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Watch Nasdaq Director of Integrated Marketing Josh Machiz explain why “The Future Is Live” thanks to Facebook Live

Facebook Live has taken the world by storm. From Chewbacca Mom to the House Democrats sit in on Gun Control, Facebook is the new TV and the time to jump in is now.

Josh Machiz is the Director of Integrated Marketing at Nasdaq is responsible for managing all of the content for the Nasdaq social media properties, as well as experiential marketing and social media activations at Nasdaq MarketSite. In this role, Mr. Machiz is responsible for the IPO day social experiences and social advertising for new and established Nasdaq companies.

Alright, I’m not gonna throw a purse at you but I have, I think a lot of interesting knowledge to share. I’m a huge fan of authenticity and storytelling and I really drink the Kool-Aid but today, I’m gonna give you actual, practical tools to elevate the Facebook Lives that you put out.

So, why do Facebook Live over any other platform Well, it’s really about getting the highest, organic engagement on Facebook. If you are a marketer or even as a creator, you know that the best way to get organic engagement is Live. And so, really, it’s such a valuable tool and I think it’s underutilized both by creators and brands.

I’m seeing a lot of brands where they use it haphazardly or creators that use it haphazardly and it really needs to be given its own professional broadcast. And you need to take it very seriously.

So why is it so cool and different? It’s all about providing different experiences. It’s about that interactivity, it’s finding a way to connect with your audience in a new and unique way. And I think it allows as a creator it allows you to get your fans a little bit closer to you like if they’re on Snap or any other platform they can talk back to you but in that Live format, where they’re actually being able to tell you to do something, like having that real connection is very unique and I think it’s a really interesting and different platform even in other live streaming platforms. Because live streaming has been around forever.

So why Facebook? One in seven people on this planet are on Facebook. That’s a crazy statistic. That means that you’re not just reaching the people in the US, you have this incredible opportunity to reach people in places you never imagined and that is the major opportunity also for brands and for creators.

So, why is Facebook Live different? Well, your fans get a notification. And that’s an important thing both as a brand as a creator is that notification. There aren’t many things right now where you can get Facebook to put a notification on people’s Facebook accounts. And that’s really powerful.

So, this is what I think a fact that a lot of people don’t know. That the actual engagement. If you upload a video to your Facebook page, if that was a live video, you would get 10x the engagement. And, people on Facebook are tired of the same old thing. It’s new, it’s different and I don’t think a lot of people are doing it in the best way that they possibly could.

So, to the knowledge bit. If you are a creator and you don’t have a ton of money to spend on creating this incredible Facebook Live broadcast quality feed here’s what you need to buy. And this is just like easy, simple, there’s this tool called the Beastgrip. I carry it with me everywhere. It’s super easy. You can throw your iPhone into the Beastgrip and you can put it on a tripod with a light and a little set up and if you have a branded step and repeat, you can come to a conference like this one and do a Facebook Live broadcast out in the lobby area with some of the other creators and get a whole bunch of engagement.

There’s a huge opportunity right here in this room to collaborate with a whole bunch of creators and do something really fun and expose your brand to other brands. So, before you get crazy and start like, “I’m going to do Live right this minute” focus, think about the participatory function that you really need to include the audience.

As soon as you don’t include the audience and I see this happen all the time on Facebook Live where it’s two people having a discussion and the audience is just there that’s not Live, that’s television. That’s why television is boring. If you leave that out, you left out the key the key component. And don’t be a talking head.

Nobody wants you to be MSNBC or CNBC they want you to be you and it is about that authenticity looking like you’re being yourself and just actually having a good time. And then also including visual cues is really important.

Because even though it’s Facebook a lot of people still watch it without sound which doesn’t make a lot of sense but they do it. And so, if you can find a way to add into your Live like a fun sign or silly stuff, it can really elevate the number of views you’re getting and the people that actually wind up turning on their sound.

So what works on Facebook Live? Well, these are two examples that really crushed it. This one I loved, which was a t-rex in Time Square that Little Things did and basically you could tell the t-rex what to do and people were in the comments being like “ask that girl out on a date t-rex” and then t-rex is like asking a girl out on a date.

Fun stuff like that really works. And of course, everybody knows the exploding watermelon that crushed it for Buzzfeed. But not everybody is Buzzfeed. So you got to come up with your own fun spin on Facebook Live.

Level two. I’m sure you missed a video game because basically that’s the way I see it. There’s different levels of how advanced mode you want to get with your Facebook Live set up. So, this one I actually brought with me here. It’s really easy.

It’s a Sony FS5 camera that I have on a tripod. I have a branded step and repeat that you can throw on a pop up. You can bring it anywhere. And then there’s that little Teradek VidiU. It’s not very expensive. It’s a small box that you mount on any camera. You can even do it on a DSLR. And then you’re ready to go out to Facebook from your page. Right there.

And you can even, it has an app. So you can sit. And even if you didn’t have somebody to operate the camera you could go Live yourself and run your own broadcast. And I think that’s one of the things is this actually makes a huge difference, because having that production, that great video quality, YouTubers have been doing it forever right? But, they haven’t really been doing it in a live setting and I don’t see many people doing it.

So this applies I think mostly to brands but I always think about the content solar system. Thinking that, basically, you need to reach. When you’re doing Facebook Live, you need to reach outside of your comfort zone. If the brand is Huggies, people don’t want to see some weird diaper tutorial on Facebook Live, they want interesting mommy stories with their kids. You got to reach outside you have to go far out of your brand’s comfort zone.

And I do that for Nasdaq everyday. I have a show on where I interview business authors and I call it Nasdaq Reads. And what do business authors have to do with Nasdaq? Well, they’re ambitious and they’re all about their hustle. And so, I kind of pull it back to what are the pillars of the brands and what are the things you can express in different way that connect with people on a more human level? And just make it really relatable and fun.

Alright. So this is level three. And this is if you’re gonna get really advanced mode. Maybe this isn’t you’re gonna bring it to a conference, maybe this is I’m gonna take Facebook Live and creating my own Facebook Live series very seriously. And so, this is a Vmix Go. It’s basically a broadcast system in a box. And if you buy this you can hook up two or three cameras and do multi camera switching straight out to your Facebook page.

You can add in graphics, you can do overlays, all sorts of crazy stuff and it’s a little expensive but it depends how as a creator, if you’re really gonna take it to the next level. And for a brand, this is sort of a no brainer. If a brand doesn’t have a video studio right now in this day, it’s a little shocking to me because I kind of view every brand that Facebook Live right now is the opportunity to take you from being a brand to being a media company. And if you’re not thinking about how you can shift yourself from a brand to a media company you’re missing a huge trend.

So, level four. And this is what I do at Nasdaq everyday with all my shows. I produce 80 live videos a month. We had 20 million Facebook Live video views last year. So, I use technology called Vidpresso that overlays the Vmix. So i got the Vmix running and I got all these cameras hooked up to it and I have it in a studio with a step and repeat. That’s me and Arianna Huffington it’s really cool, it’s one of my life goals.

So, basically you hook that up and then you go out into this Vidpresso system and Vidpresso takes the live link and then it gives you all these cool features to do some really advanced custom graphics and to do live comment display. And it’s also really helpful for the host because what I do is I set up these two laptops where I can give the talent or if the talent is me, the best comments that are coming in through Facebook.

Because one of the things that happens if you have a lot of fans, you get a lot of comments, but a lot of nonsense comments like the, “hi, I love you.” All that stuff. That’s not actionable. You can’t respond to, “hi, hi.” Whatever. I mean, you can I guess.

So, this is where I see it going and this is the technology that I’m using now. I’m not paid by Vidpresso. They’re just a provider I chose. There’s a million of these providers. But this is the cool step that I’m doing with it now that I think is gonna really elevate it. So, I can now do live polls during our Facebook Live broadcast. Can literally poll the audience. Anybody who’s in the live stream can participate in the poll I can pop up their comment right on screen and then talk about it as I put the comment up on the screen so it doesn’t just add that second layer it adds that third layer of I’m acknowledging you, but also somehow with video production I’m acknowledging you again.

It’s really a cool thing and I think that’s where if people are kind of sick of the basic Facebook Lives where it’s you and a guest talking to each other, you have to elevate it some way, whether it’s technology, or it’s you guys are building Star Wars Legos or something. You just have to no matter what it is it needs to be elevated.

So this is how I’m using it at Nasdaq. These are just some of the shows I’ve done basically I did a Kitty Adoptathon where I brought a whole bunch of kitties into Nasdaq and then it was national Cat Adoption Day and so, we Live Adopted cats on Facebook Live. I had thousands and thousands of people watching. It was my most popular video last year. And, people go, “well what does Nasdaq have to do with cats?” and there’s a fresh pet food company called Fresh Pet that is listed on Nasdaq and they have a pet thing so it’s a perfect tie in for me.

So I don’t do I’m all about seamless connections but every time people say things are not connected to a brand or the connection’s too far I say, screw them go for it. I feel like brands need to get out of their zone and need to do stuff that is just like off the wall because social media is fun. And if you’re stewed doing things that just aren’t exciting or fun then why bother?

So these are the shows that I’m doing right now for my brand. I do these Nasdaq exclusives where I interview cool people like Ariana Huffington, I had the cast of X-Men Apocalypse and I did a full 360 Facebook Live video which is really cool. And then I also had The Fat Jewish who I love. He’s amazing.

And then, for our content for what we do on a daily basis. We have two companies ring the bell everyday And those two companies they’re not used to getting a ton of media. They get picked up on the television for all of five seconds when you see the bell on TV. So that CEO doesn’t really get a ton of exposure. But now with Facebook Live I have that CEO interviewed both at the opening bell and the closing bell. And all of their friends and relatives can watch It just adds to the exposure and for our companies it’s an incredible experience.

We started another show called the Millennial Report which is really about millennial money issues. And I think people think that millennials aren’t thinking about their future that they aren’t planning and that they aren’t saving. I just think that’s super rude. And honestly, I do. They think, right. Right. The generation before us, they caused the debt crisis and all these things. But it’s our fault that we’re not saving.

(laughing)

So the show is really just about that and we interview different companies that offer financial products that are geared towards millennials like cool investment products where you can invest in your five favorite video game companies. Cool things that turn investing and making it a little bit more fun a little edgier.

The Nasdaq Reads shows my business book authors. I had Tim Ferriss who is my super icon. I loved him. And then we do a daily market update where everyday on Facebook Live we have a whole team of market experts that I interview. We talk about the markets and we’re like, oh this is what happening in the market today.

So if you follow Nasdaq on Facebook you could tune in and ask questions about what’s happening in the stock market. Or is Donald Trump what is he doing with today affecting X stock. It’s just fun stuff and we’re actually there being human beings actually responding to people and telling them this is what we think. I started another show called TechTalk where we unbox really cool products.

Why is Nasdaq unboxing products? Well, we’re the home of tech. Oculus is owned by Facebook. Microsoft, they have the HoloLens. We have all these cool products that are made by all of our companies. It’s just a great way to showcase them. And who doesn’t love an unboxing video? I think live unboxing videos are really fun.

And then finally, we launched a show called Nasdaq Disrupters. Where basically we interview private companies that have really cool innovative things they’re working on. And it’s perfect content because our followers, they’re entrepreneurs.

They’re people who are hustling that had their own hustle. And to see people who are coming up doing their thing and actually getting somewhere is really profound. And the fact that Facebook has given all of us this incredible opportunity to create our own television channels I just think it’s really epic and this is my channel and this is just the beginning of my channel. But, I hope you all start your own channels.

(applause)

Thanks!