I'm so excited to share my fellow mastermind member and friend Tiffany Lee Bymaster with you today! Tiffany has been in the online space for a little over 4 years now, and prior to that she came from the production world. Tiffany was recently on the podcast sharing how she grew her online business with live video and what you need to know if you are going to use it too!
If we only knew a few years ago what we knew now, we would have started a long time ago. But it’s never too late to get started. Do you have a fear of live video? A fear that you don’t have the content to give? Let me tell you, you have the content, what’s holding you back is the fear and mindset around going live.
One thing that I have noticed is there's a few different types of people or different levels that they're at with live video. They either have never gone live, a majority of them are still wondering should they do it and what would they talk about. Then people that have done it before but they are not consistent; they've done it maybe once and they've never gone back, they're scarred. Then you've got people that are doing it and maybe they are consistent but they're kind of winging their content and there's no rhyme or reason.
What are those big fears? How can we move forward so people can just get out of their own way and realize that this is this gonna be a way for us to get out there and be visible?
Tiffany: “Here are my two best tips on beginning and overcoming the fear and really you cannot wait for this magical day to appear where all of a sudden the fear disappears. I can tell you that everything that we do in our business, especially the new things, comes with fear. I have learned to completely reinterpret what fear is doing for me. Fear is there to protect you, fear is there to be your guide. Fear is the thing that helps you to remember to stop and look left and right before you cross the street so you don't get run over.
Fear shouldn't be something that holds you back. It just wants to keep you safe. But we know that in business and in life the good things don't happen when we're safe, in our comfort zone. The #1 tip I can give you is to show up and keep doing it despite the fear, with the fear, is to remember why you are doing it in the first place. Why are you showing up online? Why are you consistently creating content? Why do you dare to get over your fears and do it with the fears to be on video whether it's recorded or live?
That is because it's not about us. It is about them. If you are truly here to build a business where you're working with other people, other people who have a head and a heart, we are here to serve. The thing that I always remember when I get on stage and I'm shaking like a Chihuahua or I’m just freaked out about doing something brand new, a brand new offer and putting myself out there that I remember, this is not about me. If I get the privilege of helping just one person then that's why I do it.”
I also think people want to just go deeper with you. People want to put a face with a name. They want to connect with you and video is just the absolute best way and the fastest way they're going to do that.
Tiffany: “We hear all the time…the know, like and trust factor. I know without a doubt that the reason why I've been able to build my business so much faster in the last three years than in the first two years is because I added live video to that element. I show up. People get to decide really, really quickly, so much faster than any number of written posts. Even the blogs that I've been writing for over seven years and the impact that I've been able to make through video is so much bigger than I could ever do with all of those photos or the the written posts and all the other content that I was putting out there that I still put out there.
But it's a supplement to the video. The video is where people can get to know, like and trust you. They can also decide if you’re not for them and that's good too. That's great because now you're able to create a spot, open up that seat to the person who is a great fit for you. We have to know that were not the right fit for everybody and that's not a personal thing. Doesn't mean your bad or your good, it just means that we know that we are not for everybody. And by being on video we can get and attract and keep more of those people that need what it is that we do so much faster than any other medium out there.”
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How often are you going live and where are you showing up? Are we talking like video or just video in general?
Tiffany: For me when I'm talking about video, it’s live video. That is still predominantly what I’m doing. There's lots of things I could be doing, should be doing in my business, will be doing in the near future, but right now with my focus it's still video. So on average I'm going live once a week on my Facebook page. I make it a show and I'm getting better about committing to a specific date and time. I'm consistently on my page at least once a week. I let people know I'm going live ahead of time. You can use your email list to do that. I cross promotes depending on if I'm on Instagram, (my second favorite platform!) Facebook is my first and it's going to be different for everybody. Depends on where your ideal customer hangs out.
I do a lot of trainings inside other people's groups but I'm showing up in video in some way at least three times a week. I'm still playing around with Instagram live and I can't wait. There's no expectation of perfection which is true for all live videos. So my goal is to go live once a week on Instagram.”
How do you feel about going live on both platforms at the same time?
Tiffany: “I think very few people do it well. I think what ends up happening with most people. and everyone's different, but when I've seen it I feel like your attention is only partially on both platforms. Even if you get your cameras lined up, you know you have to have two different cameras and there are some third party softwares out there where it allows you to go live across multiple channels but it doesn't work for Instagram and Facebook. If you had the cameras lined up it still looks like part of your attention is on one platform and then other parts of your attention is on the other platform and it leaves your audience feeling like you're not completely there on all the platforms that your going live simultaneously.
If someone is really, really great at making their audience feel like they are getting the attention 100%, then do it. But for sure I don't recommend it for people who are newer to live video. I personally don't do it. I don't think that I do that well. Instead, I choose one platform at a time and I go all in. Now, if you're talking specifically about Facebook and Instagram, the live videos there looks so different as well as the capabilities of what you can do on both. Rather than do two things kind of halfway, I'd rather do it individually 100%.”
So now that we know kind of how often you're going live, when you're coming up with content, especially when you're you're heading into a launch or you're in between launches, I want to talk a little bit about strategy here and a lot of people asked me are you winging this? Are you prepping this? What does that look like for you?
Tiffany: Oh…there is no winging. It is so intentional! I truly believe everything that we do in our life or our business that 80-90% of it needs to be planned with room for white space and flexibility and we do it in pencil with a giant eraser. BUT there's so much preplanning too that happens in order to create those successful launches. Whatever it is that you're launching, if you want traffic, if you want to attract more people who need that thing that you're creating, that cannot happen by accident and you can't just announce that it's available the day it's available.
So I absolutely know and believe from my own results that I've had from relaunching the same course over and over and over again, I know that every time we relaunch it, we lengthen the amount of time we prepare for it. Winging it especially for the larger launches, there's easy ways to do certain things. But if you're doing a live launch and you're going for the whole thing, you're going for the full shebang and the big wins then you gotta set it up earlier! You have to warm up your audience which reason #2 why I love Facebook live so much.
My cost per leads are so low because I'm constantly working on building engagement, not popularity or vanity numbers but engagement. What does Facebook want? They want great content creators like us. They don't care about the numbers either but are we helping them have a great experience on Facebook. The longer they stay on your platform, the longer they stay on your video, the more they create engagement. That's so easy to do with live video it's hard to get them to engage so much with a post. With live video with the small audience you could still get so much engagement which in turn when you do launch.
You're building your audiences. You're not relying on figuring out what is my ideal customer? What are their likes? What magazines do they read? You're not relying on just that, you actually have a cold audience that you can warm up super quick through live video and in turn that will lower your cost for your Facebook/Instagram ads. That alone should be a reason why you're doing consistent video!”
What are some quick questions or things that you say to get people to engage?
Tiffany: “So in the beginning stages we all start off with nobody, with nothing and we're kind of just speaking to ourselves…which is fantastic! I want to encourage all the people who are brand spanking new to live video to know that's normal and it won't be that way forever!
The good news is that nobody is good on video in the beginning. I was terrible through my first 50-75 videos. Know that it's a skill. It's like learning to ride a bike or even more than that really, it's like learning to play new instrument or learning a brand new language. It takes time. So it's a blessing when you don't have a lot of people in the beginning, when you don't have a huge audience because it's your practice time.
Watch your videos back see where you can lovingly improve one thing at a time, not 10 things. Everything that I do I constantly take my experiences, the things that I'm doing. the things I'm learning, the people I know, the places I'm going. But there's always that and how is that important to my audience. I always make it about them. My written content and my video content. It's not about me. It's about them. How do I make it about them? How do I take the things I learn and make about them?
Sundays are my prep day and how I prepare for the week. That way I have a game plan as soon as I get up early Monday morning. I know exactly what to do and not figuring it out on Monday. What I do is, #1: I review what I've already created. So I look back to the last week or two to review what I've created, all my content on Instagram and Facebook and I figure out what content, what copy, what images, what video topics resonated the most with your audience? What I do is I constantly repurpose, recycle what worked great the first time, it works great again and it works great the 50th time and if you repeat that topic online video guess what? Not once have I ever had anybody say oh my gosh you're talking about that again right now?? We need repetition. We need to hear things. Plus you're always building a new audience!
If you guys just start changing how you reframe the exact same stories and the learning lessons and the stumbling blocks and all the things that you're experiencing and you add that additional part that most people don't do enough of. Make your customer the hero, not you. We just live in the kind of society that if we can't see picture ourselves in your shoes then they're going to find another pair of shoes. Figure it out so that you can say…and this is how you could do it too.
I want to ask you too because you do a lot of interviews and then you do a lot of solo stuff. How do you do it? Is there a strategy behind that?
Tiffany: It's both. So I think when I'm looking at content that I'm not the leading expert in (and we're not the leading expert in everything, we all have our focus!), I love bringing in my friends to do that. I personally enjoy it and I think most of my students have really come to learn to enjoy doing dual broadcast or even having 3 or 4 people on the screen. It also looks different than all of the solo life videos that you see on Facebook.
Especially on Instagram, I love that you can bring people on! Any time we can be different than what's expected. It's eye catching on the scroll on Facebook when you see more than one person on the screen and it's also just more fun. I love doing it!! I love doing interviews. I get to pretend I'm an interviewer on some show like my own talk show and the thing is this is the new media and new networks!!
So this is our opportunity just like I said in the very beginning if you say to yourself Gosh I wish I knew about this Way back when before I got so highly produced and in the beginning stages to be an early adopter Well that's what we have right in front of our hand in front of our faces. The opportunity to jump into live video now is huge. And so that's up to you whether you're gonna do it or not but literally opportunity is knocking at your door. So that's what I love about live video.”
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