video lies in its darned near limitless potential. It’s a method of expressing ideas as numerous as the experiences that inform them. Announce new features. Get testimonials from the public. Stage a flash mob and broadcast the whole thing.
You already did the hard part by making something great. Now it’s time to share it with the world.
