As soon as lockdown began the number of  Instagram Lives sky rocketed. With everyone stuck at home celebs, businesses and influencers started using the platform more than ever.

But as people start to get Instagram Live fatigue, how do you make sure you stand out from the crowd? Here are some things I think will help.

How to go live on Instagram 

First of all, how do you go live? From your home screen swipe left as if you’re about to take a picture for an Instagram Story. Along the bottom of the screen you’ll see ‘normal’, to the left of that it will say ‘create’ and then ‘live.’

Tap the ‘live’ button and you’ll be streaming live to all your followers.

OK, now onto how to make the most of your live.

Promote your live! 

You could just go live randomly, but the most useful lives (in my opinion) are ones that are pre-planned and have one set topic. Promote your live by letting your followers know when you’ll be live and what you’ll be talking about.

Extra brownie points if you can go live at the same time every week, just like a TV show.

Pin your topic 

Make your topic obvious to those who join after you’ve said what it is in the first few seconds by pinning a comment with your topic in the comments section.

Don’t wait for people to join 

You want to reward those people who come to your live on time, don’t make them wait around for others to join. Start your topic straight away, and then you can repeat your topic at intervals throughout the session by saying something like; ‘If you’re just joining us, we’re talking about xxx’

Answer questions 

It can be hard to keep an eye on all the comments when you’re on a live with over 100 people, but viewers can also submit questions using the question sticker at the bottom of the screen, so make sure you take a look in there and answer any relevant questions

Save your live 

There are some glitches with saving lives on Instagram, but at least try to save your live to your IGTV channel, and your feed if you’re not one of those people who are worried about their feed aesthetic!

 

TLDR: prepare a topic for your live and reward those who come early.

 

I hope this helped you! If you want to learn more about Instagram marketing and how to grow your personal brand on the platform, download my 14 day step-by-step personal branding course.