199: A COOL TOOL To Create Professional Facebook Live Videos

I’m excited to offer you an early bird discount ticket for this particular event. If you go to problogger.com/success and use the coupon code SUCCESS17, you will get a $50 discount on tickets to this year’s event. I look forward to seeing you in Dallas this October for our only US event this year. Again, go to problogger.com/success.

As I said at the top of the show, my name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind ProBlogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, and a series of ebooks all designed to help you to grow a profitable blog. You can learn more about ProBlogger over at ProBlogger.com.

In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you another cool tool for bloggers that will help you to create high quality, live video on Facebook. Many of you have heard me raving about Facebook Live pretty much for the last 6 to 12 months. It continues to be a medium that is well worth investing time into. I have been doing it on a weekly basis for the last couple of months and am seeing the benefits every time I do it.

If you are to use Facebook Live, you’re going to start to grow your reach and engagement on Facebook. It does help to deepen the relationships that you have with your readers. The problem that many people have with Facebook Live is that to create a high quality, professional looking video can feel a little out of the reach of the ordinary, everyday person. Whilst Facebook themselves are updating their tools, there’s still a lot you can’t do without investing quite a bit of money into software or hacking together a system and being quite technical.

Today, I want to present to you an affordable option that will, for under $30, enable you to do some pretty cool stuff including sharing your screen, which is something that many of you have been asking for, scheduling broadcast, adding overlays, and much more. Today’s show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/199, where I link to the tool but also give you some examples of live videos I’ve shot and broadcast onto Facebook using this tool. You can also check out our Facebook Group where I do live videos every week at problogger.com/group.

Facebook Live continues to be a great way to build a presence on Facebook itself to support your blog. It’s a great way of getting extra reach on Facebook. We know that Facebook continues to show live broadcast more than almost any other type of post that you can put on Facebook. It’s a great way to extend your reach and to reach those people who follow you on Facebook, who don’t see your other posts. It’s also a really great way to build relationships with those who follow you and have real engagement with followers, real time engagement. When you get on and you actually get a comment from someone, you can respond to that immediately. That takes the relationship further faster. It’s also a really great way to personalize your brand.

Back in episode 188, I gave seven different types of Facebook Lives that you can do. We do talk a little more there about why Facebook Live is so great. Today, I want to talk about a tool that I’ve been using that has really helped me in my Facebook Lives. Facebook have been developing what you can do with Facebook Live a lot since it first went live. In the early days, you could only do it from the mobile phone. More recently, they allow you to do it from your desktop computer just from within Facebook itself. That’s pretty cool.

But there still are some limitations of what you can and can’t do either through the mobile app or through your desktop computer. That is why I’ve always been interested in what some of the other apps and tools will allow you to do. One of the ones that I’ve been playing around with over the last couple of months, really, is Ecamm Live. That’s what I want to talk about today. They first came onto my radar years ago now when I was looking for a solution to record Skype interviews.

When you hear me interviewing someone on this podcast, we did Nikki Parkinson a couple of weeks ago now. That interview was recorded on a little tool that plugs into Skype. It’s called Call Recorder. It’s a Mac based tool that allows you to record your Skype conversations. That’s where I first came into touch with this company who produced Ecamm Live.

One of the things I love about that Call Recorder tool is that it’s really cheap. There’s so many software tools around now which are exorbitantly priced. The Call Recorder was something that I felt was affordable and it’s something that I use all the time so I’ve always been interested when they release a new product. One of the new products that they released a few months ago now is this new one, Ecamm Live, which allows you to put Facebook Live videos up using their particular app.

I want to say right up front, this is a Mac Based tool so if you’re not on a Mac, you’re not going to find this particular episode too useful. There are other solutions out there that you can look at for PC based Facebook Lives but if you have a Mac, you’re going to want to check out Ecamm Live because it is really feature rich. They’re developing it fast and it is very affordable. It’s $30. $29.95. Whilst that may be out of the price range of some people, I think most people can probably afford that if they’re going to invest into Facebook Live because it’s so much cheaper than a lot of the other tools that are out there.

It does allow you to do things that you can’t do easily through Facebook itself and their particular apps. I’m amazed how cheap it is really. I’ve been using it now for six or seven weeks, maybe a little bit more even, on both ProBlogger’s Facebook page and also my Digital Photography School Facebook page. I’m really impressed by what you can do with this particular app.

Let me run through really briefly some of the things that you can do with this tool, Ecamm Live, that you can’t easily do just using Facebook’s native desktop app or phone app. The first one is overlays. You’ve probably seen video online for years now, people will add some kind of an overlay to their video. There are numbers of different types of overlays that you can add into your live video using Ecamm Live.

Firstly, you can put an image onto your video. If you go to ProBlogger Facebook page, you will see one of my videos and in the corner, I have the ProBlogger logo showing all the time through the video. I’m able to brand my live video with my logo, which reinforces my brand. You could add in a larger image and you could actually pop it in as a large one that takes up the whole screen if you want it to but I tend to just put mine in nice and small.

You could also use an animated GIF in that place as well. It’s really easy to do. You just get an image off your desktop, drag it onto the Ecamm Live app and there it is. You can resize it and reposition it if you want. You can add in an image.

You can also add in text. Even during your Facebook Live session, you might want to emphasize a URL, you might want to add in your name at the bottom of the video, you can type in your name and you can change the font and the color and the size of the font as well. You can add in more than one text overlay if you want as well, as well as having that logo. In the last Facebook Live that I did on the ProBlogger page, I had the ProBlogger logo up in the top left hand corner and then under the logo, I had a URL to the Facebook Group that we have at ProBlogger.

You can do a number of different types of overlays during your Facebook Live. That’s one cool feature that you can’t do using Facebook’s native app. Second thing that you can do is show video, pre recorded video in your Facebook Live. This is really useful in a number of different ways. Any video that you’ve got on your desktop, you can simply line it up, press play, and then show it to people on your Facebook Live. This could be really useful if you are a business person.

If you have a business sales widget and you have a video that sells the widget, that demonstrates the widget, rather than having to do it live in front of the camera, you could have this pre recorded video. You could introduce what you’re going to show and then press play on it. You can have a keynote presentation that you’ve delivered at a conference and you’ve got the video of it. Rather than giving the presentation again live on Camera, you show the video.

There’s many number of ways that you can use video. You just play it in the middle of your livestream. You could have a video lined up. Introduce it, press play, stop it halfway, get back on you showing your face and then again, show more of the video. You can shop and change during your Facebook Live, really very useful.

Number three, and this was the killer things for me. This is the reason I got Ecamm Live, is that you can share your screen on your desktop. This is a desktop app and this is really what I wanted because a lot of the Facebook Lives that I tend to do are teaching Facebook Lives. If you’ve tuned in to the ones that I’ve been running over the last few weeks, you will know that I show slides and these are slides that I’ve repurposed from talks that I’ve given. I’ve worked hard on those slides and so it’s really great to be able to show them. I introduce my video, I will give a greeting, and then I will say, “Let’s move into a teaching session.” And then I share my screen and I show a PowerPoint presentation that I have already developed.

You could also share your browser. From time to time, during a Facebook Live, I will jump on over, “Hey, let’s look at this site,” and I will show an example of it. Pretty much any app, you can then show on the screen. The cool thing about Ecamm Live is that they recently did an update which allows you to just show one app. You don’t have to show your whole desktop. You can just show your Safari browser or your Chrome browser. You could show a PDF. You could show your keynote slides. You could share a text document. Any app that you’ve got on your computer, you can just highlight that and just share that or you can choose to share your whole screen. I tend not to do that because my desktop is pretty messy with lots of icons everywhere.

Screen sharing, this is the killer app for me. This is the reason I got it and it works so easily. You literally just press a button and then highlight the app that you want to highlight and there it is up on the screen for people to see.

The fourth thing you can do is have multi cameras. If you want to add a little complexity to your setup, you might want to have one camera set up on just your face, another camera set up as a wide angle, a little bit further away from you to show your office or the set that you’re in. You might have a camera even set up on something else or another person if you’re interviewing them so you can switch between cameras. That’s pretty easy to do as well.

You can actually have an external camera. I used to use my webcam built into my iMac, which is a good little webcam but it’s not as good as some of the other webcams out there so I recently bought myself a Logitech webcam, which is an HD webcam and it works better in low light so I plug that in and use that as well but I could switch to the webcam as well.

Another feature you can do very easily through Ecamm Live is schedule your broadcasts. You can actually say I will be on live on this time at this day. I think it’s anything up to seven days into the future so I could today set one up for tomorrow at this time. I’ve been doing that as well. Anyone who’s following you on Facebook in their newsfeed will see Darren is planning to go live at this time and they have the option to set a reminder when you’re about to go live. If they are on Facebook at the time that you’re going to go live, a notification comes up that says Darren’s about to go live. Go and check it out.

This is something you can do using numerous tools. You can actually kind of do it through Facebook itself but it’s not an easy simple process to do. You’ve got to go to settings at the moment to do that, so this is just a seamless way to do that. There are other features. You see the comments of anyone who is responding to you during your session come up on the screen. As you’re broadcasting, you see what your viewers see, which is really useful. You actually see yourself and then over that video of yourself, you see the comments scroll up.

One of the things I don’t like about it is that the comments are quite small and they are white and so if you have a white background behind you, they can be a little bit hard to see. This is something I feed back to the team at Ecamm Live. I hope that they will fix that and make it so that those comments stand out a little bit more. But you do get that feedback, which is fantastic because it means you don’t have to have Facebook open to go and see what people are saying to you. You also see the likes and the hearts that people give you as well. You get that feedback from people.

Another feature, its HD quality if you choose to have it that way. You can switch that on or off depending upon your internet speed. My internet speed here in Australia is not super fast. I’m on a cable connection but I’ve already got 1MB per second upload, which isn’t really fast. When I did switch HD on, I’ve got a few connectivity issues. I’m not sure whether it’s my internet or whether that was a little bug in their tool at the time so I switched that off and since then haven’t had a problem and the quality is still pretty good.

They’re also adding features regularly. This is one of the things I love about Ecamm Live, is that they are updating the app and they’re updating it almost every second week at the moment. They have a little Facebook group which is reasonably active where they preview upcoming features. They released a new version of it last week, which did add scheduling and some other tools as well. You can location tag your videos if you choose to do that as well.

They also shared the other day that they’re going to add a feature which will allow you to use a Digital SLR as a camera, which will be pretty cool because you’d be able to shoot at a large aperture, getting a little bit technical now in photography terms, using different lenses which will allow you to blur your background, which is a really nice effect and is something that I’m keen to experiment with as well.

It’s a cool tool. There are plenty of other tools around out there that will give you all of these features. There’s nothing unique just to Ecamm Live. But, at $29.95, I am amazed at what it can do. Some of the other tools that are out there are upwards at $400. I saw one the other day for $500. I will say that that tool is a professional level tool and it is pretty amazing. You can do a whole lot more than what I’ve just said. But for $29.95, I’m pretty amazed that Ecamm Live is putting this out there. They guarantee that you get this lifetime updates with that as well.

I’m pretty excited about this tool. I would love it if they would allow us to see the comments a little bit more. I would love it if we could do split screen interviews with other people so I could bring on a guest. That’s on my wish list. They have said in their Facebook Group that they’re open to doing that if Facebook would allow it in their API. Hopefully, that will come. That’s something that you can now do through Facebook’s mobile app, I think or at least some people can. Hopefully, that’s coming.

Again, it’s a Mac only tool. Unfortunately for those of you who aren’t on Mac, you’re not going to be able to use that. I’ve got a link in the show notes to this. It’s an affiliate link. I think I make 15% on that $29.95 so it’s not a great deal but it is a tool that I’m using and genuinely do recommend. I’m not doing this just for that 15% of $30. I’m doing this because it is a tool that is so simple to use and I’m really genuinely very excited about. I’m excited to see what they continue to do to add to it. Thanks to the team at Ecamm Live for creating this tool and putting it in the hands of normal people and making it so accessible to people.

If you give Ecamm Live a go, head over to our Facebook Group at problogger.com/group and share a link to your Ecamm Live video that you did. Back in episode 180, I did challenge you to do some Facebook Lives and I know some of you did take that challenge. I want to issue that challenge again. Give it a go. Give this tool a go, They actually have, I think, a free trial for 7 days or 14 days. You can even use it for free just to give it a go as well. If you do, share the link in our Facebook Group so we can see hey, you went, and give you some encouragement as well.

Thanks for listening today. This is episode 199. You can check out the show notes at problogger.com/podcast/199, where there is a link to this amazing tool. I might also embed a couple of videos that I shot with it so you can check them out as well. That’s problogger.com/podcast/199. If you’ve got a moment and you’re listening to this in iTunes or on the podcast app on your iPhone or some other iPhone network, please leave us a review. It does make a massive difference not only to helping us to be found by other people, but also it makes a big difference to me because I get an email each week with those reviews. It gives me a lot of energy to keep on keeping on with this podcast.

Thanks so much for listening today. Look forward to chatting with you next week in episode 200 of the ProBlogger podcast.

Thanks for listening today. If you would like something else to listen to, I do recommend that you go over to listen to episode 180 where I go through seven different types of Facebook Lives that you can do. I know some of you will be asking the question I want to do a Facebook Live but what would I do on Facebook Live. That episode is going to give you some hints on that.

As I say in the show today, head over to problogger.com/group, where you can share your videos and learn from 6,000 plus other bloggers who are on this journey with you. There’s a great community going on in there.

Lastly, if you do want to check out that Dallas event, head over to problogger.com/success and use the coupon code SUCCESS17 for a $50 discount on that particular ticket. I do really hope to see as many of you as possible at that Dallas event. It’s the only event we’re doing in the US this year. We have a great time lined up for you.

One of the things that we will be doing more of at that event than we’ve been in previous events here in Australia is masterminding. We’re also doing a short sharp series of sessions in the evening of day one of the event called Our Power Sessions. In these power sessions, we are inviting people to share for 20 minutes on a particular topic, really short, sharp practical hacks and systems and templates that they’ve been using in their business. That’s a particular focus of this year’s event.

We’re going to churn through as much actionable content as possible. If you are interested in that Dallas event, head over to problogger.com/success, and again the coupon code, SUCCESS17 to get $50 off that event.

Thanks everyone. Chat with you next week.