Meet Luria Petrucci

In this installment of Meet the Pros, we’re chatting with Luria Petrucci of LiveStreamingPros.com.

Luria is a LIVE Video Strategist, focused on helping you grow your business with professional LIVE Videos. Over 13 years, Luria has created over 5,000 videos with over 1 billion views using video and live streaming shows. She’s appeared on CNN, NBC, FOX, NBC, MSNBC, ABC & BBC.

You can check out Luria’s Ecamm Live Training Workshop at: livestreamingpros.com/Ecamm

To try Ecamm Live risk free for 14 days (no credit card required), visit www.ecamm.live

Catch Meet the Pros live every Tuesday at 2pm EDT on Facebook and YouTube Live.

Key takeaways from this episode

1. Going live can be scary. Remember to focus on your audience rather than on yourself.
2. Create helpful, valuable content that educates and entertains.
3. Start small and layer on complexity.
4. Planning ahead is the key to success.

Our favorite quote

If you’re literally going live and you’re doing your things and you’re not confident and you’re feeling nervous or uncomfortable, the hard truth is that you’re thinking about yourself and that’s the wrong thing to be thinking about. You want to be focused on your guests and on the person on the other end of that camera. Why are you doing this? What are you trying to accomplish? Let’s focus on them and them alone. You’ll start to dwindle into the background and you’ll stop thinking about all of the things that you’re worried about. 

Read the full transcript

Katie: Hi everyone! Welcome to Meet the Pros. We’re sorry we’re starting a little bit late here. We’re really excited to be here. This is Meet the Pros. I’m Katie and I work here at Ecamm. I’m here in the Ecamm Network headquarters coming to you live and I’m really excited for today’s guest. I’m excited that I get to interview her because she’s one of my favorites to watch. Please welcome Luria to the program. 

So I should give a little bit of background on you and then I’ll let you pick it up and take it from there since I’m sure you’ll be able to introduce yourself better than I can. For those of you who don’t yet know her, Luria Petrucci is a live video strategist. She’s created over 5000 videos, so she is much more experienced than me! She created her first video back in December 2005 and she just has not looked back since. You can find her at LiveStreamingPros.com and she’s got a great series on that site that she just kicked off all about Ecamm Live, so if you want to go over and hear Luria talk about all of the ways that you can use Ecamm Live, we’ll make sure that we post a link to that in the description in the comments below when we’re done. Definitely shoot over and give it a give it a listen.

All right, let’s jump into it. I have a whole bunch of questions and I’m sure that people will be asking questions as we continue.

So, I just gave a little bit about you, but let’s talk a little bit more about you and your experiences with video and live video. How did you get started? 

Luria: I drove headfirst in and started doing video. I was one of the first video podcasters online. Then shortly after, I got an opportunity to co-host a TV show with one of my biggest mentors and people I looked up to. His name was Leo Laporte and he did a tech show and I was doing tech shows reviews at that point and I was like okay yes, don’t say no right?

Katie: Yeah, you don’t say no to opportunities.

Luria: I had no idea what I was doing when I wound up on that. I had zero live camera experience. This was actually in 2006 when this happened. In less than a year, I wound up with this opportunity to be on a TV set to do live video and I was like: “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing”, so I dove in headfirst. I felt so uncomfortable in that environment that I was like “I need to figure this out” because I don’t like to do anything without knowing that I can be good at it. So I just started doing live weekly shows. I had a TriCaster at that time, which was a high-end expensive equipment for live video, which is all that existed back then. 

When the first video or live app came for the phone it was only available for the Nokia n95. It was the one phone in the world that could do it. It was short-lived. This was way before Facebook Live or Instagram or anything like that. So I just I started doing it weekly in 2007. Like you said, I never looked back. The one important thing to realize is that even though I felt super uncomfortable in that environment, everybody else thought I was amazing. I’m not saying that about me. I’m saying that about everybody watching this right now, even you. You are uncomfortable, but you’re freaking awesome and you’re amazing and you’re providing value to people and that’s all I care about.

Katie: Yeah, and there is something to be said for throwing yourself off the deep end. I mean that that’s certainly what we’re doing here with the show. We’ve learned a ton. We’re quickly compiling notes that we can release in a blog post about all of the different things that we learn every single time that we we go live, both with this show and when the guys do live Q and As. I feel like there’s always something we learn about the tool or about ourselves or all the different things that could go wrong and all the different ways that can go right, but you’re right in that it’s funny — there’s never anyone watching live that is like super upset if something, you know, doesn’t turn out exactly the way that you plan it in your head. I think it’s more it’s more in our heads. 

So you’ve mentioned this a little bit, but you said you started originally with a video podcast. How and why did you get into that? I mean that’s way before, I think, the podcasting craze became what it is today. How did you get into that and what sparked your interest there.

Luria:  I heard Adam Curry. He was the first MTV VJ in the eighties. 

Katie: Gotcha. Oh I know who he was.

Luria: He was talking on NPR back in 2005 about podcasting and then he was talking about audio podcasting, but I was super intrigued by it. I was like wow that’s really cool like nobody can tell you not to do something. Or you don’t have to get the big voice’s permission to be on CNN or ABC you can have a worldwide audience and you do this stuff yourself. That was super intriguing to me even though I had zero desire to be on camera. So I thought, I can have an audience to myself. I just thought the concept was really cool. And then I heard him talking about it. 

Apple released announced their first video iPod (in October I think it was) and on December 23rd in 2015, I put out my first video to be available on that iPod so that people had something to watch. Really I was one of the only ones so you were forced to watch.

Katie: It’s definitely good to be first.

Luria: Well, you can’t compare me against anything.

Katie: So when did you move into Live Streaming Pros. When did that start or when did that launch happen?

Luria: Like ten years after I started, Live Streaming Pros became a thing. I kind of got burned out on doing tech news and reviews. You know, things kind of came to an end and I was like what’s next? Well, I became aware of the education market online, like I had no idea this existed and David (my now partner in both life and business), he was like you know there’s this thing. People were asking me all the time: “how do you do what you do?” and I was just teaching them one by one. And I was like, oh I can do this on a bigger scale. That’s cool. I’m a teacher at heart. I love people. I love helping, so it was a perfect fit. 

So we started Live Streaming Pros to really educate people on how to do live video given our extensive experience. On both a personal level, like I’m doing it for my own community, but we also did it for Panasonic and AT&T and Samsung and all of these big multimillion-dollar productions. 

So I just looked at how can we take these concepts that people take you know millions of dollars and drill that down into a single person production so that’s that’s why I started.

Katie: Yeah, that’s super important. I think the one business owners get asked all the time is how can they bring more video in. It does feel like something that is really expensive and really difficult to get started so I think that what you’re doing is really really valuable and I certainly think that there’s a ton of small businesses and entrepreneurs out there who want to be doing better, both with live video and with video in general. How can they do it more cost-effectively, how can they do it more efficiently? So definitely helpful to have resources out there. 

All right, what is the most common question you get asked about live video and what is your answer?

Luria: I think these days the most common question I get is: “how do you get the fancy stuff?”

Katie: Yeah, you were saying initially that you were like okay what’s the camera that does live video?

Luria: We were trying to set the stage the bar high. We put a lot of effort into our production and we always push the limits and push the boundaries of what’s possible and so people see that and they’re like I want to look like that, but I don’t want to invest all the money or the time. It can be overwhelming. So I always always always say start small. 

I actually had a student in one of my communities. He started with me on Ecamm Live, because that’s what we recommend to people. We have tested all the things and, on a Mac, Ecamm Live is our choice because you can do a lot with it and it’s super easy to use. So he did he had done this and he was like “I can do all of these things” and so he put all of those things into his production and then, all of a sudden he was live and he was fumbling all around because you can do so much and you always want the fancy stuff, but you want to start small and build yourself up because you’re trying to do all of these things and your brain space is taken up by being live and delivering content — you know, controlling it, all of these things. So take it one step at a time. Let’s do what I call layering complexity. Add a fun cool thing thing and then add another and another and another and you’re going to see so much more success and less frustration.

Katie: That’s definitely good advice. I fall into the category of “look, I can push all of the buttons. Let’s do this.” But it does get overwhelming really quickly when you’re trying to balance out switching back and forth between things or you think you understand something, but maybe you haven’t used it as much as you thought you did. I think adding on slowly makes a ton of sense.

This is actually our second Meet the Pros interview that we are Restreaming out to both YouTube Live and Facebook Live, so that’s been exciting. But for a while, we were like “okay, let’s work our way up to that just in case something happens.”

Luria: Yeah, you don’t know what to troubleshoot when things go wrong when you have all of the things right up front and so it’s just something we see much more long-term success with if you layer on the complexity.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Just looking at my questions now. What tips do you have for people who want to be more confident on live video, but aren’t sure where to start?

Luria: Mmm yeah. So confidence comes with just doing it. Unfortunately, there’s no magic spell that does it. I mean, I have tons of tips, but in order to focus this a little bit, you need to know why you’re doing it first and foremost. The confidence should come from your why and so what you’re trying to accomplish? What are you trying to help people with? That should be your focus. I like to talk about it like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

Katie: You’re speaking my language.

Luria: So Gaston is always looking at himself in the mirror. He’s like “look at me right now. I’m beautiful.” But if you’re literally going live and you’re doing your things and you’re not confident and you’re feeling nervous or uncomfortable, the hard truth is that you’re thinking about yourself and that’s the wrong thing to be thinking about. You want to be focused on your guests and on the person on the other end of that camera. Why are you doing this? What are you trying to accomplish? Let’s focus on them and them alone. You’ll start to dwindle into the background and you’ll stop thinking about all of the things that you’re worried about. 

When I look in the mirror or when I watch my videos, I see nostrils that are too big. I see a forehead that’s too big. I see, well not grey hairs anymore because I call it my hair problem. I see all of my flaws and I hear my voice and I’m thinking oh like I hate my laugh. I think it’s the most annoying laugh in the world. But nobody else is hearing that or thinking that or sees that. 

There are definitely trolls out there, that’s for sure. Answer this question. Did you see any of those things about me?

Katie: No, but I definitely felt those things about myself.

Luria: I think you’re beautiful. I love that gap in your teeth, which is probably something you hate about yourself right now or have issues around it. Right? We all have those things. I think it’s adorable. And I think it’s cute and I think you’re beautiful and I don’t see any flaws with you. I’m not looking at those things because as a viewer, I’m selfish. I want one thing and one thing alone. I want you to help me with something. I want to accomplish something. So when you change your mindset around these things that’s when things start to change in terms of your confidence and knowing that you’re delivering value rather than thinking about what’s wrong with you.

Katie: Yeah, who cares? It’s totally true. yeah yeah it’s totally true. I definitely started feeling a lot better when Ken and Glen used to tell me that only the moms were watching these videos. It’s like there’s only three people and it’s just the moms. Hopefully that’s not true and it’s not just the moms, but it made me feel better. We’re getting there, we’re learning how to use the tool more, and we’re hopefully also helping the community along the way. So it’s always great to see people on.

Luria: Yeah, when you start doing live video you’re not going to have a ton of people on. A lot of people I speak with get really upset about that. They’re like “Luria, no one showed up. It was really disheartening.” I get that it is disheartening, but if you change your mindset and you think now I have this time to practice. I’m going to get good at this. Instead of that heavy weight of having people watch, it lightens the load a whole lot and it makes it super awesome.

Katie: Yeah, definitely. Working your way up to it is one of the things I like about using Ecamm Live. You can use the record only feature when you’re getting started to make it all less scary. When you’re first getting into it you’re like “I’m not going to press that ‘live’ button yet. It’s scary, but the record only button feels really safe — like a safe space to be.” And then I kind of worked my way up to it. Like just live to my page where no one could see, but me and then into a Facebook group with like one friend so they could tell me what I was doing wrong and I could see the comment coming up, so you know it’s a slow progression.

It doesn’t necessarily make it less scary when you go live. It still feels intimidating, but when you go live the few few times at least there’s a slow progression and you understand how the tool works what may or may not happen and what to see and what to expect.

Luria: For sure, yeah. I talk about the live adrenaline monster because that is what it happening. I named him LAM. I have a picture of him at home. We made him into an actual monster because it’s so draining… like he is literally attacking your brain when you go live.

It’s like no other kind of content that you’re creating — podcasts, YouTube videos… nothing compares to live in terms of the brain space. All of the things you’re having to do and the multitasking involved, it’s just — there’s nothing like it because everything else you can redo, you can edit — and so live comes with a lot of emotion, and a lot of overwhelming feelings and you’ve just gotta learn to train it and contain that monster.

Katie: Okay, moving to the next question. How many videos do you do on a regular basis? Are you doing them weekly? How often are you going live?

Luria: I go live anywhere from two to six days a week. I do recorded videos on top of that, so it’s a lot of content.

Katie: How are you planning out all that content? Is this something that you’re looking at a calendar for six months out? Or a year out? Or are you doing things a little bit more ad hoc? How are you planning it all out?

Luria: Mm-hmm. I plan my content and I love to batch as much as possible. Now, obviously you can’t batch live videos, but you can batch the prep of it. Because I do so much I can’t really batch a month in advance but if you were doing one a week, you could totally batch a month in advance. You could prep your little descriptions, prep all the tags, all of the things — just have it all ready to go. It makes it so much easier to not make excuses the day of. I prep on a weekly basis and I think ahead. Sometimes I’ll actually batch like at least topics for two months out so that I know what’s coming up. And if I have something special — like we have a full-on how to training on how to do all the things tech very soon–  and so I’m actually in the middle of batching that topic release. It depends on what’s happening in my world in terms of how much I batch, but I do prep things in advance and I often think like “where people struggling right now?” 

If I have this tech thing then most of our content is going to be released or based on tech related stuff and because it’s gonna build up the audience that is interested in that topic. So it’s going to be something that people are just like anxious to have because they’re actually concentrating on that topic already. So I think about those things in terms of how can I get them results right here, right now? What’s one thing? Focus on that one thing and then move on to the next thing and then move on to the next thing. I don’t try to teach them all the things all at once.

We like to showcase different ways of doing live videos. One of our weekly shows is a live Q&A and it’s a news-related show. So on Fridays we’re doing news and any new tech that we get in the house and then Q and As, which is a more general free-form. It has segments, but it’s really fun and so it’s not like my others. On Wednesdays, I really focus on one single impact getting results and so we like to showcase the different ways that you can do live video because there are so many different ways. Those are the two ways we do it. The Friday show is less planned out, for example. It’s highly Q+A. There’s a lot of prep and thought process that goes behind it. I just really like to make sure that I’m creating a purposeful and cohesive content strategy so that nothing feels out of place or awkward and everybody’s getting something out of it. I don’t want things to feel all over the place. 

Katie: I’m sure that during your Q&A time, you probably get a lot of ideas for future, more in-depth live videos that you’ll do. I know every time we do one of our monthly Q&A live videos with Ken and Glen, we’re like “oh we didn’t think about that feature or that’s something that we need to delve a little deeper into.” 

Luria: Yeah, we do the same. This is just a tip for anybody who’s new to live video or who doesn’t have a huge audience already. For the love of God, don’t do a Q&A off the bat. Save yourself so much frustration and embarrassment because what happens is that you don’t yet have that audience to ask or to engage with. You have to train them to engage first before they’ll start asking questions on an open Q&A. Prepare questions ahead of time and do a Q&A that way, but don’t go live to no audience or to a low engaged audience with an open Q&A; it will be embarrassing. 

Katie: Great advice. So what’s your favorite platform to livestream to. I know you go out all over the place and you often do multi-streaming or testing all different kinds of things. Do you have a favorite or do you just like to keep it fresh and try different stuff?

Luria: You know, I think there are beautiful and very frustrating things about each and every platform.

Katie: Very true

Luria: So I don’t really have a favorite, per se. I like different things about different platforms. So like on Facebook I love having a really full strategy around my entire marketing plan because you can effectively use a live video on Facebook with ads and with actually generating a bigger audience. So there’s an entire marketing strategy that you can use on Facebook so I love that. However, I find it super frustrating how often they’re changing things. You know, like making it a pain in the ass to do. And then YouTube has its own ecosystem and specific type of person that’s there, so it makes engagement a little bit easier and more fun for most people streaming on YouTube. But you also have to have an audience there so you can use the super chats and the the different features there.

Twitch and Mixer have the highest engagement of any platform because they’re built for streaming. I love the FTL — the faster-than-light technology on Mixer, but you know this audience is not really appropriate for Mixer or Twitch streaming, but just know that the features that Twitch and Mixer implement are important because Facebook and YouTube are constantly paying attention to that. They’re like “how do we implement what they’re doing”, so that’s an indirect effect of playing over there. Like when is this going to come out to the rest of the world. I will say if you do want to play over there or do some testing into it you can go live to go out to Twitch natively through Ecamm Live and you can get to Mixer through Restream — you just wouldn’t have FTL at that point, but it’s something you can play around with. There’s always opportunities to push some buttons.

Katie: How did you first hear about Ecamm Live?

Luria: Hasn’t it always just been here? I mean, as soon as Facebook Live became a thing that’s when we really super targeted in on live video versus video in general and I remember Ecamm Live coming out shortly after that. It’s just always been there in my head.

Katie: That’s so great to hear. I know I feel like my job was super easy in some ways to walk into because there was just such a dedicated group of fans. I was like oh this is great, there are lots of people to talk to and to help spread the word. 

Luria: Yeah, Ken and Glen did a fantastic job at just engaging the community and being really open about the progress. Like I love the Facebook group. I love the entire team, including you. You’re all doing an amazing job at really engaging the community and constantly putting out new features. What I love the most is that you guys are constantly putting this stuff and delivering on, you know, some of the higher-end tech stuff when it comes to streaming without complicating the interface. In our studio, I use Ecamm because I’m on my Mac, but we have a PC with VMix and that software is so overwhelming to people walking into it. I’m not just being biased. There’s a major learning curve with other software and you don’t have that learning curve. 

Katie: Yeah, that’s definitely the goal. We want to be able to really make sure that it’s as powerful as possible without being so complicated that people who are brand-new to live streaming should be able to be up and running really quickly

You already answered some of my other questions. Let’s talk features. Do you have a favorite (or multiple favorite) Ecamm Live features?

Luria: I know it’s so super simple, but I love the commenting feature. It’s probably the most asked for feature if you went popping into groups and answering questions about streaming. People are always like asking: “how can I get the comments up on screen?” Having such an easy way to do it is just awesome.

Katie: So Don wants to know where you got your CMT adventure country fire character. A very important question.

Luria: I did a project with Discovery and they sent me my own doll. See, it’s amazing. If you didn’t pull comments on stream, we wouldn’t be able to see Don’s question. The comments thing is amazing. 

I also like the ability to have the PIP, the circular PIP — when you guys released the ability to not just have square. I love the circle PIP. When it come out we were already doing that in some of our productions where we were like really fine-tuning it and so like I was like yes!

Katie: We should just start naming the features for some of our original users. This one is called the Luria… 

OK, looking through the comments to see if there’s anything else we pull in. All right, you started to answer this, but let’s just go back to it a little bit because we don’t want to miss anything. What are some of your best tips for people who are just getting started with live broadcasting or for someone who’s looking to improve and take it to the next level?

Luria: Know what you’re trying to accomplish and what your must-haves are and what your nice-to-haves are. Start slow and build up. You don’t have to have all the things right away even though that’s our ego talking and it definitely does… like the more professional your show looks, the more opportunities you actually have because it adds instant credibility. So it’s very helpful so I get the desire to have all the cool things, but take it slow and layer on that complexity. 

Also, something I was talking about with our student this morning — because he was like I’m failing and I don’t know what to do — think about it like a producer would. Have you ever gone into a TV station or seen behind-the-scenes videos? They have control panels. The more you can set yourself up in that thought process of using hotkeys, the better. Use the hotkeys to your advantage rather than clicking around on the screen all over the place. If you click around, it’ll get you what you want, but it’s also a little awkward for you and for the viewer. So use the hotkeys. Set yourself up with a cheat sheet of what the hotkeys are so that you can learn them and practice them outside of life so that you can set them to memory. That way, you can do things and it’s becoming second nature so you don’t even have to think about it. That frees your brain up to actually get to be more on target for the content that you’re delivering to engage with people.

So think about yourself as a producer, but section off the producer role and the content role and the video person role. And then set yourself up for success behind the scenes. Make sure you’re using all of the commands and the features that you can, so that you’ll have higher production just innately because it’ll become second nature.

Katie: Yeah, we’ve found that just being able to set up your scenes in advance makes a big difference. So Glen designs them and adds in our names and we set everything up the day before so we’re ready to go. I’m using a Stream Deck here so I can change from my scene to just Luria, to us both. It makes it really seamless and easy for me to control from one spot. Certainly what you’re saying about the hotkeys works almost as well if you can memorize them, but having scenes set up goes a long way too. 

Luria: Yes, planning ahead is 100% the key to success here and really starting with the content and switching to your producer hat and thinking through what order and how things are going to flow. Ecamm has all of these built-in functionalities to get you there, but you’ll have to think through how to use them and how the show is going to flow. It takes some time to get there and that’s okay, too. You’ll make mistakes and you’ll give yourself permission to make mistakes. Just have fun with the experience. If you’re freaking out, your viewers will be freaking out. If you’re having fun and laughing about anything that goes wrong, your viewers will be having fun, too. And that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. They want to have fun, learn something… value comes in many different forms. Value comes in education, but value also comes in entertainment. That’s why the whole entertainment industry is out there making billions of dollars. Think about that and be aware of that. When you just enjoy the experience, they will enjoy it.

Katie: Those are great tips! All right, this is the question we ask every single person because this is what everyone wants to know. What does your live video studio setup look like? What are some of your favorite gadgets and equipment? What were some of the original things vs what you have now? 

Luria: Oh god, original? Well, I started off with a dry caster that was my first like live video you know stuff and I think we were using camera camcorders that use DVDs back then. Now we have two different setups that we use and so with my Ecamm setup, I am currently using a Logitech c920 (which is all you really need), but I use my webcam settings to adjust it. Obviously we can add the DSLRs in there and have even higher quality production. I love the diva lights. I love Prismatic lights. Prismatic lights are ring lights, but they change colors — you can control them with an app so you can have a little bit of fun and set the mood. David, who does our sets, really loves the mood lighting. So if you see my videos on YouTube, you’ll actually see a lot of mood involved in it, so we love the lights and just creating different environments. And we use a Blackmagic web presenter in our main studio. We also use an m54 both EPM and our other studio. Let’s see … what else … I mean we have so many gadgets. We literally have a setup downstairs that has three computers tied together that are all running in different pieces of the production. 

David is the tech genius — he’s always tinkering and creating crazy setups that do awesome things, so yeah it gets a little complicated. So start easy and then find a David to get your studio to the next level. [laughs]

I definitely have done some live streams where I’m just on the webcam and it actually looks surprisingly good. It works out pretty nifty. You just put an adjustment on your webcam and you’re golden.

Katie: Yeah, it’s amazing how clear it is. We often use Canon DSLR cameras here in the studio and it’s awesome how crystal clear they are. Let me see if anyone else has any questions for you. Don says thank you. 

All right, what do you think is the biggest reason that holds people back from going live — especially small businesses since they can use their smartphones at no cost.

Luria: Great question. The biggest thing that holds people back is fear. It’s the unknown. Going live is scary. I get it because you don’t know what’s gonna happen and that’s also the brilliant part of it. So when you’re being held back you’re thinking about all the things that could go wrong or you’re worried about yourself like we were talking about earlier and so the things that could go wrong is scary because we are trained to present the best perfect version of ourselves, especially in business. So if you’re in a corporation or a small business that has some hierarchy involved in the decision-making and it’s scary for somebody who’s not in total control. They’re scared they’re going to screw it up or get in trouble… all of these possibilities.

But the thing that you have to remember is that the beauty of live video is that anything can go wrong and that’s not a negative. It sounds like a negative, but it’s not a negative. Live video allows you to be the best version of you and that’s gonna be where you see the success. Being a polished version of you and a perfected version of you on live stream is never gonna produce the results that you desire. When you let go of the… what I call this perfectionality. It’s the perfect combo of professionalism and personality. The professionalism all comes in the visuals — the Ecamm stuff like the overlays that you’re adding, the visual aspect should be the only professional thing that you have in your stream. I mean you as a person and as a personality — the way you actually move your hands, the way you talk — none of that should ever be perfect because that’s where you lose people. That is what holds people back. They’re afraid of live. They can’t edit. But you can produce a quality show without editing. When things do go wrong, those are the best moments and that is what creates engagement. Everybody wants more engagement on their live streams.

The more professional you are, the less engagement you’re going to get, so embrace the flaws because that’s what we’ll call audience triggers and your audience will tap into something that goes wrong and love it. They remember, but it’s not a bad thing. It connected you as a human to them and they will be triggered by that in a positive way to engage with you further and deeper in future streams.

Sorry, I’m rambling, but this is a total passion of mine. 

Katie: OK, we have more questions coming in. We’ve triggered people. Okay, can you suggest a strategy for establishing your live video brand image before you start broadcasting? 

Luria: Yeah, in terms of establishing your assets, the visual stuff that goes on screen just relate it to your brand and make sure that you do go through Ecamm Live and tweak all the things. Like in the comments, you can tweak the colors and the fonts to match your brand… all of the things. Make sure you do go through that whole process of all the visuals that you have like your lower thirds, make sure all of it seems and looks as similar as possible to your brand image and it’ll look more professional immediately.

Some of this stuff you actually have to do live like the comments, I think. You can’t actually edit the look and feel of that when you’re not live, right?

Katie: No, I think you can do it at any point and it’ll save your preset. So like if I was to mess with it now (which I’m not going to do) it’ll hold that preset so the next time I log in it’ll keep that same preset until I change it again. 

Luria: And you can just go live and just mess with this stuff with people. They love to see behind the scenes — that’s one way to engage your audience from a personal human perspective. If you have a designer make sure that they have all of their hands on the pieces of the puzzle. Consistency goes a long way. So once you’ve decided on something, stick with it. Do the same thing every time.

Katie: Well, that’s awesome. We’re nearing our hour mark, which is longer than we usually go, so I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks to everyone tuning in and watching. We’ll be back next Tuesday. Thank you so much to Luria for joining. We’ll make sure to put your link in the  comments and if there’s any other questions that come in we’ll be keeping tabs on them so we can answer them. 

Luria: Absolutely feel free to tag me. I’m happy to continue answering questions and if there’s anything I can do to help you with your live video strategy or your setup or anything like that let me know. Just tag me in the comments and I’ll come running.

Katie: Thanks again! We’ll see everyone next week!

You can catch Meet the Pros live every Tuesday at 2pm EDT on Facebook and YouTube Live.