For Facebook Live, Preparation and Social Engagement Are Critical

Over the past 6 months, I’ve begun to see 20–30 Facebook Live alerts per day. 有些是我认识的人寄来的, others are from news pages that I’ve liked or followed (or that my friends have reacted to), and there are still others that I bypass too quickly to categorize. Since so many of my Facebook friends are in the event video industry, I see a lot of what could generously be called “behind the scenes” (BTS) streams from a randomly placed iPhone at their events in progress. I also see a lot of personal testimonials and professional political commentaries, 我觉得这比即兴表演更有效, pseudo-BTS streams (provided the speaker has something interesting to say).

My feed also delivers a smattering of C-SPAN-type material from political press events and legislative sessions. 这些节目, 专为其他媒体设计, are interactive only in allowing live exchanges among viewers, rather than leveraging the platform with responsiveness from the 现在ers.

在一个在流媒体西部的演讲去年11月, Chad Sisneros of the Humane Society discussed in specific terms how his organization works to maximize the impact of streams delivered to its 2.500万Facebook粉丝. “这个清单真的很适合我们, so we try to take advantage of every time we do a Facebook Live stream,西斯内罗斯说. “我们练习它。. 我们把它屏蔽掉. 我们专注于视觉效果. 我们提前推广它, 发推特, put it on Facebook a couple hours ahead of time to let everybody know what’s coming.”

Most important, Sisneros says, is to engage with commenters during the 现在ation. 再次强调，准备是关键. “每次我们做Facebook直播, we try to figure out what questions are going to come up in the comments. We come up with a top 10 list of questions that we know we’re going to get, 我们与知道答案的专家合作, 提前把答案写出来. Then we have somebody else outside of the live stream working to answer those comments during the live stream.”

In the interest of seeing how other organizations are tailoring their efforts to the platform, I chose a Facebook Live show that came across my feed just before I sat down to write this column. 我看了看他们的专业水平, 准备, 关注平台的优势. The program was a biweekly, 32-minute, real-time cooking show called “库克的科学”, 由Mashable在Facebook(及联合品牌)推出. This episode focused on creating cultured butter in a live test kitchen, 并示范如何用它来煎牛排. 这并不是我一直渴望的内容, but was worthwhile as an example of a professionally produced program designed expressly for Facebook Live.

The show featured three lav-mic’d hosts in an active kitchen. 它是用两台摄像机拍摄的, 一张是三位主持人的静态照片, the other a close-up camera that usually focused on the food, 镜头之间快速溶解.

The show began and ended with a still title screen and intro-outro music. It featured Cook’s Science and Mashable branding in two places: the chef’s apron and a semi-transparent overlay in the lower-right corner. The hosts also intermittently plugged several items via verbal mentions and pinned comments: a newsletter, 他们展示的食物的食谱, 《百家乐app下载》一书的赠品, 下一集, 两周后.

The show featured animated lower-thirds with profile pictures for the hosts and occasional commenters, 包括他们回答问题的评论者. “低三分之一”的评论是一个特别好的手法, 给参与的观众临时的搭档身份. Questions were relayed aloud (somewhat clumsily) from an off-screen staffer before appearing in a comment lower-third.

除了一个喋喋不休的非厨师主持人, nothing about the show seemed designed to prize entertainment or flash over content. 但除了经常提到观众, 的评论, 小溪本身, 演出现场直播，观众参与其中, providing a solid example of how to leverage the Facebook Live platform without distracting from the primary content of the show.

本文发表于2017年4月/ 5月号 流媒体杂志 作为“厨师的Facebook Live之旅”."