Alexa James' Blogger: 12 Types of Facebook Live Videos that You Could Create to Help You Grow Your Blog and Business

This week we’re taking a deep dive into Facebook Live Video and how you can use it as a blogger to deepen relationships with your readers, build your profile, extend your reach on Facebook and much more.

Yesterday I shared 10 benefits of giving Facebook Live video a go and tomorrow I’m going to give you over 25 practical tips on how to use it effectively – but today I want to show you a variety of different types of Facebook Live videos that I’ve tried and that I’m seeing others use.

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I’ve embedded a number of videos into this post – all were shot using FB live.

7 Types of Facebook Live Videos I have Created

I’m still relatively new to using Facebook Live having only done regular ones this last month – but already I’ve tried a number of formats of Facebook Live videos including:

1. Ask me Anything (AMA)

By far the most successful (in terms of reach, views and engagement) attempts I’ve had so far have been when I’ve jumped onto FB Live simply to take questions. I’ve done this the previous two Friday nights and on both occasions had a great time but have also had some really encouraging feedback.

I have the advantage here of having enough followers to get a decent amount of people join the session to be able to generate enough questions to keep me going however a smaller page could also do this if they promoted the AMA in advance and/or if they asked readers for questions in advance so that they had a few to keep them going.

If you’ve got a spare hour…. here’s the last one I did:

2. Behind the Scenes

The day we launched tickets for this year’s ProBlogger Training Event I jumped on Facebook live during the launch (here’s the replay).

I did this partly to build some buzz and promote the event but also partly to field questions that came in about the launch as tickets went live.

3. Teaching Presentations

I’ve done a number of videos that have been almost like mini keynote presentations where I’ve given some tips on some aspect of blogging.

Here’s an embed of one that I did on a FAQ that I get – How many times should a blogger publish posts:

Here’s another one that I did earlier in the year when I first started to experiment with FB live in which I actually turned the camera around to show some slides on my computer to make it even more of a keynote like experience.

Here’s one from Michael Hyatt who used a TV to show his slides – a great idea.

4. Announcements

While in San Diego at a conference I jumped on FB Live to announce Brian Fanzo as one of our keynote speakers for this year’s event.

Being on location and taking people into a conversation with Brian live gave those watching a sense of who he is and helped build a little buzz for the event.

5. Event Recaps

Immediately after Social Media Marketing World in San Diego I decided to do a recap of the event.

This was a great way to quickly share a lot of the themes of the event but also to be able to share it with the event hashtag on Twitter after the event meant it got shared around a fair bit.

I could imagine doing this at future events either at the end of each day or even to do end of session summaries for followers.

6. Thoughts for the Day

In the following video I got a little more reflective while out for a walk on a beach and shared a thought for the day (as well as showing where I was which went over well too).

7. Promoting Content/Newsletter

Over on Digital Photography School I’ve done just a couple of Facebook Live videos so far on our Facebook page – both of which were recaps of content that we’d published on the blog during the last week.

In both cases I simply walked readers through the posts that we’d linked to in our weekly newsletter. I encouraged them to go read the posts but also to subscribe to the newsletter.

On both occasions I flipped the camera around and showed them the posts on my computer. Both went over well. Here’s a replay of the first one I did (here’s the 2nd one).

5 More Potential Uses for Facebook Live

The ways that you could use Facebook Live are of course many and only limited by your imagination. Here’s a five more that come to mind (feel free to suggest more in comments).

1. Guest Presenters/AMAs

I love the experiments that Social Media Examiner have been doing on their Facebook page with Live video. One of the things they’ve tried is letting guests take over their page.

This takes a bit (or a lot) of trust as you need to give some admin rights to the person who is the guest but it is good for the guest (it gives them exposure) but also can be good for your page as it gets a new face and voice onto it and can build some credibility.

Here’s one where they let Mari Smith take over their page:

2. Demonstrations

If you have a product or service that you sell – why not demonstrate it on a live video to give prospective customers a glimpse into what your product does?

Similarly it could also be useful for current customers to show new applications and/or features of your product.

You could use live video to showcase how other customers use your product by doing case studies.

3. Reviews

Taking the demo idea further – why not use Facebook live to demonstrate and/or review someone else’s products.

This is a lot of what Robert Scoble does with his Facebook Live videos. Hardly a day goes by when Robert isn’t visiting some cool startup and showing their products.

Here’s a relevant example to this post on FB Live where Robert demonstrates a camera that can actually be used for Facebook Live (the Mevo live camera) – one I’m very keen to try myself.

4. Interviews

The above video also shows how Facebook live can be effectively be used for interviewing people.

While I’m yet to find any easy way to do this as a virtual interview (I hope Facebook add the ability to do split screens at some point) if you’re physically with another person at an event it’s not hard to conduct a live video with them.

5. Live Events

If you’re attending a conference or live event relevant to your industry Facebook Live presents all kinds of opportunities.

For example if the event allows it (do check) you could do a broadcast of a session.

Many events wouldn’t allow this but there would be many other opportunities at events either by doing recaps of sessions yourself, interviews with speakers or attendees, demos at expo booths etc.