Chapter 11
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding how Instagram Live works
Determining when to go live
Discovering how to interact on live videos
Broadcasting on a schedule
Quickly after they launched, Instagram stories dramatically changed the way people used Instagram. Given the popularity of stories, a live video option in Instagram stories seemed like a natural next step.
In this chapter, you find out how to go live and get tips for making your live broadcast more successful before, during, and after filming.
So, you’re ready to go live, but how do you even get to it? How do you use it? Its location is not exactly obvious. Follow these steps:
At the bottom of the screen, swipe Story to the left so you’re on Live or tap on the + icon at the top of the screen and choose Live.
Figure 11-1a shows the Instagram Live screen.
When you’re ready to start, tap the shutter button with the live icon.
Instagram checks your connection, and then you’re on! You’ll begin seeing Username Has Joined and the number of people who have joined.
Wait a minute or two before diving into your topic so that people have time to join.
Greet as many people as possible. Say hi, calling them by their names or usernames. Make them feel welcome.
After you end the video, you can view insights from the broadcast (including viewers reached, video shares, and more) plus save the live video to your device or share it to your feed (shown on the right in Figure 11-1).
To view the video performance metrics, tap View Insights in the pop-up menu shown in Figure 11-1c.
To save the video to your device, tap View in Live Archive, select the recent video in the live archive screen by tapping it, and then tap the Download icon in the lower-right corner of the video viewer (refer to right image in Figure 11-1).
You must have enough storage space on your mobile device to save the full video. If you don’t have enough storage space, only a portion or even none of the video will save.
To share the live video with your Instagram followers, tap Share from the pop-up screen after ending the live video (refer to the right image in Figure 11-1).
A new post screen opens to enable you to post the live video on your feed with a caption and tags, as shown in Figure 11-2.
If being live on camera alone makes you nervous, or if you just want to include someone else in your video, Instagram allows you to invite up to three guests into the live show with you.
If guests have requested to join your livestream, tap the video camera icon with the + sign at the bottom of the live video screen and you’ll see the list of names. You can then add that user to the live video. Or, if you want to invite someone to join the live with you, tap the icon with the person and the right-facing arrow (next to the camera with the + sign) and type the name of the user you want to add or select them from the suggested list (see Figure 11-3).
When a single guest joins you on the live video, they’ll occupy half the screen, sharing their video and audio. If you have two guests, you’ll be in the upper half and they’ll split the lower half. If you have three guests, each person will have a quarter of the full screen.
If you want to go live in the future but not right now, you can schedule your live broadcast. On the iPhone, tap the calendar icon on the left side of the screen (refer to left image in Figure 11-1). In Android, tap on the + icon, choose the Live option, and then select the calendar icon to schedule the video. You’ll need to assign a video title and pick the start time and date. Then tap Schedule Live Video (iPhone) or Schedule Live (Android) to set up the scheduled broadcast, as shown in Figure 11-4.