One of the best ways to help get the word out about your business, connect with your audience and let them get to know you is by going live and streaming in-the-moment video content direct to your audience.

Broadcasting live can be a little intimidating, but in this post, I’ll go over the top seven tips that have helped me to live, in order to make it a little easier for you to start sharing your own live posts (number five helped the most). And with live video content generating the most engagement – and thus, reach – on Facebook, it’s definitely worth considering.

Here are seven key tips.

1. Add value

First and foremost your live videos should add value to your audience. Value can, of course, fall into a slew of different categories, but before you go live, take a moment to think about what your intention for the video is and what you want your audience to get from it. This will help better focus your efforts.

2. Plan as much as you can

If you get nervous about going live, planning is your best friend.

Write out an outline of what you’ll be sharing, talking about or demonstrating in your video, and prop it next to whatever device you’re recording with. Include your cues for specific actions, like screen sharing or demonstrating.

With an outline, you’ll feel more comfortable about what’s coming next, enabling you to concentrate on simply following the defined steps.

3. Tell a story

If you’re not sure how to outline or start planning your live video session, take it back to basics and ensure you tell a story – with a beginning, middle and end.

Following this simple format is the easiest way to organize your thoughts, and it’ll help you give your audience something engaging and interesting – as opposed to rambling and going off track.

4. Go live with a friend

Doing things with someone else is always helpful when you’re nervous about anything. If you’re not sure about going live alone try going live with a friend, colleague, or try conducting interviews until you feel comfortable enough to go at it alone.

5. Take a class or work with a coach

If you’re really in your head about going live, I suggest working with a public speaking coach or taking a class.

This really helped me a lot before speaking at a conference and starting my weekly #CoffeeWithDhari Instagram live session. I worked with Paul Barton who taught me really simple strategies – from getting the nerves out to organizing my presentations.

My friend Madalyn Sklar also has a wonderful masterclass for women who want to start using live video for their businesses but are having trouble getting started (the class is called Video Like A Rockstar). Madalyn is so natural in front of the camera. You get an accountability partner and lots of practice and advice on how to go live.

6. Test your connection

Connectivity issues can really put a wrench in your live session. Try testing your connection with a random live video session to see how everything works ahead of time.

7. Be flexible

Don’t get frazzled by mistakes or technical difficulties. Even when you’ve gone live multiple times, and you’ve tested your connection, things can go wrong.

Remember that this is part of the charm of going live, and you have to roll with the punches as they come up.

Going live can be scary, no matter what social media network you’re broadcasting to. Taking the time to prepare will help, but from my experience getting practice being on video is the best remedy. Practice really does make perfect.

How will you start using live videos for your brand?