Want to start using Instagram Live to promote your products or services, but not sure where to start? Today, we’ll walk you through a complete framework for using Instagram Live for business. You’ll discover six fundamental steps for setting up, promoting, and managing your Live, even if this is your first time! Plus, you’ll discover insider tips and tricks to getting the most out of each stage in the process. At the end of this, you’ll have a playbook to help you sell more on Instagram Live!
1. Planning Your Instagram Live
So the first thing you have to do when setting up your Instagram Live is plan it. We don’t want you to get on Live not knowing exactly what to talk about! And the next thing you wanna do is pick your audience – know who you’re talking to and what they need. Two is what are their pain points? What do they struggle with? What do they search for on Google? Three is going to be the product and the service that you’re selling because this is what’s going to bring the conversions and money in. So, audience, pain points, product and service.
If you think that you’re gonna jump on Instagram Live and do an infomercial, no, not at all. This is not gonna be like, “Hello, this is the iPhone, and let me tell you all about the iPhone.” We’re going to actually tell them what the value is for them in their life. It would be like, “Here’s the iPhone and this is how it’s changed lives.” Now that will bring more people into your Live rather than just a sell, sell, sell situation. So let’s talk about how to schedule out your Instagram Live with adding products.
2. Scheduling Instagram Live
The first thing you wanna do is schedule out your Lives. And you’re actually going to hit the calendar on the bottom left side, and you’re gonna see three things: video title, start time, and add product. Side note, during your Instagram Live, you cannot add products. So while you’re scheduling, it’s important that you add the products right on the scheduling option. If you don’t have your Instagram Shop connected, go check out this post!
Hit on video title. This is what you’re going to call your Instagram Live for that day. And then you’re gonna pick a start time. What’s great about this one is that you can actually schedule out three months of Instagram Lives, or at least an hour before you go live. You should try to pick a consistent time for your Instagram Live. So people can plan out their time to catch it.
And then, add products. Hit as many products as you want, pick the default setting that you would like, and then press done. Once all that is filled out, you’re gonna hit that schedule your live video and you’re good.
3. Promoting Instagram Live
When it comes to promoting your Live, the first thing you wanna do is create a graphic to announce it. You could do this with any tool that you usually use to create graphics. We like to use Canva, but you could literally take a screenshot just saying, “I’m going Live,” but this is the things that you’re going to need. The title of your Live, what time you’re going Live, and where you’re going Live. Some people just need that clarification. You’re going to make a regular Instagram feed post with your announcement, and then use that same graphic and go into Stories and create a countdown sticker, so people can get notified when you’re going live as well!
4. Structuring Instagram Live
We recommend you go Live for 15 to 30 minutes, but Instagram will not allow you to go longer than four hours. The biggest mistake that we see is that people are not considerate of the replay. There are lots of people doing this: “All right, let’s just wait right here people,” “How’s everybody doing?” No, you wanna do an introduction, and you have to be considerate of those watching the replay.
Intro
A recommendation that we have is to have a whole intro. “Hi everyone, this is (insert name), shout out to everybody who’s watching this replay, #replaysquad, #replaygang, and let’s talk about…,” and insert whatever title that you’re talking about. This is going to allow time for not only Instagram to notify some of your followers, but as well as give you a whole intro for your replay.
Pin a Comment
So a common practice to do on Instagram Live is pin a comment, but not any kinda comment. You can tell people to share this Live with three people, or 10, or hundreds of people. However you want, and then pin it because there’s always gonna be new people that come into the Live, and they’re not going to hear it the first time you say it.
Add a Frame to Enhance Your Video
The second thing you can do is have a frame for my Instagram Live. How do you do this is you’re going to see a photo icon. Hit that and find your frame, and that’s it. What the frame normally has is the title of it is going to put you from full frame to all the way in the top right, little bit small, and you can add any kinda background that you want. So when people jump on your Live, they already know what you’re talking about, they know why they’re here.
Main Content
Okay, so let’s talk about the meat and potatoes of your Live. What are you actually going to be talking about? You’re gonna start talking about your pain points, but in the middle of it, you’re gonna actually engage with your audience. This is going to increase the retention of people staying on your Live. The whole point is for them to get to the end so they can see what the solution is, which is your product or your service. When you’re engaging, we’re gonna ask like little mini polls. What do you think about this? If you’re feeling this, type in one, or type in two, or type in some type of emoji. Whatever’s easier for them to stay engaged and feel part of the Live, the better. Talk about your pain points, lead with value, and then when we’re getting to the end, this is where we’re starting to introduce the product or the service. You’re going to list how it solves these pain points that you already said on your Live, and you’re going to give ’em a call-to-action of how to actually purchase that.
Call-to-Action
So let’s talk about some common correct call-to-actions. One, tell them to go to the link in the bio. We cannot create an actual clickable link in Instagram Live. So we’re gonna have to direct them to the link in bio.
Two, we can tell them to type in a word and send it to us via Instagram direct messages. Then we can either send them the link manually, or if we have a messenger bot already set up, that can automatically do it.
Three. We could tell them to join our email list, which then they can get the actual link in their email. Quick side note – if you have Instagram Shop already set up, all you have to do is tell them, “Hey, click the product down below!” This is actually gonna let them check out while they’re still on your Live, they don’t have to go anywhere else like the link in bio. Just point down and tell ’em to buy the product.
5. Instagram Live Practice Mode
What if you’re still feeling a little intimidated about Instagram Live? That’s okay, they have a practice mode. So let me show you how to get into practice mode. There’s gonna be a little icon, literally like an eye, and you gonna hit practice mode. We set audience, you go live. If you want to send it to somebody to view it, you’re gonna hit the bottom right airplane and send it to whoever you want to. If you wanna invite somebody to your Live, you’re gonna hit this person right here in the bottom right and invite them to join. You can actually change the filters. You can bring in the frame that you want to see how it looks.
What’s great about practice mode is that no one is seeing it but you. You get to check how it looks, how it sounds, how your products is actually pinned to your Live, how your graphics are going to look, how your structure is from the intro to the pinned post, everything like that. And the great thing about it is you could delete it or you could go into your archives and actually download it, maybe even post the actual practice mode. And if you wanna take it a step further, you can actually invite some people to either watch your Lives or actually come onto your Live. Let’s say you have an interview. You can actually bring them on to see how they sound and how they look. This is just some of the perks of practice mode.
6. Repurposing the Replay
Now that your Instagram Live is done, now we have to talk about the replay. So there’s two ways to publish the replay. One, you could directly upload it to Instagram Video/IGTV. Or two, you could download it, trim it all the way to the most important part of it and then re-upload it to IG Video.
Now you’re probably saying. “Okay, I know how to do Instagram Live now, but I still don’t know what to say. Can you give me some content ideas?” Don’t worry about it. Check out this multi-day content strategy for Instagram Live and so much more.
