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Tweetables:
The goal at the beginning is to get comfortable with the camera. 
Gotta Tweet!
Know that your first few videos aren’t going to be perfect. Gotta Tweet!
The more you try Facebook Live, the more comfortable you’ll get. Gotta Tweet!
In Words:
Hi, you’re listening to episode number 65. We’re going to do a little brainstorming in this episode. I was thinking about how we as virtual assistant business owners can use Facebook Live. That’s what we’re going to talk about in this week’s episode.
Let me pull out my notes and let’s dive in. If you are driving, don’t pull out pen and paper. But if you’re somewhere where you can take some notes, whether it’s under the hairdryer, riding in the passenger seat, pull out your notepad on your phone and let’s dive in and talk about 5 ways a virtual assistant can use Facebook Live.
Facebook Live has – I don’t know, I think it is going to wipe out Periscope. I can’t remember the last time I even went to Periscope. It’s a whole separate app. I’m not on Periscope often. Whereas Facebook, I am on Facebook every single day, and that may be the same for you as well. We’re always on Facebook. Whether you are active on Facebook, meaning you’re posting and commenting, or you’re just looking and reading on Facebook, we’re all active on Facebook.
Facebook Live is built in. We don’t need a separate application or anything. We can use our phone and bam – we are on video live.
The only way right now that we can get on Facebook Live is through the Facebook app on your phone. You want to make sure you’re on your business page when doing things related to your virtual assistant business. I won’t go into full detail about where do you go in the Facebook app to do your Facebook Live. It’s just like a status update where you’re going to do a status and you’ll see the little microphone icon. If you’re not exactly sure, do a Google search on that to show you visually the Facebook Live, what it looks like inside of your app.
Now, let’s talk about how we can use this as virtual assistant business owners. This is a brainstorming session for us to just get some ideas.
At this point, I’ve done a couple of Facebook Lives, getting a feel of doing live video. It’s one thing to do record video. I’ve done lots of recorded videos. But it’s another when you know you’re live on camera. There’s no opportunity to edit, being aware of what you look like on camera, what’s behind you on camera, I mean, everything when you’re doing the Facebook Live.
I thought it would be cool for us to go through several options in what we can do as virtual assistant business owners and what we can do with Facebook Live. One super easy one is to give people a behind the scenes look into what you do. You could share your office with them. If you’ve got an office that’s set up that you’re really excited about and you want to share that, you could talk us through and do a behind the scenes of your office.
Years ago, I did a free webinar and I shared on there the behind the scenes and showed everything in the office, and it’s so funny because in that old video I show the phone that I was using and, of course, it was a landline phone back then. That’s how long it’s been. It wasn’t a cell phone, and nowadays if I share my office, I’m out and about many days. Today, I’m out of town away at the beach, so the office wouldn’t necessarily be something I wanted to show.
I have a home office that some days I’m really excited about it. Other days, I don’t want to sit at it. But if you’re the kind of person your office is where your creativity flows, energy is there, you just get excited being there, this may be a great option for you is to share the behind the scenes of your office.
Another one would be to take us on a shopping trip for your office. My favorite place to go is Staples. I love getting office supplies and pens and all that stuff. That would be cool to take us on a trip where you like to go at the store where you’re shopping for your office, and just take us through that process.
For example, let’s say you’re a VA and one of your services is maybe you send out thank you cards. You do some type of – I don’t want to call it client care, but something where you’re sending out thank you cards. Maybe one of your clients is a direct sales representative and they have you to do a lot of the mailings. You mail out catalogs. You mail out postcards. You mail out thank you cards. Maybe you write the cards, things like that. You could show us that. Show us how you create that. That’s actually a bonus one. That’s a third one not on my list. That’s a bonus one.
So behind the scenes of your office, a shopping trip where you’re maybe buying supplies for your office. Take us through that whole deciding process. Then the third one is to show us what you’re doing. If you’re actually physically putting some packets together with catalogs, thank you notes, different things like that, you could show us that.
If you’re going to Starbucks and you are going to work there, maybe do a little tip from Starbucks. Though, when I go to places like Starbucks or Panera, I call those little field trips. You could give us a tip offsite when you’re taking one of your field trips.
Share a tip – something that would benefit a prospective client.
Another Facebook Live video could just be a fun one where you’re having fun. Maybe doing something with your family, or if you’ve got a tip that’s non-related to business to share. Like my first Facebook Live was a tip on how to do your ponytail and not use holders that break off your hair. That was one of my very first Facebook Live videos, and that was fun to do. I did it to get comfortable with the camera.
The goal right now, the beginning stage of it, is to just get comfortable with the camera.
This list is giving you some things to talk about once you go live on camera. You could also share some behind the scenes look into just daily life. If you are headed to a full-time job and you do your VA business part-time, you could take us on that journey with you to show us what that looks like behind the scenes.
This episode is just to kind of get things started for you in thinking about how you could use Facebook Live. If you’ve already started to use Facebook Live, come share that with me on my Facebook page. I would love to see what your Facebook Live video looks like and get to meet you face-to-face, and see how that’s going.
I probably will do at least one Facebook Live while I am on vacation this week to share what my office space looks like for the week while I’m on vacation. It’ll also be a chance to remember it for later to go back to it and revisit what the water looks like and the sand and all the good stuff.
If you have more ideas, more thoughts on what you could put on your Facebook Live, share that with me as well on Facebook.
Let me run back through. I said 5 at the beginning, 5 options, but ended up coming up with 6, so let me run through those again.
1) Take us behind the scenes – a behind the scenes look into your office.
2) A shopping trip at Office Depot, OfficeMax, wherever you go to get your office supplies.
3) Take us on a trip as far as you doing things, maybe you’re sending out packets, maybe you’re writing thank you notes, something like that if you’re doing something that’s a physical thing that we could see, and doesn’t show anyone’s address or private information.
4) Sharing a tip that would be helpful for potential clients, whatever that looks like. What I revert to when I’m thinking about tips are things that I would share with someone on their very first call with me that is looking to get my services. There’s something that you probably say to almost every person you talk to that’s a prospect, something that they don’t know that is needed for you to do the task that they’ve hired you to do.
5) Behind the scenes look into your daily life, whether it’s family, whether it’s something non-related to your business that just gives us a peek into who you are.
6) One where you’re having some fun or a non-business thing. Again, we’re learning more about you and who you are.
What can you do with this video after you’ve done it?
Besides it posting live on your Facebook, you getting comfortable with the camera, getting comfortable with yourself, learning how to position yourself. If you’re at home, how to position your background. If you’re out an about, making sure you’ve got some good natural light. I even like good natural light if I’m inside, and it gives you a chance to practice, get a feel for what that looks like.
Know that it’s not going to be perfect. The first one won’t. The second one won’t. The third one won’t. You’re just getting comfortable with it. The more you do it, the more comfortable you get, and again, this all on your business page.
What can you do with this video after it’s done? It’s there. Now what? It’s sitting on Facebook. Well, you can embed the same video on your website. You can make it a blog post. You can make it a part of your “About” page. You could put it in your side bar. Wherever you want the video to go on your website, you could put it, depending on what it’s related to.
If it’s a behind the scenes look into your office maybe you want that on your “About” page because that’s a part about you. If you’re sharing a behind the scenes look into daily life, that is a fun blog post. If it’s a tip, is it a tip related to your free offer? If it is, maybe put that on the same page on your website as your free offer.
Facebook allows you to embed the video onto your website.
It gives you the exact code and you just copy it and paste it onto that page, widget, post, or whatever it is that you desire to put that on. Now, if I shared that and I got a little too techie on you, you’re like, okay, I was with you until you said embed the Facebook video and all that good stuff, do not worry about that.
If you do have that question, send me an email. Let me know. This way I get a count of how many people would visually want to see how you embed this Facebook Live video using those different options on a post, a page, or a widget. If I hear from at least one of you, then I’m going to show you how to do that in a special video and show you how to do that and get that on your website.
I’m referring to WordPress website, although, if you have other websites, you can put it on there as well. You all know that WordPress is my number one go-to for websites, so whenever I say that, I’m talking about WordPress, and whenever I say website, I mean website, blog, all together, all in one.
What else can you do with the Facebook Live video? When you are recording your video, you go live on Facebook, it gives you the option to save the video directly to your phone. You want to say yes. You want to save a copy to your phone as well as the one that will go live on Facebook. You can download the video later, but why? Go ahead and do it while you’re recording. Knock it out all in one.
Once your video is done you’ll have the version on your Facebook page, but you’ll also have it on your phone.
What can you do with this video on your phone? Well, you can save it for later when you decide what you want to do besides embedding it into your website. It can be edited. It can be cut into shorter parts and be used on Instagram because you can have up to a minute video on Instagram. You could have that whole video uploaded to YouTube, all these different options that you could do. That’s at least three. Your website, Instagram, YouTube all allow you to upload videos.
It could end up being a series depending on what it is, especially with your tips, depending on how long, how many tips you’ve given. Play with timeframe on the videos as you get comfortable. If you’re getting on, if it’s five minutes, fine. Don’t feel pressured to have more to say. Have a plan before you start, but don’t feel pressured.
The second Facebook Live video I did was me going to the gym. It was right before my class and I just kind of shared some behind the scenes of what the class looked like and what it felt like getting ready for class, and how it feels being outside of your comfort zone and why I do that. That was fun. It was a mix of daily life and a mix of fun all in one. I’m looking forward to doing some more of those.
I’m always thinking about you and how you can do some of the same things that I’m trying out. It’s fun to try them together.
I am going to head on out and enjoy the beautiful day. It is sunny outside. There’s a nice breeze. I don’t know how long we’ll have this breeze because it was blazing hot yesterday. But I’ve been cooped up inside the room all morning, getting rest, getting prepared for the podcast episode, and I’m ready to break out and have some fun, and I hope you do the same.
Make sure when you do your Facebook Live video you come and you share the link with me on my Facebook page.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.
See you next time!
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