This is the third and last instalment of your Tips & Tricks from VidCon. Well, until next year.

We have learned about YouTube and Facebook but what about Facebook’s new Live Streaming feature? And the growing popularity of Snapchat?

Both are quite new to the digital world and not everyone has been brave enough to use them or felt the need to. But they are powerful tools to engage your fans and followers.

If you need some guidance, don’t worry, we will tell you all about it.

Get your Stream on!

• Tell fans ahead of time when you’re going live
• Write a compelling description before you start streaming or have an event you are at or talking about
• Go live when you have a strong Internet connection, nothing is worse than your fans not being able to understand or see you!
• Say hello to your fans by name and respond to their comments whilst on screen
• Broadcast for longer periods of time to reach more fans (i.e. over 15 minutes)
• Be creative and go live often!

Popular platforms to stream on

• Periscope
• Facebook
• YouTube
• YouNow
• Musical.ly
• Live.ly
• Live.me
• Superfly

But how does it actually work?

Sadly there is no obvious ‘Live Stream Now’ button on Facebook, you have to know where to look. It’s actually hidden under the Status Icon or if using an iPhone, a ‘Go Live’ option appears on the top of your screen.

• Click ‘Go Live’
• Give Facebook permission to access your camera and microphone
• Click ‘Continue’ and describe your broadcast and adjust the privacy settings. Does it go to the public or only friends?
• You can shoot it both through your rear-face or through your FaceTime camera. Depending on whether you choose landscape or portrait, the comments will appear either on the right or below your video, but the video itself will always be square.
• And now simply go live and dazzle the world

A few words on Snapchat

• Get band members involved
• Ask fans questions with a set answer, and create a follow-up video with the answer
• Snapchat should be used to tell a story, not random snaps here and there
• Screenshot snaps to share on other social media channels, make it easy for fans to screenshot snaps (encourage them to use the content in new ways)
• You can’t see how many people follow you on Snapchat, but you can see how many people view each snap
• Instagram statistically drives more views to Snapchat, but whatever your highest performing social channel will most likely drive most traffic
• Use a QR code (snapcode) to drive traffic