Here’s the workaround to boosting your Facebook Live!

Facebook Live can be a great way to get the word out about your brand or service, or just an interesting and engaging way to build relationships with your audience.

The informal, spontaneous nature of Facebook Live can help your business build a community and loyal following, as well as showcasing your brand’s personality and facilitating interaction.

More engagement

Over and above all these other opportunities, it’s been said Facebook Live videos receive three times higher organic engagement than videos that are no longer live on Facebook. They also receive around 5 times more engagement organically than standard photo posts.

So it’s clear the Facebook algorithm pushes Live video. But what about when organic is not enough? What if you wanted to use paid advertising to promote a Facebook Live video, and further extend its reach and engagement? What if you’ve got something super important to announce and you want to make sure the maximum number of people in your target audience see the live video?

The bad news and the good news

Well, the bad news is there’s no direct way to do this. As you’ll see in the screenshot below (of our weekly Facebook Live!), once you’ve scheduled a Facebook live video you’ll find the boost button greyed out and a note “scheduled live video posts cannot be promoted through ads”.

But the good news is, we’ve found a workaround! The following strategy, outlined step-by-step below, will ensure the reach of your scheduled Facebook Live is increased, and more of the kinds of people you want watching get the opportunity to see it!

Steps to promoting your Facebook Live

1. navigate to the Videos tab of your Facebook page

Then click on the video you’ve already scheduled.

2. You will arrive on the scheduled post – Copy the URL of this page

Ensure it’s not the Business Manager link – i.e. that it doesn’t have https://www.business.facebook… at the beginning.

As an example, the URL we will be using for this particular Facebook Live is: https://www.facebook.com/makemereach/videos/1976134235770565/

3. Create a post on Facebook explaining that you will be going live

Include some text in the post that shows users they can get a reminder using the link in the comments. Publish the post and then paste the URL from the previous step in the comments.

4. Hit enter and a preview will appear with a button for people to get a reminder

5. Boost the post!

This will allow you to increase the potential audience for your Live, as people you reach through paid advertising have the opportunity to get a reminder!

Our weekly Facebook Live

A final note: We run our own Facebook Live every Friday afternoon at 2pm, to keep you updated on the latest in social media advertising! Featuring our Octopus Mascot (Reachy) and our Content Marketing Manager (Joe), we call it ‘On the Couch with Joe & Reachy’! Follow us on Facebook and make sure you never miss one again!