Case Study: Winning With Live Video
An illustrative case study in early 2016 live video, when Periscope and Facebook Live's early rollout rewarded unscripted content over polished production.
The starting point
A regional fitness studio chain, described here by category rather than name, had built a modest following on Instagram and Facebook through polished class photos and the occasional pre-recorded workout clip. Reach on both platforms had plateaued through 2015, and paid boosts were getting more expensive for less return.
What changed
In late 2015 the studio’s marketing lead started running short Periscope broadcasts, real-time fifteen to twenty-minute streams of a trainer walking through a workout move, taking questions from viewers as they came in through the app’s live comment feed. Periscope’s format rewarded exactly this: unscripted, slightly rough, happening right now. As one of the early businesses granted access to Facebook Live for pages in that window, the studio also began simulcasting shorter live sessions there, where its existing Facebook fan base could find them without downloading a separate app.
The result
The live broadcasts drew far smaller total audiences than the studio’s best-performing photo posts, but engagement per viewer was dramatically higher: comments in real time, questions the trainer could answer on camera and viewers tagging friends mid-broadcast to pull them in. A handful of live sessions converted into trial class sign-ups at a noticeably higher rate than the studio’s paid social ads had managed over the same period.
What made the difference
The studio didn’t script the broadcasts or try to make them look like their polished photo content. They picked a consistent weekly time so followers knew when to show up, kept sessions short enough to hold attention and had the trainer read viewer comments out loud, which made the interaction feel worth watching live instead of catching later as a replay.
The lesson for other businesses
Live video in early 2016 rewarded presence and responsiveness over production value, almost the opposite of what most brands had spent the previous few years optimizing for. Businesses waiting for live tools to mature before testing them were ceding an early advantage to competitors willing to look a little unpolished in exchange for a direct, real-time connection with an audience that was still small enough to feel engaged.
More from the archive: browse the Content Marketing category or see everything published in 2016.
