Fail of the Week: Facebook Live Adds 10lbs of Missing Strategy

So you get an idea, share it with your team and everyone is so excited about it, you forget to back it up and look at what’s important- the strategy.

Everyone hears a trendy buzzword like Facebook Live, Instagram Story or Chatbot and immediately becomes enamored. It’s the same feeling you get when you get a new tech toy, like a phone. It’s so fun to test out all the new features that you forget to set it up for the intended purpose – calling, wait, texting. Well, here in lies the fail we came across last week.

The Fail

The idea was to turn a text-based series that was housed within the monthly newsletter into a weekly Facebook Live series. Each episode could then be native on Facebook Live, but syndicated out through our blog on other channels. Ultimately showcasing some of the thought process that goes behind the write-ups done about timely topics and articles.

Sounds good right? I thought so too, then the camera started…

The Camera Adds 10lbs of Missing Strategy

We set out to record our first episode with well-curated content in hand, a specific theme in mind and having practiced what to say multiple times, even writing SNL-style notes on the wall directly behind the camera angle. You know, so it looked like we were talking straight to the camera but could also see the notes? GENIUS!

Camera rolls and we go live to a wildly raving fan, which we think may have been someone’s grandma, but that’s beside the point. I knew we were going to have a small audience to begin with, but that was perfectly ok since Facebook Live provided us the luxury of inexpensive audience exposure. I also had planned that our audience would grow organically as we gained viewers through our syndication channels. What I failed to think about was organizing the type of strategy to grow an audience that we would then be able to turn into potential clients. The beauty of this day and age is the vast number of platforms. The downfall of marketing in this day and age is the vast number of platforms.

A list of a few of our favorite marketing tools can be found from our friends at Hubspot, and you’ll find that they all do great things and give marketers the ability to build any type of audience. Business owners and entrepreneurs alike the ability to , tools and tactics out there to use to craft and build exactly the type of audience you want, but you’ve got to put the strategy behind them to build them into what you want.

We wrap up the video, syndicate it out across several channels and feel accomplished. We did the tactics we set out to do- produce the Facebook Live, house it on the blog and promote through paid and organic channels. Great. Drop the mic. Mission accomplished.

Not So Fast…

Once we had everything ‘packaged up’ perfectly, we were able to take our blinders off and really see that the format of the video, type of content delivered and overall strategy was off. But why? (Watch the video HERE) The content is absolutely valuable, the delivery was great and we’ve provided access to the content in multiple areas. Then the questions started flooding in, because that’s what good marketers need to do- talk strategy.

• what’s the demographic persona look like of the ideal person watching this?
• what is the ultimate takeaway we want that person to get?
• what action to we want this person to take for us right now?
• what is the goal action we want someone to take eventually?

What Did We Learn Today

It’s easy to be distracted by fun new tactics and forget about the strategy needed to make them integrated pieces of your whole marketing ecosystem. But let me say this, trying and failing is better than never trying for fear of failure. Now that I have a few WYWW(LIVE) episodes under my belt, I’m, able to see where we failed (in the beginning) and these learnings will help us improve in the episodes to come. Think of tactics like the car and the strategy is the gas and maintenance package. The car looks great when you first drive it off the lot, but it will not go far for long without the gas and continued maintenance.

Next time we get excited about a shiny new tactic, we’ll be first asking, what kind of gas and maintenance package is needed to keep this car going long after driving it off the lot.

What ‘fail’ did you have this week?