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11 Cost-Effective Live Video Marketing Ideas – CMSWire

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Buzzfeed’s « Watermelon Explosion » video introduced a new era of live video marketing, with 800,000 viewers tuning in PHOTO: Buzzfeed

The emergence of live video features on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter has changed the face of content marketing.

But before we delve into the best ways to leverage a live stream, let’s take a look at why live video marketing is causing such a fuss. 

Live Video Marketing: What’s All The Fuss?

A live video is not like a pre-recorded video. By going live, a brand can broadcast its personality with a raw, visceral and authentic edge that other content marketing mediums just can’t match.

The unique benefits of live video aren’t just theoretical though. A recent study (granted, by Livestream) showed live video is more appealing to brand audiences, as 80 percent would rather watch a brand’s live video rather than read their latest blog post, while 82 percent prefer live video from a brand to social media posts.

Many brands hesitate to take advantage of this medium under the impression that to execute a live video stream well, you need lots of planning, equipment and something extremely interesting to showcase. That’s not exactly the case.

11 Cost Effective Live Stream Ideas

If you’re on a budget or in an industry that doesn’t immediately seem interesting, here are some cost effective ideas to bolster your live video marketing campaigns.

1. QA and AMA Sessions

If your audience has questions, you can now answer them live in front of the camera.

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of New York City-based Vaynermedia, regularly hosts his show, “Ask Gary Vee” on Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Some episodes gather over 450,000 viewers.

He invites viewers to comment on the live stream with their phone numbers before calling a handful one at a time to answer their burning questions live for all to hear and see.

2. Debates

A spirited debate has always been a great way to draw a crowd.

Italian women’s magazine Grazia leveraged the buzz around Brexit by hosting and live streaming a roundtable debate regarding the UK’s move away from the European Union.

While international politics may not be relevant to your audience, you can always gather a few thought leaders from your industry to discuss whichever topic would resonate with your viewers.

3. Behind-The-Scenes Tours

Your audience regularly sees the front-facing components of your business — but they never get to peek behind the curtains.

With a live video stream, you can give your audience a tour of your offices, factories or anywhere else that’s not typically seen by outsiders. NBC succeeded with this strategy when it sent anchor Lester Holt onto Facebook Live to showcase its new studio.

4. Product Unboxings and Demos

Unboxing videos are extremely popular, with many simple unboxing videos attracting tens of millions of views on YouTube.

By extension, your audience will likely be interested in tuning into a live stream where you unbox your latest product or a popular gadget that they’ve been looking forward to trying.

5. Interviews

Your brand could be the go-to source for interviews with thought leaders in your industry.

You can start by interviewing your CEO and other executives before putting other relevant personalities in front of the camera. Buzzfeed ran with this idea and managed to get an interview with Barack Obama back in 2016, streaming the interview live via Facebook and YouTube.

6. News Snippets

If your industry is constantly popping with news, you can become the go-to niche news source.

A 24-hour stream is ambitious to say the least, but you could certainly go live at regular intervals in order to give people a quick update. The popular technology news network, TwiT regularly goes live on YouTube to break news and discuss trends in the tech scene.

7. How-To Videos

Being a source of entertainment and education at the same time is powerful. If somebody in your company can jump in front of a camera and show an audience how to do something practical for the sake of their business or personal life — they should.

Martha Stewart’s ongoing Facebook Live streamed cooking show has done wonders for her brand, with some episodes bringing in over 57,000 viewers.

8. Announcements

Got a new product or service to announce? A press release is OK, but a live video unveiling is approximately a million times better.

You can build up to the live stream by alerting your audience to a new and exciting announcement coming their way, teasing the date and time. It’s a great way to build buzz and gather a live audience at the same time. After the announcement, you can open up the floor for questions.

Italian Soccer club Juventus recently used Facebook Live to announce the signing of Douglas Costa, a high profile player. The video, which showed him landing in Turin, Italy, attracted over 570,000 viewers.

9. Event Coverage

Hosting an event? That provides the perfect excuse to go live before, during and after the occasion.

For example, Cisco Live 2017 — which attracted over 27,000 attendees and 42,000 Facebook Live viewers — was streamed live from beginning to end via both Facebook and Twitter. Their stream was impressively professional, but yours doesn’t have to be. Even a simple stream of the main stage during the event would bring in some viewers.

10. Fun Challenges

Good old fashioned entertainment is also a great way to attract live viewers.

BuzzFeed’s watermelon video was one of the earliest brand uses of Facebook Live. The 45-minute video centered entirely on two people taking turns putting elastic bands around a watermelon, just to see how many it would take before it exploded. The suspense and resulting watermelon explosion was enough to draw in 800,000 viewers.

11 . Nothing in Particular

It turns out live streaming nothing in particular is surprisingly effective.

Live streams set up at busy intersections and above large puddles gathered over 2,200 live viewers. Nobody quite understands why these seemingly mundane live streams perform so well. Maybe it’s the people-watching element involved, or simply the comfort of an unproduced, authentic glimpse of the world.

Whatever the reason, you might want to consider setting up a live stream of your retail outlet or staff lounge.

Be Part of the Content Marketing Revolution

Going live is still a relatively avant-garde marketing tactic — but live video marketing is undoubtedly driving content marketing into the future. Use any of the ideas above as a starting point to dip your toes in the live video marketing waters. 

Have a live video marketing idea of your own? Share in the comments below.

In tweet storm, Trump decries ‘illegal leaks’ and asserts ‘all agree’ he has complete power to pardon

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NORFOLK — A defiant President Trump unleashed a flurry of nearly a dozen tweets Saturday morning, asserting that he has the “complete power to pardon” aides, family members and possibly even himself — an apparent response to the special counsel’s widening Russia probe — and decrying “illegal leaks” in the “FAKE NEWS.”

The president also lashed out at a new Washington Post report of previously undisclosed alleged contacts between Attorney General Jeff Sessions — at the time a U.S. senator and senior adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — and a Russian official. In a tweet, Trump called the disclosures an illegal new “intelligence leak,” part of his continuing effort to try to shift the public focus to what he claims is a partisan attempt to undermine his presidency.

The president’s defense of his pardoning authority came days after The Post reported that he and his legal team have discussed his power to pardon those close to him, including himself.

Shortly after his tweet storm, which started just after 6:30 a.m. and lasted nearly two hours, Trump flew to Norfolk, where he injected a small dose of partisan politics into the ceremonial commissioning of a new naval warship.

Speaking aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford, Trump extolled the virtues of the “wonderful, beautiful but very, very powerful” nuclear-powered warship — “We will win, win, win,” he said, “we will never lose” — but also decried the budget compromise known as sequestration, which requires mandatory and corresponding military and domestic cuts.

Trump promised to try to restore higher levels of military funding but also urged the crowd of about 6,500 — many in uniform — to help him push this year’s budget, in which he said he will seek an additional $54 billion in defense spending, through Congress.

“I don’t mind getting a little hand, so call that congressman and call that senator and make sure you get it,” he said, to applause. “And by the way, you can also call those senators to make sure you get health care.”

But Trump’s brief appeal created a potentially awkward tableau at a commissioning event intended to be ceremonial — a commander in chief offering political remarks, and what could even be construed as an order, to the naval officers he commands.

The president’s 17-minute speech aboard the naval vessel here, as well as his frenzied social media assertions Saturday — which veered between proclamations of innocence and frustration — came as Trump is struggling to stabilize his presidency, just six months in. He and several family members, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, are facing mounting legal questions about their involvement in possible collusion between the president’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

On Friday, Trump implemented the most dramatic, if potentially unintended, overhaul of his White House so far, installing wealthy financier Anthony Scaramucci as his new communications director — a move that set off an unexpected chain reaction of resignations (White House press secretary Sean Spicer) and promotions (deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, into Spicer’s spot at the podium).

Trump’s morning tweets began with an assertion that the president has “complete power to pardon” in an apparent allusion to the ongoing probe into his campaign’s contacts with Russian officials.

The president’s defense of his pardon powers came days after The Post reported that he and his legal team have discussed his power to pardon aides, family members and, possibly, even himself. Trump aides said the president is merely curious about his powers and the limits of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russia’s attempt to tamper with the 2016 presidential election.

Currently, the discussions of pardoning authority by Trump’s legal team are purely theoretical, according to two people familiar with the ongoing conversations. But if Trump pardoned himself in the face of the ongoing Mueller investigation, it would set off a legal and political firestorm, first around the question of whether a president can use the constitutional pardon power in that way.

In another tweet, Trump continued his campaign to discredit the investigation as based on leaks of information from political enemies aimed at undermining him. The Post reported late Friday that U.S. intelligence officials had collected information that Russia’s ambassador to the United States had told superiors that he had discussed campaign-related matters and policies important to Moscow last year with Jeff Sessions, then a senator who had endorsed Trump.

As he has before, Trump also reiterated on Twitter his view that Hillary Clinton’s campaign should be under greater scrutiny, and he contended that his son Donald Trump Jr. “openly” disclosed emails concerning a meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign — even though Trump Jr. did so after the New York Times obtained the emails and was preparing to publish a report on them.

[Analysis: Can Trump pardon anyone? Himself? Can he fire Mueller? Your questions, answered.]

Sessions, who is now attorney general, had initially failed to disclose his meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during his confirmation process. When they were made public in news reports, he insisted he had met with Kislyak only in his capacity as a senator and had not discussed campaign issues. But The Post reported that U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted communications that showed Kislyak indicated he had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.

Trump has denounced what he has called illegal leaks in the ongoing FBI investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russian officials. U.S. intelligence agencies have said Moscow meddled in the campaign, stealing thousands of emails and other documents from Democratic Party officials and releasing them publicly to embarrass the Democratic presidential nominee, Clinton, and to assist Trump. Trump has said repeatedly that he did not collude with Russian officials and called accounts of the meetings between his campaign and Russian operatives a partisan attack by Democrats to avenge their loss in the election. But he and some of his top aides have hired private criminal defense lawyers to deal with the probe.

[Retropolis: Like Trump, Nixon was obsessed with leaks. It led to Watergate — and ruin.]

In his tweet, Trump was referring to former FBI director James B. Comey, whom the president fired over his handling of the Russia probe. Comey later testified to Congress that he had felt pressure from Trump over the investigation and, after he was dismissed, released memos of his encounters with Trump to the media. The public disclosures helped lead to Mueller taking over the investigation. (Trump’s tweet also refers to Amazon.com, the online retailer led by Jeffrey P. Bezos, who also owns The Post.)

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on what she called a “wholly uncorroborated intelligence intercept” and reiterated that Sessions had not discussed interference in the election. Trump has been angered by Sessions recusing himself from the Russia probe. The president told the New York Times this week that he would not have named Sessions as attorney general if he had known he would do so.

In yet another tweet, Trump attacked the Times for reports that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose death in a Russian airstrike had been speculated last month, is still alive, according to Pentagon officials. Gen. Tony Thomas told reporters that a Times story in 2015 about using certain data to track Islamic State fighters that was gleaned in the Abu Sayyaf raid resulted in U.S. forces losing the trail to Baghdadi. Thomas mentioned the issue again at the Aspen security forum Friday, and his remarks were featured in a Fox News report, according to the Times.

The Pentagon raised no objections with The Times before the story was published, and no senior American official ever complained publicly about it until now.

His tweets came a day after Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary in the wake of Trump’s hiring of New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as his communications director. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was promoted to the press secretary role.

[Sean Spicer snagged a dream job — but at a price]

Congress Reaches Deal on Russia Sanctions, Setting Up Tough Choice for Trump

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The agreement highlighted the gap between what Mr. Trump sees as the proper approach to a resurgent Russia and how lawmakers — even Republicans who broadly support Mr. Trump — want to proceed. While Mr. Trump has dangled the possibility of negotiating a deal to lift sanctions, Mr. Putin’s top objective, the congressional response is to expand them.

The White House did not respond publicly to the legislation. But two senior administration officials said they could not imagine Mr. Trump vetoing the measure in the current political atmosphere, even if he regards it as interfering with his executive authority to conduct foreign policy. But as ever, Mr. Trump retains the capacity to surprise, and this would be his first decision about whether to veto a significant bill.

Congress has complicated his choice because the legislation also encompasses new sanctions against Iran and North Korea, two countries the administration has been eager to punish for their activities.

There are still hurdles to clear in a Capitol where the Republican majorities have been reticent to confront Mr. Trump. Some party leaders were silent about the agreement on Saturday, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Others took care to note the misdeeds of all three countries being targeted for sanctions.

In a statement from two California Republicans — Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, and Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — the lawmakers said, “North Korea, Iran and Russia have in different ways all threatened their neighbors and actively sought to undermine American interests.”

They added, “The bill the House will vote on next week will now exclusively focus on these nations and hold them accountable for their dangerous actions.”

A spokeswoman for Speaker Paul D. Ryan, AshLee Strong, said the bill “would hold three bad actors to account.”

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A sanctions package had stalled in the Republican-led House for weeks after winning near-unanimous support in the Senate last month. Democrats accused Republicans of delaying quick action on the bill at the behest of the Trump administration, which had asked for more flexibility in its relationship with Russia and took up the cause of oil and gas companies, defense contractors and other financial players who suggested that certain provisions could undercut profits.

The House version of the bill includes a small number of changes, technical and substantive, from the Senate legislation, including some made in response to concerns raised by American energy companies.

Those tweaks — and the addition of North Korea sanctions to a Senate package that included only Russia and Iran, months after the House approved sanctions against North Korea by a vote of 419 to 1 — helped end the impasse.

The House version of the bill was set for a vote on Tuesday, according to Mr. McCarthy’s office.

The agreement comes at a particularly uncomfortable moment for the White House. Sanctions are central to the mystery over Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer and others on June 9, 2016, where he said the topic of adoption came up. That was a reference to Mr. Putin’s decision to ban American adoptions of Russian children in response to sanctions Congress passed over human rights issues.

The discussions that the president’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, held with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the transition were also said to be about sanctions, including President Barack Obama’s decision, in his last weeks in office, to evict Russia from two of its diplomatic compounds in the United States. Mr. Trump must soon decide whether to return them.

For months, lawmakers have agreed on the need to punish Russia, separating the issue from others, such as immigration and health care, that have been mired in partisan wheel-spinning. The unity has placed Republicans in the unusual position of undercutting their own president on a particularly awkward subject.

Yet politically, the collaboration delivers benefits to members of both parties. Democrats have sought to make Russia pay for its 2016 election interference, which many of them believe contributed to Mr. Trump’s triumph over Hillary Clinton. And Republicans, who have long placed an aggressive stance toward Russia at the center of their foreign policy, can quiet critics who have suggested they are shielding the president from scrutiny by failing to embrace the sanctions.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said he expected this “strong” bill to reach the president’s desk promptly “on a broad bipartisan basis.”

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In the House, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the minority whip, praised the agreement’s stipulation that “the majority and minority are able to exercise our oversight role over the administration’s implementation of sanctions.”

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, registered concerns about adding sanctions against North Korea to the package, questioning whether it would prompt delays in the Senate. Mr. Schumer and Mr. Cardin expressed no such anxieties.

As House Republican leaders like Mr. Ryan chafed at the suggestion that they were doing the White House’s bidding by not taking up the measure immediately, the administration sought to pressure members by insisting that the legislation would unduly hamstring the president.

Mr. Trump’s aversion to sanctions targeting Russia is not new. During the campaign, he questioned whether the United States should retain existing sanctions on Russia, imposed after Mr. Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine.

Under the wording in the legislative deal, it would be difficult, but not impossible, for the president to undercut sanctions without congressional approval.

The administration could stall in identifying individuals and companies subject to new sanctions. To lift existing sanctions related to Ukraine, Mr. Trump would have to certify that the conditions that prompted them had been reversed.

And to end sanctions over Russian cyberattacks, he would have to provide similar evidence that Russia had tried to reduce the number and intensity of such intrusions, an unlikely prospect.

Mr. Trump still regularly questions the intelligence showing that Russia sought to interfere in the election. He has suggested that because evidence was processed by people he deems hostile to his White House — including Obama administration officials and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director he fired — the conclusion is inherently tainted.


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Read Anthony Scaramucci’s old tweets. You’ll understand why he deleted them.

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New White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci hasn’t always shared the political views of the administration he now serves.

In previous tweets, the Wall Street financier called Hillary Clinton “incredibly competent” and appeared to be at odds with his new boss on issues such as gun control, climate change, Islam and illegal immigration.

But on Saturday, the day after he became Trump’s communications director, he announced on Twitter that he’s deleting his old tweets, which he said are only a distraction.

“The politics of ‘gotcha’ are over. I have thick skin and we’re moving on to @POTUS agenda serving the American people,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet nearly two hours later.

Scaramucci’s old tweets began resurfacing Friday. Some have been deleted, but they’ve since been immortalized by other Twitter users:

In a pair of 2012 tweets, one of which has not yet been deleted, he said that the United States has too many guns and that he’s “always been for strong gun control laws.”

“We (the USA) has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s guns,” he wrote in the deleted tweet. “Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls.”

Laura Goldman, who said she is friends with Scaramucci, came to his defense on the policy matter Saturday, saying his 2012 tweet advocating gun control was a response to her.

« He answered because that’s the kind of guy he is. … He shouldn’t be crucified for his politeness in answering tweets to a friend before he starts his job, » Goldman said in an email to The Post.

[At the White House, an abrupt chain reaction: Spicer out; Scaramucci and Sanders in]

Scaramucci also praised former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in 2011 for staying out of the “Trump spectacle” and called former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, an “odd guy” who’s “so smart with no judgment.”

A few other tweets still appear to be on Scaramucci’s profile.

In another 2012 post, he appeared to be advocating liberal causes, describing himself as “for Gay Marriage, against the death penalty, and Pro Choice.”

That same year, he said: “I like Hillary. Have to go with the best athlete. We need to turn this around.”

In a 2016 tweet that appears to contradict Trump’s previous statements against Islam, he said:

He railed against climate-change deniers:

“You can take steps to combat climate change without crippling the economy. The fact many people still believe CC is a hoax is disheartening,” he tweeted in 2016.

And against Trump’s plan for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border:

“Walls don’t work. Never have never will. The Berlin Wall 1961-1989 don’t fall for it,” he tweeted in 2015.

He also appeared to favor another former Republican presidential candidate over Trump:

In a 2015 Fox Business Network interview, Scaramucci called Trump a “hack” and a bully and said he didn’t like how the presidential candidate talked about women.

“He’s a hack politician. … I’ll tell you who he’s going to be president of — you can tell Donald I said this — the Queens County bullies association,” he said.

Now Scaramucci has shifted from criticizing Trump to telling reporters several times he loves the president. He also apologized for calling Trump a hack and said the president still reminds him of his previous comments.

[Scaramucci took winding path but finally landed a top job with Trump]

“I should have never said that about him,” he told reporters at his first press briefing Friday, adding later: “Mr. President, if you’re listening, I personally apologize for the 50th time for saying that.”

Trump weighed in Saturday morning, saying Scaramucci wanted to endorse him but didn’t know he was going to run. But as The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake pointed out, Trump had been a candidate for a month when Scaramucci called him a hack.

 

READ MORE:

Scaramucci: Previous criticism of Trump was one of his ‘biggest mistakes’

Passed over for White House job, Trump supporter finds his way back among Wall Street elite

Scaramucci once called climate change denial ‘disheartening.’ Then he took a job with Trump

The Trump administration is using Obamacare marketing dollars to attack Obamacare

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President Trump keeps saying Obamacare will fail on its own. So why is his administration trying so hard to kill it?

The latest effort was uncovered by the Daily Beast website, which reported Thursday that Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services was dipping into its “consumer information and outreach” budget — money Congress provided to encourage people to obtain insurance through Obamacare — to produce nearly two dozen YouTube videos blasting the law as burdensome and harmful.

That’s certainly a novel interpretation of “outreach.” Worse, the Affordable Care Act isn’t necessarily to blame for the sometimes heartrending problems cited by the consumers in the videos. For example, one person complained about potentially staggering out-of-pocket costs he thought he faced, unaware that the healthcare law caps them at a far lower level. Another said the act’s Medicaid expansion steered money to “able-bodied adults” at the expense of her special-needs son, when the real cause of her son’s benefit cuts was the huge budget deficit in her home state of Illinois.

Sadly, using Obamacare marketing dollars to make what amounts to a series of Obamacare attack ads is no more cynical than the refusal by the administration and the GOP-controlled Congress to repay insurers for the roughly $7 billion in subsidies the law requires them to provide — at the federal government’s expense — to help low-income Americans with their out-of-pocket healthcare costs. Or the Internal Revenue Service making it easier to evade the act’s requirement that adult Americans obtain coverage, thereby inviting younger, healthier people to go uninsured. Insurers say those two steps alone are driving up premiums and reducing competition in the market for people not covered by a large employer’s health plan.

11 Cost-Effective Live Video Marketing Ideas

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Buzzfeed’s « Watermelon Explosion » video introduced a new era of live video marketing, with 800,000 viewers tuning in PHOTO: Buzzfeed

The emergence of live video features on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter has changed the face of content marketing.

But before we delve into the best ways to leverage a live stream, let’s take a look at why live video marketing is causing such a fuss. 

Live Video Marketing: What’s All The Fuss?

A live video is not like a pre-recorded video. By going live, a brand can broadcast its personality with a raw, visceral and authentic edge that other content marketing mediums just can’t match.

The unique benefits of live video aren’t just theoretical though. A recent study (granted, by Livestream) showed live video is more appealing to brand audiences, as 80 percent would rather watch a brand’s live video rather than read their latest blog post, while 82 percent prefer live video from a brand to social media posts.

Many brands hesitate to take advantage of this medium under the impression that to execute a live video stream well, you need lots of planning, equipment and something extremely interesting to showcase. That’s not exactly the case.

11 Cost Effective Live Stream Ideas

If you’re on a budget or in an industry that doesn’t immediately seem interesting, here are some cost effective ideas to bolster your live video marketing campaigns.

1. QA and AMA Sessions

If your audience has questions, you can now answer them live in front of the camera.

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of New York City-based Vaynermedia, regularly hosts his show, “Ask Gary Vee” on Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Some episodes gather over 450,000 viewers.

He invites viewers to comment on the live stream with their phone numbers before calling a handful one at a time to answer their burning questions live for all to hear and see.

2. Debates

A spirited debate has always been a great way to draw a crowd.

Italian women’s magazine Grazia leveraged the buzz around Brexit by hosting and live streaming a roundtable debate regarding the UK’s move away from the European Union.

While international politics may not be relevant to your audience, you can always gather a few thought leaders from your industry to discuss whichever topic would resonate with your viewers.

3. Behind-The-Scenes Tours

Your audience regularly sees the front-facing components of your business — but they never get to peek behind the curtains.

With a live video stream, you can give your audience a tour of your offices, factories or anywhere else that’s not typically seen by outsiders. NBC succeeded with this strategy when it sent anchor Lester Holt onto Facebook Live to showcase its new studio.

4. Product Unboxings and Demos

Unboxing videos are extremely popular, with many simple unboxing videos attracting tens of millions of views on YouTube.

By extension, your audience will likely be interested in tuning into a live stream where you unbox your latest product or a popular gadget that they’ve been looking forward to trying.

5. Interviews

Your brand could be the go-to source for interviews with thought leaders in your industry.

You can start by interviewing your CEO and other executives before putting other relevant personalities in front of the camera. Buzzfeed ran with this idea and managed to get an interview with Barack Obama back in 2016, streaming the interview live via Facebook and YouTube.

6. News Snippets

If your industry is constantly popping with news, you can become the go-to niche news source.

A 24-hour stream is ambitious to say the least, but you could certainly go live at regular intervals in order to give people a quick update. The popular technology news network, TwiT regularly goes live on YouTube to break news and discuss trends in the tech scene.

7. How-To Videos

Being a source of entertainment and education at the same time is powerful. If somebody in your company can jump in front of a camera and show an audience how to do something practical for the sake of their business or personal life — they should.

Martha Stewart’s ongoing Facebook Live streamed cooking show has done wonders for her brand, with some episodes bringing in over 57,000 viewers.

8. Announcements

Got a new product or service to announce? A press release is OK, but a live video unveiling is approximately a million times better.

You can build up to the live stream by alerting your audience to a new and exciting announcement coming their way, teasing the date and time. It’s a great way to build buzz and gather a live audience at the same time. After the announcement, you can open up the floor for questions.

Italian Soccer club Juventus recently used Facebook Live to announce the signing of Douglas Costa, a high profile player. The video, which showed him landing in Turin, Italy, attracted over 570,000 viewers.

9. Event Coverage

Hosting an event? That provides the perfect excuse to go live before, during and after the occasion.

For example, Cisco Live 2017 — which attracted over 27,000 attendees and 42,000 Facebook Live viewers — was streamed live from beginning to end via both Facebook and Twitter. Their stream was impressively professional, but yours doesn’t have to be. Even a simple stream of the main stage during the event would bring in some viewers.

10. Fun Challenges

Good old fashioned entertainment is also a great way to attract live viewers.

BuzzFeed’s watermelon video was one of the earliest brand uses of Facebook Live. The 45-minute video centered entirely on two people taking turns putting elastic bands around a watermelon, just to see how many it would take before it exploded. The suspense and resulting watermelon explosion was enough to draw in 800,000 viewers.

11 . Nothing in Particular

It turns out live streaming nothing in particular is surprisingly effective.

Live streams set up at busy intersections and above large puddles gathered over 2,200 live viewers. Nobody quite understands why these seemingly mundane live streams perform so well. Maybe it’s the people-watching element involved, or simply the comfort of an unproduced, authentic glimpse of the world.

Whatever the reason, you might want to consider setting up a live stream of your retail outlet or staff lounge.

Be Part of the Content Marketing Revolution

Going live is still a relatively avant-garde marketing tactic — but live video marketing is undoubtedly driving content marketing into the future. Use any of the ideas above as a starting point to dip your toes in the live video marketing waters. 

Have a live video marketing idea of your own? Share in the comments below.

Minneapolis chief resigns after shooting of Australian woman

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Minneapolis police Chief Janee Harteau says she is « willing to step aside to let a fresh set of leadership eyes » be in charge of the department, which has been criticized in the wake of last weekend’s fatal police shooting of an unarmed Australian woman who had called 911.

Harteau’s resignation Friday came at the request of Mayor Betsy Hodges, who said she lost confidence in the chief’s « ability to lead us further. » She said she asked Harteau to step down after assessing where the department needs to go.

« For us to continue to transform policing — and community trust in policing — we need new leadership at MPD, » Hodges said.

Harteau, who worked her way up from the bottom of the department to become the city’s first female, first openly gay and first Native American police chief, said Friday that she was proud of the work she accomplished and honored to serve as chief. But she said the shooting of 40-year-old Justine Damond by one of her officers and other incidents « have caused me to engage in deep reflection. »

The chief, who once successfully filed a discrimination and sexual harassment complaint against the police force along with her partner, said she must « put the communities we serve first » despite the department’s accomplishments under her leadership.

Harteau was out of the city on personal time for nearly a week following last Saturday’s shooting of Damond, a life coach and bride-to-be who was killed by an officer responding to her 911 call of a possible rape.

The state is investigating the shooting. In her first remarks on the case Thursday when she returned to work, Harteau defended the training of Mohamed Noor, the Somali-American officer who shot Damond, but was sharply critical of him.

Still, some City Council members called for a change in leadership.

Linea Palmisano, who represents the ward where Damond died, told fellow council members that she was « done with image control and crisis management » and that it’s « time for action. » After Harteau’s resignation, Palmisano said she looks forward to the start of changes that she feels the department needs to make.

Shortly after the announcement, Hodges nominated Assistant Chief Medaria Arradondo to be the next chief. Nicknamed « Rondo, » he served as the department’s public face after Damond’s shooting while Harteau was out of town. Arradondo, who is African-American, has been with the department since 1989.

Later Friday, Hodges called a news conference at City Hall to elaborate on Harteau’s departure, but she was interrupted by a few dozen protesters who entered the room and demanded that she resign, too. They chanted « Bye-bye Betsy » while waving signs that said « Messy Betsy » and « You are next. » Hodges eventually walked out as they surrounded her at the podium, but she returned later to take questions from reporters.

She said she understands and shares the public’s frustrations, but « I will not be resigning. »

Harteau, who started as a beat cop in 1987 at age 22 and was appointed chief in 2012, had become a political liability for Hodges, who faces several challengers in a tough re-election fight.

Their relationship was strained, particularly after the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark during a confrontation with two white police officers in 2015. The black man’s death, amid heightened tensions around the U.S., sparked protests citywide that included an 18-day occupation outside the police station on the city’s north side. A U.S. Department of Justice review faulted poor communications between the mayor and chief.

Harteau and Hodges clashed again in April when Hodges blocked Harteau’s promotion of Lt. John Delmonico to lead the Fourth Precinct, after the chief had already made the public announcement. Delmonico had been a critic of the mayor when he headed the police union.

And it didn’t help that Harteau was out of town when Damond was killed. Harteau, who said she was backpacking in an area with limited cellphone reception, told reporters Thursday that it would have been « challenging » to return but that she had kept in touch with her command staff.

Police union president Bob Kroll said Harteau’s resignation is a much-needed change for the department and that she handled Damond’s shooting poorly. He said after being gone for days, she returned and « basically throws the whole department under the bus. »

He said he agrees with protesters that Hodges should be next to go, adding that the move against the chief was a political one for Hodges.

The mayor rejected that notion, saying she made the decision because she’s making the city a priority.

Harteau and her longtime patrol partner, Holly Keegel, were featured in a 1990 episode of the reality TV series « Cops. » The partners endured years of harassment from some male colleagues, and it escalated to the point where they felt endangered because they weren’t getting help when they would call for backup. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights upheld their discrimination and sexual harassment complaint, which led to discipline against some officers and changes in training.

Harteau and Keegel got married in 2013 after gay marriage became legal in Minnesota. Harteau told the Star Tribune a year later that they had separated amid the strains of her being chief.

The chief was honored as grand marshal of the city’s annual Pride Parade three years ago. But in June, organizers asked law enforcement to minimize their participation due to tensions over a suburban Minneapolis police officer’s recent acquittal in last summer’s fatal shooting of black motorist Philando Castile.

Harteau said she was « beyond disappointed » that she was not consulted beforehand, but later persuaded organizers to welcome LGBT officers after all.

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Associated Press writer Kyle Potter contributed from St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Sean Spicer Resigns as White House Press Secretary

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“I think there’s been, at times, a disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president and the way some of you perhaps see the president,” Mr. Scaramucci said during a news conference that kicked off with his announcement of Ms. Sanders’s new job.

Anthony Scaramucci at Trump Tower last year. Mr. Scaramucci, who founded the global investment firm SkyBridge Capital and is a Fox News contributor, is known for his spirited on-air defense of President Trump.


Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

“I certainly see the American people probably see the president the way I do,” he added, contradicting a raft of recent polls showing Mr. Trump’s approval rating below 40 percent nationally. “But we want to get that message out there.”

In a statement on Friday night, Mr. Trump said, “Anthony is a person I have great respect for,” and went on to describe the problem he hopes he will solve. “We have accomplished so much, and we are being given credit for so little,” he said. “The good news is the people get it, even if the media doesn’t.”

In a tweet late Friday, Mr. Trump also called Mr. Spicer “a wonderful person who took tremendous abuse from the Fake News Media – but his future is bright!”

Mr. Spicer’s departure ends an excruciating saga even for a highly factionalized White House riven with intrigue. He had hoped to last a year as press secretary. He quit after six months and a day.

A former spokesman and strategist for the Republican National Committee, Mr. Spicer was a frequent target of the president’s ire during the first few months of the administration. He attained a notoriety unusual for a presidential spokesman, his combative style spawning a caricature on “Saturday Night Live.”

Mr. Trump expressed gratitude for Mr. Spicer’s service in a statement and predicted that Mr. Spicer will succeed in the future. “Just look at his great television ratings,” he said.

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The resignation is a blow to the embattled White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman who brought Mr. Spicer into the West Wing despite skepticism from Mr. Trump, who initially questioned his loyalty. Mr. Scaramucci described his relationship with Mr. Priebus as a brotherly one where they “rough each other up,” and he called Mr. Priebus a “good friend.”

Graphic

All Joking Aside, Here’s How Sean Spicer Shook Up the White House Press Briefing

Mr. Spicer typically calls on media organizations outside the mainstream before getting to more traditional news outlets.


During the transition, Mr. Trump had planned to appoint Mr. Scaramucci, 52, a Harvard Law School graduate, as the director of his office of public liaison, but the offer was revoked at the request of Mr. Priebus, who had concerns about Mr. Scaramucci’s overseas investments. An aide to Mr. Priebus said he had not blocked it, but merely tried to slow it down.

Mr. Scaramucci’s appointment came two months after the previous communications director, Mike Dubke, stepped down as the official in charge of Mr. Trump’s messaging. The eventual appointment of Mr. Scaramucci was backed by the president’s daughter Ivanka, Mr. Kushner and the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, officials said.

Mr. Kushner has grown increasingly critical of both Mr. Spicer and Mr. Priebus, whom he regards as party establishment figures who operate out of self-interest. He also supported Mr. Trump’s decision to supplant Marc E. Kasowitz as his lead attorney on matters pertaining to Russia, according to people familiar with the situation.

Mr. Priebus and Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, both strongly opposed the appointment of Mr. Scaramucci — in large part because he enjoys an easy banter and direct line to Mr. Trump, potentially threatening their positions, four people briefed on the discussions said. People close to both men insisted they had not opposed the move by the president.

Mr. Trump, aggravated by their opposition, dressed the pair down in a testy Oval Office exchange around the time he decided to offer Mr. Scaramucci — known in Trump’s circle as “The Mooch” — the job.

The president, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, said one of the reasons he hired Mr. Scaramucci was to cut down on anonymous leaking — and took a swipe at his two advisers.

He asked them how the leaks were happening, according to a person familiar with the discussions, and called Mr. Spicer a “good guy” who leaks only when told to by Mr. Priebus.


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Mr. Scaramucci met with Mr. Priebus on Friday, according to a West Wing official, and the two agreed to work together. When the pair joined Mr. Spicer in the second-floor office of the press secretary in a show of unity, applause could be heard echoing down the hallway.

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But senior officials, including Ms. Sanders, were said to be stunned by the sudden shuffle.

While Ms. Sanders will preside at the daily briefing most days, Mr. Trump has told his advisers he is open to rotating new people into the slot. He is said to be especially high on Sebastian Gorka, a blustery foreign policy official who has been accused of having ties to far-right groups in Europe.

During the transition, Mr. Priebus and Mr. Spicer stocked the press shop with their associates from the Republican National Committee, rankling Trump campaign loyalists who reminded the president that Mr. Priebus had suggested he drop out of the race after an “Access Hollywood” tape of Mr. Trump’s comments about women became public.

Mr. Priebus urged Mr. Trump to hire Mr. Spicer and another lieutenant, Katie Walsh, as deputy chief of staff. But Ms. Walsh left the White House after a short time when Mr. Kushner and other West Wing officials forced her out, without Mr. Priebus objecting.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer did not have a close relationship, but the two spent hours together and Mr. Trump said he felt sorry for the ridicule his press secretary received because of his portrayal on “Saturday Night Live.” He repeatedly told aides to convey to Mr. Spicer that he wanted him to stay.

But by the six-month mark of Mr. Trump’s presidency, both men had had enough of each other.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump had told people that Mr. Spicer was no longer “tough,” one of the harshest insults he can level. And Mr. Spicer told friends he was tired of being blindsided by Mr. Trump, and weary of Mr. Trump’s constant criticism. He instituted the highly contentious practice of holding off-camera briefings, less so to snub reporters than to avoid Mr. Trump’s critiques of his performance, according to one of Mr. Spicer’s friends.

The end came in operatic fashion, befitting Mr. Scaramucci’s namesake — a stock character in Italian musical theater. As Mr. Scaramucci made his big entrance, Mr. Spicer exited quietly, disheartened that the president never quite appreciated his performance.


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