Why Weekly Webcasts Are So Popular with Audiences
It may seem crazy, but not only should you love webcasts and do them as often as you can – audiences love them too. Even if they don’t watch live, they love watching them. Hence the popularity of sites like YouTube, Blab, Periscope and others. Here are the main reasons why they are so popular.
They Feel Connected with the Host.
When people become your fan, they want to see you in every way that they can, be it on a webcast or in person. Take advantage of that and be where your fans want you to be, so that you can build better relationships and make more sales.
It’s Easier to Understand Difficult Topics
Many people learn better with visuals, and video can help with that. If you’re teaching a difficult concept, being able to show examples, really talk to your audience, and answer questions on the spot makes the topic a lot easier to understand.
Audiences overwhelmingly find webcasts more interesting than blog posts, articles, and other forms of content. They are more likely to interact with a webcast, make comments, and participate than they are a blog post.
They Feel Included
When you invite people to weekly webcasts, they feel included in your inner circle. Whether your webcasts are public or for members only doesn’t matter. Your audience will feel included and part of your VIP circle.
It Feels Like a Real Event
It feels real because it is. If you’re hosting live webcasts, they’re real events that people can and will get excited about. Your audience will be happy, and that happiness will rub off on you and make you happy to perform the webcast each week.
They Can Build Relationships
When your audience is watching you live, in their mind you’re building a relationship with them. They’re looking into your eyes; they feel as if you’re talking only to them. They like to get to know people before they spend money, and webcasts are the best way to do that.
It Feels Separate from the Sales Cycle
While webinars and webcasts today are certainly part of the sales cycle, to the audience it feels separate from the sales cycle. As long as your webcasts are informative, they’re not going to feel sold to or talked down to. They’re going to enjoy it.
If you’re an expert in your niche (and your audience certainly thinks you are), then any time you do a webinar your people are going to want to participate and learn from you.
Audiences Love Demos
When you teach your audience to do something, even things you think are easy and boring, they just love it. Host a webinar teaching your audience to do one small thing that you do on a regular basis, and it’ll be a well-attended webinar – especially if you let them ask questions.
They Like a Sure Thing
It’s like an email newsletter or a magazine; people like being able to count on something. If it’s a weekly live event, they’re going to be excited to view it and tell others about it too. If they know for sure that this event will continue happening, they’re going to be even more likely to tell others.
Hosting weekly webinars will pay off in a big way if you keep doing it and keep going. Ensure that your subject matter fits with your target audience and you’ll be surprised at how successful they’ll become.
Ten Webcast Ideas for Any Niche
If you want to start performing a webcast every week, you’ll need to come up with ideas that keep your audience engaged. It’s not as hard as you think to come up with ideas. You can repeat these ideas on a regular basis so that your audience is always dialed in and interested.
Behind the Scenes
Everyone likes to know what you’re doing when you’re not doing your business. If you’re a food blogger, you could do a behind the scenes of how long it takes you to set up a shot, or about the mistakes you’ve made, or how you come up with an idea or shop for food.
A Day in the Life
If you’re a life coach you might want to show your audiences how you live and do a webcast from a vacation point, or while you’re on the road instead of from your well-decorated office. Show up in jammies, a swim suit, or other attire based on where you happen to be at the moment. Show off where you are.
Most people love to know how to do things, and even if you’re afraid that they’ll then do it all themselves rather than hire you, don’t worry. That won’t happen. Show them how you do things, and they’ll trust you even more to do it for them if that’s your service. But, more people will watch because it’s valuable and useful to learn how to do things.
Interviews
People also love learning about other people who are in the niche themselves. Whether they’re movers or shakers or newbies starting out, interviewing them for your webcast will be interesting for your viewers and for you.
Q & A Session
You likely get asked a lot of questions, so you can have a whole hour of Q & A where you answer questions off the cuff. You can collect the questions in advance or you can let them ask during the event if you have someone to help capture the questions for you.
Live Events
If you have a cool life event happening that you think your audience will be interested in, why not stream it live for your audience? A graduation, an award, a speaking engagement… are all good fodder for a webcast.
Rants
Did something happen in your niche that you really need to discuss and rant about? If you have the right audience in the right niche, this may be one of your most watched webcasts, especially on replay.
Did you or your solution help someone with something important? You can bring them on to discuss their situation and case. Go over it as you would a written case study so you don’t miss an aspect that made them successful.
Get a Co-Host
You can ask different people to co-host based on your topic for the week. Usually it’s good to bring in an expert on the topic to help you present the facts for that webinar. It makes the webcast more fun to have more people, and the discussion will be interesting to the audience members.
Hot Seat Day
If you’re a coach, web designer, someone who helps writers, or other teaching/helping niche, you can put someone on the hot seat and analyze and advise them live during the webcast. This is a great way to show what you know, but you need to choose your subjects carefully because not everyone can handle this type of event.
Hopefully these ideas work for you. You can do so many different things with a webcast. The fact that you can share slides, share what’s around you and look at your audience live is a very powerful thing that can make a huge difference.
Turn Your Ideas into Weekly Webcasts That Draw Attention
Webcasts are very popular right now with the advent of the video-centric software that is available today. Webcasts can be live or on demand. You can do webcasts using software like Facebook Live, Blab.me, Periscope.com and more. All you have to do is have an idea, and then perform that idea. Here are some tips on how to make your webcasts the best they can be.
Keep Them Short
No one wants to watch a two-hour live webcast, even weekly. More than 30 minutes may be too long. Get to the point, make the time you spend with your audience valuable to them, while focusing on the message and keeping it short and sweet.
Show the Insider’s View
If you have a live event coming up, it’s great to show them some of the preparation and behind-the-scenes stuff you have to do. Whether it’s getting the lighting right or working on the sound, this is valuable information for your audience.
Have a Point
Before creating any type of video, you need to have a point. Know what message, lesson, call to action etc. you’re going to give prior to starting your live event. People don’t want to waste their time; give them a reason to tune in every day.
When you do your live events, there will be times that you don’t look at the camera. That’s okay; if you’re talking to someone else, you’ll want to look at that person. But, when you’re addressing your audience, look at them.
Ensure Lighting and Sound Are Good
It’s hard to enjoy watching any live event when the sound and lighting are bad. Ensure that you have some sort of sound and lighting to make the event more enjoyable to watch.
Invite a Live Audience
A really exciting way to do a live event is to also invite people to watch you perform the event in person. The energy the people will bring will make the event even more fun for people to watch.
Offer an Incentive
If you’re going to do a weekly event there should be something in it for the viewer. You can give away prizes; you can have an ongoing drawing where you randomly choose a winner who watched last week who must be watching this week to get the prize. Ensure you read the terms of service so that you do this by law.
It can be valuable to tune in to your live event just because what you teach each week is something they can put to use right now. Don’t be stingy with information. Even if you are selling information, give it away on your weekly events.
Anything you normally do in your business can be fodder for a weekly webcast. You can show your audience a “day in the life,” a sneak peek behind the scenes and more. If you have a blog post about it, it can become a webcast idea.