Facebook Live has made an incredible impact for churches. Going Facebook Live is totally different than signing up for a traditional livestream service. Why is it so different? Two words: social reach.
Connecting and interacting is so easy on Facebook Live. Facebook will notify you when your church has gone live, so you won’t miss it. And when someone is watching your Facebook Live, they can share it, comment on it, and interact directly with the church right there on the livestream. This gains views, engagement, and new followers.
However, before you decide to go live, and if your church has the resources available, you should invest in some tools and equipment to help improve your Facebook Live quality.
It doesn’t always have to be a separate camera for livestream only. Some churches have already invested in high-end cameras that project up on the screens in the service. You can just tap into that same feed and use it for your Facebook Live broadcast. This gives you multiple angles and high-resolution quality.
For the audio, you will improve your quality if you use a separate mixer board for the live feed. If you can’t afford to have a separate mixer system, you can have your live feed come out of the same board as the main system, just with its own mix. A good method we have found is to dedicate four or five groups of inputs to a few separate channels that you mix just for your broadcast.
As churches progress, more people will want to focus their attention on delivering high-quality broadcasts. Soon churches will be more concerned with their livestream than their in-person experiences. It’s because the online numbers will likely surpass the in-person numbers.
Once you get a look at the data on your Facebook Live, you will start to see that sometimes the number of people watching online is three or four times greater than those who actually came in person.
Don’t just throw up any old raw footage, because this is the first impression a lot of people will get for your church. When your livestream is excellent, then you will start to reach more viewers than ever before.
Dedicate an individual or small team whose sole job is to produce the Facebook Live. Train them. Resource them. It sounds intense, but the numbers don’t lie. These are real people who are ready to connect with your church, so make their experience an excellent one.
The Facebook Live team can put together a five-minute prerecorded video or live program before the beginning of the service each week to hook people in and get them to join the livestream.
They can share announcements, do fun interviews, or strictly engage with people during this pre-service video. The team is also responsible for engaging with comments and interactions on the feed before and during the service, being a friendly and welcoming voice to any newcomer.
And finally, at the end of your Facebook Live, there should be a conclusion with a call to action like prayer requests, small group registration, or online giving.
It does sound like a lot of work, and it is. However, when you think strictly about the numbers, this small Facebook Live team could be making an impactful experience for sometimes double or triple the number of people who came in person.
This article is courtesy of Vibrant Agency, a leading church communications & marketing company specifically built for churches and Christian organizations, www.vibrantagency.com.
