Engage your audience with Instagram Live

By Meta Blueprint
Published: Sep 23, 2021
Duration 5m
Difficulty Beginner
Rating 1 star 2 stars 3 stars 4 stars 5 stars

Average rating: 4.0 2 reviews

This lesson prepares you to use Instagram Live for your business.

This lesson prepares you to:

Identify ways to use Instagram Live for your business.

Create meaningful connections with your audience

Instagram Live enables you to broadcast video to your followers in real time. Use Instagram Live to stream live video sessions and strengthen connections with your community. Audiences can join your live sessions, ask questions and participate in conversation.

Meet Lucky Shrub

Maria is the owner of Lucky Shrub, a plant and garden design store. She wants to find ways to connect with her community and showcase more videos about her offerings. Maria can do this with Instagram Live.*

*Disclaimer: Lucky Shrub is a fictitious business designed by Meta creative shop. Any similarities to content produced by real-life businesses aren't intentional.

Introduce new products or services

Use Instagram Live to show the different ways your products can be used and share tips.

Include information to make it easy for people to order products or request services and offer exclusive discounts. Link to items on your website or feature them through live shopping. See if you're eligible to use Instagram Shopping and find a step-by-step guide to set it up for your business account here.

For example, Maria demonstrates ways to use Lucky Shrub’s new plant food in her live session. She also offers an exclusive discount at the end of her session to reward viewers for their participation.

Connect with viewers through video

When you go live on Instagram, you can connect with followers instantly. Instagram Live enables you to provide valuable content to your audience and start a conversation, which can help you create more meaningful relationships. Here are some ways to bring your community together when you host an Instagram Live session:

Make people feel welcome

When you start your Instagram Live, wait a few minutes to get started as people join. During this time, greet your audience, introduce yourself and let people know that the session will start soon. Pin a comment to welcome people who may join later in the broadcast.

Once Maria starts her live video, she introduces herself and Lucky Shrub. She writes a comment to welcome her audience and tell them who she is and what the video is about, then pins it to the comment section so people will see it whenever they join.
Host Q&A sessions

To show your audience that you care about their needs and interests, host a Q&A session to answer their questions. Prompt people to send questions prior to your live session with a question sticker, then go live to address them directly with the community. You can also answer questions that people ask during your live video.

Learn how to use question stickers here.

Two days before Lucky Shrub's Instagram Live, Maria creates a story with a question sticker and asks viewers to submit their questions about succulents and plant care.
Interact with your viewers during the broadcast

To keep your audience engaged during your live video, acknowledge their comments and respond to them throughout the session. Comments from your audience will appear at the bottom of the screen.

For example, Maria asks Lucky Shrub’s viewers what they know about succulents. As people respond in the comments, she comments on their responses to acknowledge them.
Invite other people to join you on Instagram Live

Enable employees to share their talents with the community and keep customers connected to your business. When you go live, you can invite up to two other people to join your broadcast. Consider inviting other business owners, team members and even followers to your live broadcast.

For example, towards the end of Lucky Shrub's live session, Maria invites a colleague to join her video to share tips about plant care.
Share your expertise
Showcase your business's unique offerings with Instagram Live. Host live classes, demos and tutorials to show followers your talents, inside information and unexpected insights.

For example, Maria hosts classes on Instagram Live to show people proper plant care for her indoor and outdoor plants, and talks about myths and misconceptions of plant care. She also invites various plant experts to speak during her live sessions.

Raise funds for a cause that you care about

To raise money on Instagram Live, you can create a fundraiser. This adds a donate button to your live video that people can use to contribute throughout the broadcast.

When your live session begins, you can see how many people are supporting your fundraiser and the amount of money you're raising as it happens.

For example, Maria adds a fundraiser to Lucky Shrub's live session. She can see the amount of donations made by her followers at the bottom of her screen.

Host live sessions regularly

To stay connected with your followers, create a plan to go live often and provide exciting new content to your audience. When you host live broadcasts regularly, you can stay connected with your followers, introduce new products and services, bring your community together and share your expertise. Here are some important factors to help you determine a plan to host regular live sessions:

Set goals for your live session

What do you want to achieve with your broadcast? Establish a goal, such as engaging with your followers or increasing sales of a new product, and plan the content of your session around it. Goals can help you structure your live video. Here are a few sample goals:

Engage your audience
Increase sales
Establish your credibility

For example, Maria’s goal for her live broadcast is to increase sales for Lucky Shrub.
Decide when you want to go live and how often

When do you want to go live, and how long do you want your broadcasts to last for? Find a time that's convenient for your audience to join. You can even use the poll sticker in your story to ask your followers about their preferences. Pick a time for your live session when your audience is likely to be online and available to watch.

Consider going live during popular times, such as meal breaks or rush hour, and try to break down your session into sections in case people can’t watch the whole thing.

Maria polls her followers and decides to start live broadcasts for Lucky Shrub on Wednesdays at 17:00 because most people said they would be online at that time.
Plan what you'll talk about

Come prepared with conversation starters and consider what kinds of topics can help you accomplish your goal. Next, you'll need to plan the content of your session. Break it down into a few sections, such as:

Introduction
Tutorial
Discussion
Questions

Maria wants to promote Lucky Shrub's new nursery plants during her live session. She plans to introduce herself, start an outdoor plant tutorial and open up the session for questions.
Prepare to interact with viewers

Consider the ways you can connect with people throughout the session. Here are a few ways to engage your audience during a live session:

Respond to comments.
Ask people to send questions before the session. Answer them during your live video.
Invite someone to join your live video.

Maria decides to answer questions on indoor plant care at the end of her live session. She posts a question sticker to Lucky Shrub's story before she goes live to find out what viewers want to learn.