(In the picture me and Natalia after streaming live for our game called TrainStation)

If you are in need of some tips for live streams, this short article will tell you how we prepare for it, which themes are the most engaging for our gaming community and when we reached 500k views.

Earlier this year, Natalia wrote down some great pieces of advice why Facebook live videos are so popular and why you all should try them. Especially when you have something to say. :)

Our beginnings

You might ask if we are nervous before the live stream. Well, we have already done many live videos in our social media department in front of a big audience so the more you practice the less nervous you will be. But I remember our first live video with Natalia. Facebook released a new feature and we knew that we had to try it. We did not know anything about it, not even how we were supposed to do it.

We finally managed it and went live on November 9th 2016 with a simple video of building a station for one of the TrainStation characters called Mr. Bill. The idea was to build his station live: place there objects such as buildings or decorations. I had prepared many of them in advance so we wouldn’t have to search for them during the broadcast. We didn’t have any stand for the camera (i.e. mobile phone) so the video was shaking as our hands weren’t steady. We were really nervous! :D But people loved it anyway!

We reached 500 000 viewers!

Over 200k people watched our first live stream and commented below the video how we should decorate the station, which building they want to see there and much more. We managed to engage our players with simple questions like which building they recommend to us, which is their favourite, how we should decorate the station and many more. Building a station is one of the aims of the whole TrainStation game. Despite not promoting the video, it had an enormous success, people and our colleagues were very positive about it and we engaged with a big part of our player community.

Two months later we got another opportunity to build a contractor’s station again and this time the reach was over 500k! Isn’t that phenomenal? People loved to join the discussion and we were asking them to comment and give us thoughts during the whole video, plus we teased them as well, as the contractor was not in the game at that time, he was someone new, so players could look forward to the new content, which is also very important.

I gotta say that if you are doing a live video with your friend or colleague (or both :) ) or anyone, it is very important how the discussion between you two works and if you can react to each other and give spontaneous inputs all the time. We’ve known each other with Natalia for a long time already and I love doing live videos with her as well as with Matej (who is in the second picutre) as we have always something to say and we are having crazy comments during the streaming that we did not plan.

Also give your players questions all the time and do not forget to have someone ready to react and comment during your live broadcast.

After these live videos we have done many more with different topics, for example Q&A with our game designers, Eva did that also in Diggy’s Adventure, we were talking live with CEO and producers when releasing Seaport app, Natalia was playing Hangman live with colleagues who were guessing the names of the trains and many more. From what we have experienced, our best videos were the ones with building stations as players can interact more than when you are doing Q&A and they can actually see their suggestions in the game after. It was even better not to announce the stream in advance.

We got definitely better at that, we got professional camera stand, so no more hand shaking, we also got camera guy and we are enjoying these streamings now, we actually love doing them :)

To sum all up:

1. Have the basic script done - you need to know what you are going to do and have the technical requirements ready too.

2. Have someone who will read all the comments, respond promptly to them and engage players even more.

3. Tease your players, show them behind the scenes, players love it!

4. Most important - Do not be afraid! Try different topics, you never know what your audience would appreciate the most :) Even if you make mistakes in the live broadcast, it is more authentic and therefore better.