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Facebook Live, first launched through the Mentions app for public figures and journalists, has seen impressive growth since its roll-out to the main Facebook app.

Now, 48 million people watch Facebook Live video every day, explained Karla Geci, who works on strategic media partnerships at Facebook.

Speaking at the newsrewired digital journalism conference on 20 July, she highlighted some key steps journalists can take to get more Facebook users tuning in.

As part of her ‘How to make Facebook Live work for you' talk, Geci shared five top tips for increasing audience numbers as well as improving engagement with viewers.

Reflect on your page insights

There is now so much information accessible to Facebook pages through the 'insights' tab. You can see when your users are most active, and select a day and time to broadcast live that corresponds with this.

Create events

A technique that is becoming more commonly used is the creation of event pages to promote the live broadcast itself.

This way, you’re alerting people in advance, and your audience knows exactly when to expect live video content from you.

Have a compelling introduction

A good introduction will pull the audience in and inform them of what is to come. And not going straight into the deep end means viewers won’t miss out if they do not catch your broadcast from the very start.

Use the comments in a Q&A session

In a live Q&A, use some of the comments as questions, so viewers know they are being listened to.

It makes for a more engaging experience for them, and the person answering the questions can also get a sense of the audience's response.

A prime example for this is BuzzFeed’s live Q&A in the lead-up to the EU referendum.

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“They actually had somebody right in the middle of the set, with their laptop, and they could see that they were looking at questions coming in through the comments in real-time," explained Geci.

"They were picking out questions that they thought would be really compelling from an editorial perspective to add to the Townhall, and to add to the Q&A.

"People were really putting their questions in, simply because they felt like they were going to be heard, and that they were going to be responded to.”

Reply to your audience

If the comments are not going to be fed directly back into the live broadcast, at least reply to them, therefore improving your interaction with the audience and proving you are acknowledging their input.

One more tool to consider is Facebook Live’s API, launched in April – it enables publishers to integrate Facebook Live into their production workflows. Multiple sources of video can also be brought together, taking the content from amateur to industry standard.

  • Get more coverage of Journalism.co.uk's [newsrewired conference here](https://www.newsrewired.com/), and check out the first article in our [Facebook Live series here](https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/experiments-with-facebook-live-at-international-business-times-uk-/s2/a653268/).

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Written by
Thalia Fairweather

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