What did we learn from our first D.I.Y. Livestream?

This post loosely accompanies Gab & Jam,

287. What did we learn from our first D.I.Y. Livestream?

(video: https://bit.ly/287livestreamtipsvid and podcast: https://bit.ly/287livestreamtipspod )

Here’s what we learned and what made live-streaming scarier than it needed to be, quite frankly. And here’s how we might make it better next time.

#livestream #firstever #recordrelease #obtaniumflow #prejippie #bloomingprejippie #bourgeoisiepaperjam

Gab & Jam,

287. What did we learn from our first D.I.Y. Livestream?

(video: https://bit.ly/287livestreamtipsvid and podcast: https://bit.ly/287livestreamtipspod )

Here's my BIG, LONG rant—if you want tips, check below

— Whew! We got through the livestream and learned a few things that we will take with us into the NEXT livestream. 💥 —YES, there WILL be another livestream! It PROBABLY won’t be for another couple of months, but there WILL be more. 💡🤷🏽‍♀️🙌🏾

— JUST like when we were learning how to record the Gab & Jam episodes more effectively and efficiently, I feel like we are working on a similar goal with our livestreams.

We liked that it felt like recording a Gab & Jam episode (so it didn’t bother me TOO much that there were stretches when there was no one there). —To be honest, it was probably MORE nerve-wracking when our ONE BIG watch party folks logged in and I felt OBLIGATED to talk directly to THEM. 🙄🤷🏽‍♀️😬

However, having that one viewer—BUT who must have had 10 folks watching with them! 😳 —was a BONUS! —But I am being honest; even if it was NOBODY, I had STARTED to just enjoy our conversation and had relaxed.

Tech was tricky, so first thing in, I messed up the original YouTube stream that I had created—and had SHARED! — for folks to tune in. 😳🙄🤷🏽‍♀️ —And, in retrospect, I SHOULD have set up the Zoom H1n as one consistent audio source, since I KNEW that I was LIKELY going to edit these together. 🤷🏽‍♀️😬 —But I was so caught up in ALL the other logistics of the moment that THIS didn’t even occur to me. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Tech was ALSO an issue, because I DON'T remember making a choice as to whether we wanted vertical or horizontal mode, but needless to say, BOTH the YouTube stream AND the Facebook stream defaulted to vertical and I couldn’t seem to change them—which is one of the MAIN reasons I tried a test with the YouTube stream (which caused it to record 5 seconds of me fiddling around with the camera). And, OF COURSE, I ended it, but that killed the livestream link I had ALREADY set up for folks tuning in on YouTube. 😳🤷🏽‍♀️ —What did I do? I did what ANY self-respecting D.I.Y. Rock Star would do and quickly set up a new livestream and went on with what we were doing. 🤷🏽‍♀️😬🙌🏾

Why did we use the iPhone (for the YouTube stream) and the iPad (for the Facebook stream)? Well, when I was trying to figure out HOW to create the livestream links in advance—so that we could share them in advance to drum up viewers—I found out that both of these devices have built-in streaming capabilities. —Whereas, if we had used my laptop or our studio iMac, we would need some kind of encoders. —I don’t KNOW about you, I wanted to keep this process as simple as possible and DIDNT want to be fuckong fiddling with ANY additional shit (that could have the potential of making this shit go sideways! 🙄 ), so once I saw that the small devices could do it, I went with that. —THAT was the GOOD part.

However, the BAD part about that is that, since we were doing a livestream, we would need to be attentive to the comments coming in on the screens. Well, the screens are fucking small and I need glasses to see text that small, so instead of me fumbling with taking glasses off and on, I decided to leave them on, which was NOT quite the rock Star look that I wanted to convey. 😳🙄🤷🏽‍♀️😬 Whatever. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I worked that out by grabbing up one of my cutest pair and kept it moving. 😊🙌🏾😬

The OTHER thing that I hadn’t anticipated and TRIED to farm out was that I wanted someone there to take some photos and footage for behind the scenes purposes. —Remember, our goal is to capture MORE for our Patreon subscribers from now on and THIS would have been the PERFECT opportunity to share a look behind the curtain. —However, our daughter is off at college and our son had to work, so we had to take that idea off the table and to just focus on getting the minimum viable product done, which was to be live-streaming on both YouTube and Facebook at the same time. 😬🤷🏽‍♀️🙌🏾

Remember that this was our FIRST time live-streaming for ourselves. —When we released our funk album, “Sugar Fit,” during the pandemic, we were on Grove Studios’ livestream podcast, which had benefits and detriments of its own—the biggest hassle, of course, was having to wear a mask while trying to talk into a microphone. —Needless to say, I chose the WRONG mask and ended up eating cloth every time I opened my mouth! 🙄🤷🏽‍♀️😳 —But ANYWAY, the point is that ALL we had to do was to show up and they did the rest. 🤷🏽‍♀️🙌🏾😬👏🏾

So, WHY put ourselves through all this?

We KNEW that this was going to be a little challenging, but we ALSO knew that we NEEDED to bump up our promotional efforts for our releases going forward and we KNEW that live-streaming is supposed to be one of those activities that helps:

1) bring our people together,

2) encourage traffic on streaming services,

3) gives us INSTANT video that we can use in a variety of ways to help build out our band’s brand, so it was KINDA a no-brainer. 💥

Tips:

1. Keep doing it!

Keep doing it, because it’s worth it (for the aforementioned reasons) and you’ll get better with practice. –We are doing the “waterfall” method of releasing our album, which means that we are releasing aa few singles at a time before releasing the remainder of the album. –When we debuted “Sugar Fit” (in 2020), we got a quick bang at the beginning—with the Grove livestream, but we went for the bang of getting the entire album out there and didn’t worry about what happened next. –By releasing the first six singles of the album one at a time, we can call attention to each of these songs and try to generate more plays and buzz overall. –Well, the Groover campaign gave us a really quick, good kickoff to our reach, but you’d have to read here to see more about that. –This livestream is us trying to build some incentives to folks coming along—and for listening—to whatever the upcoming singles are. So, yes, we will keep doing them throughout the course of this album’s promotional push.

How we got on 13 playlists in one week (thoughts on Groover): https://bit.ly/286playlistsblog

2. Do an advance set up.

Try your best to have as much of the tech and stage set up in advance as you can. The goal for us is to stay in the zone and to vibe with the folks who have come to hang out with us. Remember, though, as a D.I.Y. Rock Star you have to doing mostly EVERYTHING yourself, you are STILL “the talent,” which you need to look glowing and be congenial, even as you face hiccups during the livestream. Though we TRY NOT to get hung up on something going wrong, but the reality of it is that the nature of a livestream is that mistakes are likely to happen. Like any live performance, you play through and try to shake it off and keep going. –THAT’S our story and we’re sticking to it, Yo!

Should you ever play for free? https://bit.ly/214playfreeblog

3. Think about your backdrop.

Though we had THOUGHT about sharing from a studio-facing perspective—since we KNOW that many people are interested in what kind of gear helps produce our music—but logistically, it would have been too difficult to set up. So, we have a back wall with all of our album covers made into wallpaper and many of Bruce’s guitars are hanging up on display, so we chose to use that. Just consider what’s going to be in the shot.

10+ Social Media Strategies: https://bit.ly/socmediablog

4. Try to check out the shots you plan to get in advance.

The day before the livestream, I set up the space. I put the iPad and phone up where we could get us both in the shot and set up additional lights, since there’s no natural light in our studio. –The only caveat was that, though we didn’t know it, both YouTube and Facebook defaulted to a vertical shot the MINUTE we went live, which meant that we have to squeeze in together. –Again, this is our very first time doing it ourselves, so we didn’t know that. We adjusted. And next time, we know to plan accordingly.

Artist mentoring experience revealed: https://bit.ly/217artistmentorrevealblog

5. Fill shadows

We used some studio lights to help fill in the shadows. —We have a couple of kits that cost less than $50 each. —If you plan to do video even ONCE a year, it’s worth the investment. Well-lit faces make you look radiant and adds to that star quality. 😎

Basic recording studio setup? https://bit.ly/246basicstudiopost

6. Set up links in advance.

We had ALREADY set and shared the links to our followers on every platform (so that we wouldn’t have to do that right before going live). By doing this a week in advance, we were able to promote it for a solid week on many of our social media platforms to try to get as many of our 35k+ followers to come to the livestream.

Why be on more than ONE social media platform? https://bit.ly/Ep141moresocmedblog

7. Set an agenda

Have some kind of agenda of what you plan to do during that time—that is NOT dependent on folks tuning in early on. —In OUR opinion, there’s nothing worse than tuning in on time and seeing someone sitting, talking about they are waiting for folks to show up. 🙄🤷🏽‍♀️ —So, we had a few things that we had planned to do right at the beginning and during MOST of the broadcast. —Not only does it honor the time that you’re spending—and possibly the few folks who are ALREADY tuned in—but since you will LIKELY pull highlights out of this livestream, it’s great to grab as much solid reusable content as possible. —In our car, we took time to tell the thinking behind the album and why we switched our style up slightly. That way, no matter when you tuned in, we were sharing ideas, instead of waiting around.

So, as you can tell, this is a tool where we could connect with our audience, which was our primary goal. It ALSO was a great tool for pulling snippets from for other social media content, as well as for educating our new fans on what we’re all about. It’s for ALL those reasons that we did it.

So, will we do it again? HELL, YEAH! 🙌🏾 In fact, our NEXT livestream is scheduled for Friday, May 12, where we will debut for Bourgeoisie Paper Jam’s next single “Every Heartbeat.” We will also premiere the music video live and on-air—unless you are a member of our Patreon community. (If you’re in our Patreon, you will see the video one week earlier. Join here.)

What about you?

What tips do YOU have for livestreams?

Did you know that along with putting together our next album, we are working on our first book? Here’s the link, if you want to pre-order: https://bit.ly/prejippiebklanding

Here’s what we’re into now:

· We’re featured in Variety Magazine! https://bit.ly/featuresxsw2023

· One of our videos for our song, “Tell Me What You Want,” is going gangbusters in Vietnam! https://bit.ly/tellmewhatyouwantvid

· “Faith in Me” on Union 999 Independent Playlist: https://spoti.fi/3Jusm2Q

· “I Miss You” got picked up for a Spotify Playlist! https://spoti.fi/3jha4HP

If you like this, you might enjoy:

· What to do when real life interrupts your artistic process? https://bit.ly/241reallifeblog

· 7 Strategies for rebounding from creative burnout: https://bit.ly/239digoutofburnoutblog

· How to give better interviews (for D.I.Y. Rock Star): https://bit.ly/236betterinterviewsblog

· How to give better live performances: https://bit.ly/219betterliveblog

· How to collaborate better (for D.I.Y. Rock Star): https://bit.ly/Ep163collaborateblog

· How to write quicker, but better (for D.I.Y. Rock Star): https://bit.ly/228writebetterblogpost

· Should you ever play for free? https://bit.ly/214playfreeblog

· 17 Tips for taking better band photos—ESPECIALLY if you taking them yourself: http://bit.ly/betterbandphotos

NOW:

New single, “Give Your Love Freely,” by Bourgeoisie Paper Jam http://bit.ly/BandCampPMG and follow on Spotify at https://bit.ly/bpjspotfollow