Reviewing Dreamdata’s LinkedIn Live success
Earlier this year we decided to run a LinkedIn Live experiment.
After a handful of ad hoc sessions by our colleague Laura Erdem, we scoped out the project, brought Steffen Hedebrandt into the fold as co-host and set the objective of 1 LinkedIn Live session a week till the new year.
This is our review after 32 sessions.
We’ll cover:
LinkedIn Live background, objectives and bets
Stats and highlights (including some pretty graphs)
Biggest learnings from our LinkedIn Live experiment
LinkedIn Live: the benefits
Checklist for getting started with LinkedIn Live
Be sure to follow Dreamdata on LinkedIn to keep up to date with our LinkedIn live sessions!
LinkedIn Live: background, objectives and bets
With a growing LinkedIn following, and after a few successes with recorded videos, Laura Erdem decided to have a go at a LinkedIn live session. (more on social selling here)
So on the 3rd Feb 2022, she ran a live show on the topic of ‘Content Analytics’. The idea was, initially to offer ‘open demos’ of the product and features. The results weren’t exactly groundbreaking, with only around 10 viewers tuning in.
Yet it wasn’t a complete failure either. Like any experiment, it deserved a few more runs before any serious conclusions could be made.
After a couple more sessions, it was clear that there was an audience out there.
Steffen, CMO at Dreamdata, who also boasts a large following on LinkedIn, jumped on the chance to scope this project.
And so Dreamdata’s LinkedIn Live sessions, as we know them today, were born.
The idea: weekly conversations with leading guests in B2B go-to-market space.
The objective: run a weekly show till the end of the year
The objective looked too ambitious for some of Dreamdata’s followers. Emil Kristiansen, CMO at Drip and fond Dreamdata customer, bet Steffen a beer that we wouldn’t hit this weekly target.
It’s looking like Emil will find himself short a beer, as we’re just two LinkedIn Live sessions away from hitting the target…
And we have a growing backlog for the new year!
So let’s take a look at some of the results 👇
Stats and highlights for 2022
Number of LinkedIn Live sessions: 32
Total number of attendees: 18,256
Number of guest speakers: 28
Lifetime Minutes watched: 36,952 = 616 hours!
Average lifetime viewers: 500
Biggest learnings from our LinkedIn Live experiment
Our overall evaluation is that this is something we like to do, and the “value vs. effort” equation looks very decent.
There’s relatively little effort that goes into setting up the live events - we’ll dig into these in our checklist below. Yet we get a decent viewership, build a larger community and have ‘free content’ from topic experts ready to repurpose.
With that said, there are some practical learnings.
Building rapport with the guest beforehand makes for a better-flowing conversation.
For the most part, our guests are already part of our network/ community, which means that in the majority of cases, there’s already some familiarity between host and guest. Where there isn’t, pre-episode brief and casual conversation help the discussion flow much more fluidly once live.
Niche, niche, niche. Audiences respond best to concrete and specific topics.
Broad topics are already very well covered with existing content. We have largely adhered to this ethos, after all we are also part of our own ideal audience. So we’ve pushed topics which we find interesting and can reap value from.
From our stats - although it’s still very much too early to call - ours is very much in the marketing segment.
Only invite people for whom the Live is really relevant.
In terms of who we’re promoting the episodes to, we’ve similarly learned that narrowing down the audience pays off. Whereas we initially wanted to open up the sessions to pretty much everyone in the B2B go-to-market space, we’ve learned that niching the audience generates better engagement. So we now try to pair the right audience with the right content.
Post-episode follow-up, untapped potential?
This is probably the place where we’re the least structured at the moment. We don’t go heavily for converting attendees to business value - even where we have spoken about Dreamdata products.
Hardware and software needs
We started super scrappy. It’s a working principle at Dreamdata, really. First, you show that something is meaningful and valuable to do. Only then you can move to scale. Meaning in the case of LinkedIn Live. Firstly test to determine that the format works for you, only then should you upgrade and optimize your hardware and software. Not the other way around.
Free content for repurposing.
With 30 to 60 minutes of video content with leading topic experts, there are always golden nuggets in there that are worth digging into.
We in the content team now recycle these into blog posts and short video snippets.
How to balance Brand vs. Demand: a conversation with Paddle CMO Andrew Davies
3 must-know growth tips for B2B SaaS: a conversation with SaaS-Legend Patrick Campbell
We’ve also converted some of these LinkedIn lives into podcasts.
LinkedIn Live: the benefits
So what are the benefits of doing the lives apart from clocking in a decent viewership? Here are a few value-adds we’ve gotten with our LinkedIn Lives:
LinkedIn Live allows us to connect with attendees in real-time, helping build rapport with followers as well as potential and existing customers.
By hosting a LinkedIn Live, we have the opportunity to share valuable insights and knowledge with our followers, helping them to grow and learn.
The content created through a LinkedIn Live can be repurposed and reused in the future, providing ongoing value for our audience.
LinkedIn Live allows us to invite and connect with quality speakers, adding value and diversity to our content.
By hosting regular LinkedIn Lives, we can stay top of mind with followers, increasing engagement and brand awareness.
LinkedIn Live allows us to put a face to our company, humanising our brand and building trust with our audience.
Checklist for getting started with LinkedIn Live
✅ Value:
First, assess whether or not starting LinkedIn Live has potential value for your business. Think about whether there is an audience on LinkedIn and whether topics can be easily discussed via sound and video.
✅ Test and scope:
If you judge there is some potential value, test it. Give yourself a couple of months running it with whatever frequency you can deliver.
✅ Topic:
Set a narrow topic and dive deep with them. There’s only 30 to 45mins available, so there’s a risk of spreading too thin with broad topics that everyone will likely already know, boring the audience and risking losing them for future episodes.
✅ Attendees:
Only invite people for whom the Live is really relevant. You’re not looking for volume, you’re looking to serve the absolute right content to the right audience.
✅ Settings:
Make sure to invest in a good microphone and lighting, minimal investment for much better quality output. BUT only do this after you’ve had a few trial runs.
LinkedIn still doesn’t offer a native stream feature, so you will have to use a third-party tool for this. We’ve been using Restream, but GetApp and Decast also seem to be quality alternatives.
✅ Preparation:
Prep a rough structure to ensure there’s a good flow, and, of course, so the guest has an idea of where the conversation is going. With that said, don’t follow it too strictly if you see the conversation is going well, but in another direction, roll with it!
You also need at least 5 mins to test everything’s in order before going live, from mics and lights to your streaming tool - test!
✅ Speakers:
Try to select people that are actual value-adds for your audience (ideal customer profiles). A good litmus test is if they are people you yourself (as host) can learn from.
✅ Follow-up:
There is potential in following up your audience/ attendees with retargeting, etc. But bear in mind the buying intent clicking ‘attend’ to a Linkedin live event actually carries.
✅ Repurpose content:
With 30 to 60 minutes of quality video content with a topic expert, there’s bound to be some golden nuggets in there. Your content team can easily repurpose these into blog posts, snippets, infographics, you name it.
With that, you should be in a good spot to make the most out of your LinkedIn live!
We’ll also keep you up to date on our own development over the next year. :)
