Time is Money
If you’re a frequent Facebook user, you may have noticed you’re watching more live videos in your news feed. These live videos are created using the Facebook Live feature, allowing members to broadcast live videos from mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. Live video can be streamed to Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. Hosts can interact with audiences who can comment during the video and share these videos with friends.
If you own a business, you may be thinking that streaming a live event on Facebook is a great sales opportunity since there are over 2 billion members globally, and 263 million members are using the platform every month in the United States and Canada. Live selling videos, which are more shopping and sales-focused than other live streaming videos, typically feature the business owner or other host showcasing products or services and selling directly from the video.
In the U.S., live selling videos will generate $17 billion in sales revenue in 2022. As one of the largest social media platforms in the world, live streaming on Facebook is an excellent way to reach customers. If you have a device with a good Internet connection, camera, and mic, you can go live on Facebook by simply pushing a button.
Why Choosing the Best Time Matters
While Facebook users may decide to live stream at random times when they feel like sharing thoughts or connecting with other members, business owners don’t want to put on a live broadcast for a potentially empty room. For social media marketing purposes, it pays to know the best time to go live on Facebook to reach your ideal audience. Going live can become one of your most profitable sales and marketing activities if you reach the people interested in what you’re offering. The quickest path to success is to reach as many people in your target audience as possible every time you go live.
Facebook relies on its algorithm to rank content by the amount of audience engagement created by likes, shares, and comments. The more engagement a video has, the more visible it becomes in members’ News Feeds, and higher visibility can mean better reach and, ultimately, more customers. Finding the best time to live stream on Facebook can boost algorithmic ranking and increase live video views. Engaging the ideal target audience at the right time signals to the algorithms that the live stream is more relevant and therefore more important than other competing content and video posts.
The Best Times to Go Live on Facebook
If you’re brainstorming how to get more views on Facebook Live, timing is everything. There are varying opinions about when the best time is to go live on Facebook but there are some peak traffic times to take advantage of:
- The best day is all day Wednesday, especially between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.
- You can get the best engagement between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays.
Times to avoid are:
- Sundays
- Early mornings all week before 7 a.m. and late afternoons after 5 p.m.
Since you’ll find different answers about the best time to live stream on Facebook depending on what you’re selling and when your customers are online and most receptive to your content, the best resource for your individual needs will be Insights on your own Facebook page. Insights is the analytics tracking information for your own Facebook page and it tells you when people are engaging with all of the content you’re posting. On Insights, click the posts to see when your fans are online and where they’re signing in from, so you can see what time zone they’re in and adjust your posting schedule accordingly.
The most important thing to remember is to select the best day and time to post your live video content and stick to it. Make sure your audience knows when you’re going to be online and don’t disappoint them: show up consistently on time, all the time so that they can tune into your live stream at a regular time, either on the web or via the Facebook app.
Another consideration is that live video has a much higher engagement rate than static Facebook posts. You’ll want to make sure you’re reaching your audience when fewer things are competing for their attention.
It’s best to reach people when they’re relaxed and have time to explore what you’re offering without feeling stressed or rushed. For example, Monday morning might not be a great time to live stream to customers who have office jobs because live video encourages more interaction than written posts and can be distracting in an office setting. As their week is winding down, you may want to reach that group of customers from Wednesday to Friday from noon to 3 p.m., during their lunch breaks or in the afternoon.
Here are some questions to ask to help you start pinpointing the best times to reach your ideal audience with live video:
- What is your industry?
- Who are your target customers?
- Where are your customers located?
- When are your customers online?
- What are your customers’ interests?
- What would your customers like to know about your products and services?
For example, if you sold maternity clothing to expectant mothers throughout the U.S., you may consider going live from 10 a.m. to noon in time zones where you want to target your customers on different days of the week. You could describe how your apparel meets their specific needs for fit and function and how it’s easy to wash and pack for moms on the go.
Why Is Going Live Important for Your Business?
With improvements in live streaming technology and Internet speed, live video is becoming so popular on Facebook that audiences expect to see businesses go live.
- More than 500 million videos are watched on Facebook every day.
- Live video consumption increased by 50% on Facebook in 2021.
- 54% of consumers want to watch more video content from brands they support.
- People are 1.5 times more likely to watch video on their mobile phones, which means that they’re accessible when you can’t reach them at other times (e.g., during commutes on public transportation or in a waiting room at the doctor’s office.)
- 1 in 5 videos posted on Facebook is a live video.
It’s almost impossible to reach target audiences with organic (unpaid) Facebook posts alone. Similar to Instagram live, Facebook automatically notifies your followers when you go live so they can join at any time during the live video, increasing your chances of having an instant audience for your live stream.
Every business has a unique story. Live streaming helps you tell that story to your customers as they get to know you. One of the most compelling reasons to go live is that your customers can associate a real person with your business. Once they make that association, they equate your business with a personality. When you begin to interact with your audience, you’ll build trust and form better relationships with customers. Customers’ personal connection with your business can help you develop stronger brand affinities and improve customer loyalty.
Setting up the proper marketing automation tactics and live streaming is a great way to develop a stronger connection with your current audience and gain new followers and customers. Encouraging your audience to like, comment on, and share your videos with others can help to grow your following.
Increasing engagement with your target audience helps to build credibility and positive social proof. It can also increase sales by boosting average order values and repeat sales, working to improve customer lifetime value.
As you begin to appear on your live streams at regularly scheduled times, people will start following your Facebook Page to tune in when you’re going live. They’ll look forward to seeing you on Facebook as though your live selling video were their favorite TV program.
Tips for Going Live on Facebook
People who like watching livestream shopping videos on Facebook enjoy tuning in because live video is usually informal and can be unpredictable. Though some spontaneity can be fun, these tips can help you prepare to have a smoother, more natural on-screen experience for your audience while avoiding some common mistakes.
7 Pre-Live Stream Prepping and Promotion Tips
- Consider your environment. Look at your presentation area through your mobile phone or camera lens to see it as your customers will be viewing it. If you’re using CommentSold to go live on Facebook, you can also view your stream in the Live Overview area of your Dashboard. Ask yourself: Do I need to improve the lighting or add some plants in the background? Is my set visually appealing and does it represent my brand? Do what it takes to make your shooting environment inviting so that it doesn’t distract from you and the products you’re presenting.
- Plan your product lineup and stage products. Knowing the order helps you transition more smoothly from one product to the next. Stage your products in order and within arm’s reach to make it easier to present without gaps of silence or blank camera areas when you’re live.
- Study product details like sizes, colors, features, and functions to make it easier to describe these details to customers as though they’re viewing them in a store.
- Know your equipment. Whether using a mobile phone or investing in a better light, camera
,and mic setup, turn everything on and make sure it works before you go live. - Rehearse by live streaming on Facebook in private mode so you can make adjustments. When you post your video, select the Privacy Settings, then choose “Only Me” so that you’re the only one who can view your live stream.
- Post “Save the Date” reminders to your Facebook Page to tell your followers when you’ll be going live. Include reminders in your email newsletter, marketing text messages, other social media channels, and your website.
- Tease new products, discounts, or giveaways to boost attendance.
7 Tips for Going Live
- Introduce yourself more than once. Viewers will be joining throughout your live stream, so it helps to welcome them as they join, introduce yourself, and tell them what you’re presenting to feel included.
- Make it fun. Have giveaways for people who show up early. Reward people who share your video by offering store credit. Use polls and share results during the live stream.
- Encourage interaction and mention people by name. When you see people commenting, engage them by name. Ask them questions or answer questions they may ask you in the comments. Remind them to like and share your video.
- Limit abandoned carts and encourage sales with calls to action. Remind customers who have added products to their carts that you have limited stock or that the cart will expire if they don’t check out within a given time.
- Make it easy for viewers to follow your presentation. Use logical transitions between products and leave room to interact with your audience. Your show should have a natural flow. Make sure there aren’t large gaps of “dead air” — keep talking, even if you’re off-screen grabbing another product.
- Ask and respond to product questions. Keep viewers engaged by talking about the products and ensuring their questions are answered.
- Mistakes are OK. You’re on live video; you may stutter or trip up. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself and commiserate with your viewers. Just move on!
3 Tips for After the Live Stream
- Remind viewers to shop the replay. CommentSold automatically creates a shoppable video replay of the live stream that can be posted to social media, your webstore, or your mobile app.
- Automatic product videos are posted from the live stream to your CommentSold webstore. Remind viewers they can shop in your online store even after your stream has ended.
- Shop the look. Link several videos to one video to allow viewers to shop a product with accessories and related products or a complete “look.”
How to Use Insights to Find the Best Time to Post on Facebook
When you’re learning how to sell products online and determining when is the best time to go live on Facebook, one of the best resources to check is your analytics, which Facebook refers to as “Insights.” You’ll find Insights by going to your Facebook Business page and clicking on the Insights tab. You’ll then see the Videos tab.
When you select one of the videos listed there, you’ll be able to study your concurrent views, how many viewers you had during each moment of your live stream, and you can see how each measurement changed during your video. You can drill down to more detailed information by clicking individual videos, including the number of unique viewers and percent average of complete views.
By clicking the People tab, you can get the data you’re looking for to figure out when to go live on Facebook. Go to “People Engaged” to view audience demographics by age, gender, language, and location. You can also view your fans by “overview,” see “People Engaged,” and the “People Reached” by your videos.
You can study the days of the week and times of day to see when you had the most interactions and engagement, and you can start to identify the best time to go live on Facebook. You could correlate higher engagement levels with when people were responding most favorably to your video by checking the “Actions on Page” tab if you were prompting people to click a “Call to Action” button on one of your Facebook Business pages.
While finding out the best time to go live on Facebook, you can see which people were responding during your video, where they’re located, and what their age ranges and genders are. This will help you use Facebook more efficiently and further refine your presentation, offers, and messaging to get better results on subsequent live videos.
Another factor to consider is whether your competitors are trying to reach your audience at the same time as you. If you know your competitors are live selling, it would be good to shadow them by liking their Facebook Pages. That way, you can get to know their streaming schedule and adjust yours accordingly, so you don’t have to use your resources to compete for the same audience at the same time.
The Takeaway
Though Facebook has peak traffic times and days, and this information can be used as a general guide to know when the best time is to live stream on the platform, that’s just a starting point. Since each business offers unique products that appeal to different audiences in different geographic regions and with different viewing behaviors, it’s essential to study the analytics data in Insights each time you live stream.
By checking Insights to study the demographics for your audience — including age range, gender, where they’re located, and how they’re interacting with your live stream — you start to get a clearer picture of when is the best time to live stream on Facebook for your business. The more videos you post, the more detailed the data becomes, and you will be able to start spotting patterns and trends to help you hone your live selling streaming timing and strategy.
Learn More About: Top Live Selling Platforms Driving E-Commerce in US
