We at Endorphinz Have Reviewed The Updates and Provided Our Opinion On How This Applies To Fitness and How It Can Fit Into Your Fitness Streaming Blueprints.
Facebook has felt the demand of real-time video with the COVID-19 lockdown and has reported that they are seeing more than 700 million accounts participate in calls every day between messenger and WhatsApp. As a result, they have focused on features that make video chat and live video easier and more natural or as they say, “make real-time feel real”. Here are the highlights.
Payment Options For Facebook Events
Multi-Person Facebook Live Streams
Group Video Chat (+50 People)
Portal Available For FB Pages and Groups
Instagram Live From Your Desktop
WhatsApp Group Calls Up To 8 People
Mark Zuckerberg made a bunch of these announcements last week via his own Facebook Live and we have reviewed them through the lens of Fitness Streaming and gave our professional opinion as well as some added Tips and Tricks you can apply!
A Payment Option For Facebook Events & STARS.
Instructors can now charge for access to their Facebook or Instagram Live events in the app. You will no longer need to arrange for a 3rd party payment system and then give your users private access. You are able to do everything right inside the app and the best part is you don’t even need a Facebook account to participate. Another really cool feature that you might have the option to use is the Stars option which allows consumers to support their favorite creators. It works like this; once consumers buy stars; they can send them to the creator while you are streaming, and you’ll earn 1 cent for every Star.
Tips & Trick: Let’s take this a step further… Imagine if I used Facebook for my private paid access and I communicated with the users in Facebook and then I promoted this in other social channels like YouTube, etc. and it was available for free there via a multi-stream casting set up.
You could make money in one channel and communicate with your paid clients while promoting that in real-time other channels for free. We recommend these things because not everybody uses the same social platform as you and it is important to meet the consumer where they are. We also believe in charging for “Access”, so this also works and, in our opinion, just gave the fitness creator a big advantage in connecting direct with consumers and some great options to monetize in a tool that has a huge audience.
Multi-Person Live Stream -> A Split Screen Option for TWO (2) People.
This is an old option that Facebook use to offer when others could join you Live on Facebook (Similar to Instagram Live) so you can have a bi-directional conversation with another person. This is a great option for those who are hosting Q&A’s, interviewing somebody from their live stream or simply work with some one on one and promote that service in real-time.
Tips & Tricks: Maybe you can leverage your expertise and specialty by educating the market with somebody else who closely matches your brand. Work with others who have good followings and collaborate on ideas to build your own personal following.
Also, if possible, with the split screen you could still use a template to add graphics and some type of CTA (call to action). This will dramatically increase your funnel from a free video of two people talking into the next step to the paywall or some other paid service.
Go Live From Portal To Facebook Pages and Groups
For those of your who use Portal. You will be able to use this for your Facebook groups and pages stream now. Portal is a great way to up you’re on-camera game with Portal’s AI-powered Smart Camera as it acts like your own personal cinematographer.
Previously this was only available for your profile and it can be a video enhancing option when used right.
Group Video Chat (50+ People) -> Via Facebook Messenger Rooms (Like Zoom).
This is a great solution for those who are now doing the Zoom training with small groups. We call this Live Small Group at Endorphinz and it has one of the highest perceived values to the consumer because of the bi-directional communication which follows our rule of charge for access and price the connection. The FB option has some very interesting opportunities for you!
Tips & Tricks: In Zoom you are completely responsible for bringing the audience to the platform in order to participate. With Facebook they have a built-in audience (Billions of People)!
Imagine being able to collect the payment in Facebook and no longer needing some crazy hack with Zoom and better yet you can go live with some sort of count down before the Zoom starts and promote the upcoming event to the Facebook audience for any open seats available. We have not tested the stream and audio quality yet, but we have tricks for that too 😊. We have some ideas that could be a game changer for the inclusion of this option if the quality holds.
Instagram Live From Your Desktop -> Mobile or Desktop Now
Instagram Live can now be added to your Desktop (soon). If you use Instagram Live, then you know you can only do so from your mobile device.
This will open up the opportunity for a better camera option among other things for those who are die hard IG fans In addition, you will be able to save your IG Live to your IGTV for later viewing and make it even easier to find the video.
Tips & Tricks: When it comes to Live Streaming with your desktop you are able to use some hacks with better cameras and audio equipment which can make the experience better for your fans but also you. There are even production tools with Live that might come into play allowing you to differentiate and separate yourself from the pack with higher production quality.
Group Video Calls (Up to 8 People) In WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is getting the upgrade too if you prefer to have a tool where you bring the audience off of Facebook. Soon you’ll be able to have group voice and video calls with up to 8 people. This could be great for private small group meetings and for those who don’t use Facebook
In our opinion these are all great enhancements to some of your favorite social platforms. We will be adding these to our Fitness Streaming Blueprints we do for the studios, gyms and instructors we work with and we recommend you do the same. But keep in mind this is only a part of your overall fitness streaming footprint. We still recommend you have a branded option that works together with this and serves as a funnel to your secondary content. There are many ways to use these upgrades and even more when you have your own branded solution.
We are building the fitness services company for the digital age and we are experts in fitness streaming. It is our mission to connect fitness creators to consumers and we highly recommend you have a blueprint for fitness streaming that includes some of these new features. We still recommend you start with your Content first as Content is King! If you do not have fitness streaming blueprints, then it is the same as you not having blueprints to build a fitness studio… it might be possible, but it will be a lot harder. We are the only group that architects these blueprints together with you and we are happy to show you how these recent announcements fit into your digital footprint. For more info you can contact us at Hello@Endorphinz.net or subscribe at www.Endorphinz.net for more insights and access to special content.
Best Regards,
Mike Hansen, Co-Founder & Managing Partner
