Welcome to uploading the podcast, where we take you behind the wheel with the world's best creators, marketers, and professionals who have cracked the code on how to profit through content. You'll learn the ins and outs of content, strategy, creation, production, distribution, growth platforms, tools and more. If you haven't already, be sure to join Cas Magic, the all in one content workspace for professionals. We'll be sending out tips from our shows in our weekly newsletter, and we've also got a slack community of over a thousand creators, so make sure to drop in and say hello. And now get ready for the show.

What's going on? Uploading today we have the pleasure of talking with Stephanie Garcia, who is a seasoned digital marketer with a 15 year career at top agencies. And Stephanie is also a live video strategist with a proven track record. She is the host of Lights Camera Live, a show dedicated to empowering small business owners to step into the spotlight with live streaming. So, Stephanie, I'll let you take it away. Tell us a little bit more about your career, what you do, and all things live streaming.

All things live streaming. I love it. So I'm the type of person where I like to take my clients from unknown to unforgettable. And the way that I do that is through live video. I have this belief that video is one of the best ways to hack into your clients happy brain chemicals. So it's that dopamine, that oxytocin, that serotonin, those endorphins. There's something magical, magical about livestreaming, where when you say someone's name, they're like, oh, oh, she knows me. And they feel as if they actually know you.

And so when it's time to have that discovery call, they're like, I already know you. I know your personality. You're definitely the person that I want to work with.

Awesome. Yeah. So, that being said, you know, you've had a career in media, in paid marketing. How did you discover live streaming? Like, what was your first array into live streaming? What brought you to it?

That's fun. So, as you said earlier, I'm an ad agency veteran. I spent the last decade and a half deep in the trenches of agency life. And so for those of you that have ever worked at an agency, you know what it's like. It's 50, 60 hours a week. And in 2015, when I had my daughter, I was like, oh, man. Well, if I am bringing another human being into this world, I want to be here and be present. And so I figured, well, heck, if I could do this for Nike, Sephora, clinique.

I sure as heck can do it for myself. And so I left that ad agency world, started my own consulting agency, and to my surprise, fellas, everyone was calling themselves, like, a social media strategist. And I was like, well, how do I separate myself from the sea of sameness? And that's when I realized that if you're confident on camera, clients will be confident that you can get the results. And so I started dabbling with live streaming. I started to, I decided basically, I wanted to show people what it's like to do a social media strategy, how to do a social media audit versus just telling people, hey, I do this. And so I would take people behind the scenes. I'm like, this is how I do an audit. This is how I create a content calendar.

This is how I schedule or edit your post. And by the time I was done live streaming, I kid you not, every single time I would get a DM, they're like, how do I work with you? I was like, oh, wait a second. This works. And then a few episodes after that, people are like, well, how is it that you're doing the things that you're doing? Because back then, I was using obs with, like, a green screen. If you're scrolling through the newsfeed, I put myself inside of a Mac monitor, right? And people are like, what is this? This is different. And it's one of those things where you just have to do a pattern interrupt in social media to get people to stop, look and listen to what it is that you have to say. And so after a while, people were like, can you teach me how to do this? So I started doing masterclasses, which led to book deals, keynotes. I've spoken at, like, Vidsummit, Vidcon, and all these different places.

And it's been fun. So now I'm just in the live streaming world. Ecamm fam is my jam, and that's where you can find me most of the time.

Yeah, I'm curious on, you know, you mentioned some other conferences you've been on, but live streaming isn't limited to conferences. And so some people compare, say, podcasting to live streaming. Well, why do I have to be there live when I can just record it and push it out forever to anyone? But there are certain benefits that you get from live streaming that you don't get from podcasting. Now. It's challenging and daunting that you have to get people to show up. And so how, how do you do that. How do you get people to show up? You know, some of. Some of my upper limit, block me into doing life, thinking that people are on calls all day and nobody wants to show up.

I'm sure there's strategies. You have to position it right. And that's the art of what you do. So can you share more about, what's the secret sauce behind getting people excited to join a live stream?

Yeah. How do you get people buzzing with excitement to show up live? It's one of those things when you think about, like, your favorite tv shows, right? So I knew growing up in Japan, every Sundays at 08:00 p.m. The Simpsons would be on, right. And there was always something cool that would happen. There was like, this hook, right? It would be Bart Simpson at the chalkboard, like, oh, what is he going to write this time? And so there's something about livestreaming where you, if you have that consistency, people will block out time on their calendar. And so instead of randomly scheduling, I will tell people every Thursday at 02:00 p.m. Pacific time. That's where you could find me.

And I also differentiate that when it's a live stream, it's kind of like open office hours. That's when you really get to get your questions answered in real time. And I love that because people will notice, like, okay, she's not using chat, GPT, or AI to come up with an answer. She actually knows this answer. And so to get people to come to your live stream pre promotion wise, I do Instagram Stories, and it's usually a three part series. So the first one is the first story. I'll hit them with a hard fact. I'm like, hey, did you know that YouTube shorts is but.

Right. And then I'll say, second, are you using YouTube shorts? Third, who are you watching on YouTube shorts? And if you still have questions about YouTube shorts, I have a next. Our next live stream is going to walk you through that whole entire process. So it's kind of like this three part series where they're, you're prepping them for it. Think of, like, all the other movies that come out, right. You don't just drop Oppenheimer, right? You do. You do behind the scenes. You do a world tour.

You get people to start talking about it and pique their interest. So a lot of times I'll do polls. What do you think about this? If you could change one thing about cast magic, what would it be? And so you get people involved in those conversations when they're talking to you in their DM's, I could hit you back up and be like, hey, I really loved what you said about that. I'm actually going to add that into the show, so make sure that you actually show up. So that's one pace, one thing that you could do from a social media strategy perspective. The other one is, I have people subscribe to my calendar, so if you already block out time on your calendar, you know that they're going to plan around that event. I have this saying where if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. So even on my calendar, at 12:00 p.m.

My daughter laughs at me. It says, eat your food. And she's like, what does that mean? I'm like, that means I have to eat my lunch. Because if I don't eat my lunch, I'm not fueled to create content. So I think, honestly, when it comes to live streaming, if people don't know, they won't go. So you have to do your own part to get people to show up and be excited about it.

Yeah. And one thing, Blaine, one thing I wanted to ask is, Stephanie, is we. So we do our own version of live streams at cast Magic. Blaine runs them, which is our community. Hangouts every week, where we get to answer people questions, show a little bit behind the scenes. And so that had me thinking, that's more of a collaborative approach where we're actively engaging with the community as the workshop is going, and it's live, and, you know, it's one of those things that doesn't scale, but it creates a unique one to one touch with our community. I'm curious, are there many frameworks in which you could run a live stream? Like, for example, in our case, we could be. We could say, okay, well, hey, no questions until the end.

We have a pretty open ended to where anyone can just jump in and have a conversation, but it would really change the dynamics. And I'm curious, what are the pros and cons of sort of these different frameworks to maybe a, not have chaos and b, make it feel personable?

Yeah, you want to eliminate the chaos when you're live streaming, because so many things can happen. We can all agree with that. There's different things that you can do. So when you develop a run of show, you could have a segment where it's the q and a portion. And really, it just brings you to the point that you're teaching your audience how to engage with you on a specific live stream. Right. So you think of, like, all the different segments that used to happen on, like, MTV or your favorite game shows, there's always a segment that happens. And once they understand what that run of show is like, then they know when to hold their questions.

The second piece to that is sometimes, even when you're demoing, like, a SaaS product, you'll have people asking questions in real time. It's nice to have a moderator that's there in the comments and says, hey, if you have a question for Blaine, make sure that you have a question semicolon, so he knows it's a question. And then in our tool in ecamm, we could actually star it. And then when it's the question segment time, we could address it right then and there. So that makes it super helpful as far as organizing the questions, teaching your audience how to engage with you. So that way they kind of like when you say, okay, our question segment is going to come up in five minutes, they're not going to leave. Does that make sense? They're not going to leave at that point. And if you are repurposing your content on YouTube because cas magic lets you do, like, the timestamps, you could say, this is the Q and a section.

They could click into it on YouTube and boom, now they're listening to the portions of the Q and A. Yeah.

What are your biggest tips for b two b live streaming? Because, you know, the individual has a closer touch with their community. They know who they're there to see. But then you see companies trying a lot of this. Even, you know, we have competitors that are companies with way bigger user base and less people show up. Um, like ten people or less show up, and it's a company with 100,000 plus users. What is it that, um, you know, makes a b two b live succeed or not succeed? I think one of the main things could be if you're constantly swapping the person who's doing them, you don't know who's going to be there. Um, like, what are some of the tips for how to succeed?

First, I would say get a dynamic host, not someone who's so caught up in saying the right words all the time and being perfect. I'll be honest with you, it's not about perfection. It's about connection. Someone that could laugh and engage with the audience in real time, that knows inflection points, knows how to tell stories, talks with their hands. Those are the type of people that are really dynamic and people really want to get to know. And then as far as, like, b two b still again, you want to have your run of show and don't make it boring. I would say the worst things is when they have the countdown timers stop. Just get to the point already.

And oftentimes you really have to look into your copy. I always tell people that when you're going to introduce your show, you're going to follow what I call the why, what, how and what if format. And it's like, hey, have you ever struggled with. So you build up the why. This is the motivation for you to tune in. So here's what we're going to talk about. This is how I'm going to change your life. And if you want to learn more, then stick around, because for the next 45 minutes, I'm going to blow your mind.

So that's you. You have to structure it in such a way and for sure have a dedicated host. There are some people where they'll try to get other industry experts to be on the show with them. They're like, oh, this is so and so Fortune 500 brand and blah blah. And they think it's so cool to have the brand name. And then you get the person on the show and they're boring as hell, right? It's like womp, womp. And I think what also makes a b two b livestreaming show suck is if you don't do a tech rehearsal with your talent, right? So, like, all of us, we showed up, we're like, oh, hey, check your mic, right? Because we know that we're going to repurpose this content. I've seen b two b shows fall flat because they don't do a tech rehearsal and they have like, the craziest sound, the worst setup, and you're like, I can't even repurpose this.

I'm like, you know what, friends? Sorry, this is just going to be an article only text. Like, don't even show them on camera, right? Because it's not going to work. So those are my tips for, like, a b two b livestream on how to make it dynamic, how to get people to show up and really be picky about the talent that you put on the show. Because otherwise, if you're just like, hey, I want this big brand name, but they can't deliver. And every other word, they're stuttering, game over. Like, you're done.

Yeah. And then you're also not going to get returning visitors, which, you know, not. It's, it doesn't just affect the people that the people that didn't show up for the repurposing purposes, but also the people that are there. Returning visitors is a huge metric for when you're doing live streaming, and you want to keep those people hooked and interested. I want to talk about a research we did on a successful campaign that you did, which was with MasterChef that drove 178,000 downloads of her book from her first live stream within 24 hours. So can you tell us more about how that went down and how that happened?

That was so funny. So true story. Chef Claudia Sandoval and I were actually friends before she won MasterChef. She and I used to work together in the agency. She was the project manager, and I was a social media strategist. And then one day, she's like, hey, steph, I'm going to go to LA to audition for this thing. I'm like, okay, go do it right? Like, let me know what you need from work, and I'll cover you. And then four months later, she comes back, and she's like, girl.

I'm like, what? And so we find out that she wins. And at some point, she tells me that T Mobile and MasterChef want to do a live stream because she's written this cookbook, and she's like, stephanie, can you help me out with it? And this was, like, before all the fancy third party live streaming tools out there. And so I was like, okay, still same thing. You guys develop a run of show. We had someone that was holding cue cards for her to remember, right? This was, like, before teleprompters or before we had the budget for it. And then she was the talent. She was going to make her famous tres leches cake. And it was this amazing, moist cake that chef Gordon Ramsay just fell in love with on air.

And so she's like, I'm going to bake this cake, and we're going to pitch this book. And I was like, okay. We didn't have any budget whatsoever. So we went to the dollar store to get, like, those poster boards. I had a ring light, like those janky ring lights from back in the day. It was probably like a. I'm not going to name the brand, because they'll probably want to work with them in the future. And overall, I would say the production was probably, like, $10.

And the reason why it was only $10 was because we went to the dollar store for the poster boards. But when we were creating the run of show, we said, okay, you're going to cook this. You're going to bake this cake. And what I forgot was, it takes a long time to make a treslicious cake. Like, it's a three layer cake. Friends, right? And so even before that.

Yeah, I'm from Puerto Rico, so I know. Yeah.

And so we didn't have a tripod. And so the poor pr gal, she was holding her smart, her iPhone the whole entire time, and I was like, oh, Marie, you're going to have, like, the buffest arm by the time we're done with the show. But we kept it engaging, and we had someone that was basically in the comments responding to people like, hey, where can I buy the book? Or we would screen capture when people would say, like, oh, my gosh, this is why I love having t mobile and blah, blah. And we would send it off to the client. And so within that, within 24 hours, we had 178,000 downloads of her book. The client came back and was like, we've never seen this much engagement before. We've done live streams and no one showed up. But how did you get these people to show up? And that's really, that's the fascination fast track.

It's about getting people, once they know, then they'll actually go.

Stephanie, one of the other questions that I had for you, I think it's so fascinating, um, just in terms of all the things that you need to nail on the live streaming side for a successful live stream. Right. A lot of people are probably initially just thinking, oh, you know, I need the right platform and I have an audience, but there is a different dynamic between that and some other sort of content medium. So one thing I'm curious about is you have this, like, ten by ten formula. Could you tell us a little bit about, like, your formula and what that's all about?

I love you guys. Did your homework. I'm like, wow, look at you coming in with the good questions. Okay, so the ten by ten formula is you write down your top ten frequently asked questions about your business, your product, or your service. You probably had to use cast magic for that. You probably had to take a recording and be like, what are some questions I could ask? That's the beauty of it. Okay, so going back, so, top ten frequently asked questions about your business, your product, or your service. And then the top ten should ask questions.

Questions that people should be asking, but they don't know because they're not the expert you are. And so if you do that, then you actually have 20 video ideas that you could do, 20 blog articles, 20 live streams, 20 short form videos. And if you actually follow that same structure I said earlier, hey, this is what we're going to talk about. This is why it's important. This is how you could get started. And if you want to learn more, if you follow that for all of those ten by ten, you've got your whole content calendar pretty much planned out.

Yeah, I think that's so important because a lot of people struggle with how to even come up with a content calendar and what topics to even talk about. So I think starting and almost working backwards is a great way to think about it. The next thing I want to talk about with you is the actual logistics and execution side of live streaming. Right? Where do you go? What platforms do you use? Like, what does it take? If you're someone who say you're creating, you've maybe you've got a YouTube channel going, or you've got a podcast going, and you want to dip your toes into the live streaming world, like, what do I even do?

What do I even do with live streaming? The first one is mindset. The reason why I say mindset is important is because sometimes people get really in their head when it comes to live streaming. With pre recorded video or pre recorded podcasts, you could edit things out, you could restart. Right? And with live streaming, some people feel like they have to get it all right in one go. I will tell you this. Your audience is already rooting for you. So even if you did flub, they love it because they feel as if you're actually human. So I think really, the first part is mindset.

Mindset will never fix a flawed marketing strategy. Okay, so mindset is always helpful in that sense. And then when it comes to developing your show, approach it as if it were a show. Does that make sense? It's not some one off thing. It's like, I want to know. Kind of like your podcast, too. What is your show about? What can I expect? Who is this for? And so oftentimes when you're launching a live stream show, it's basically, what's my show about? Why is it important? How is this going to impact my life? And if I want to learn more, how do I subscribe to this show? Kick off your first, like ten shows using your top ten faqs, and then your should ask questions. Now you have 20 episodes that goes in there.

And then as far as choosing which platform, that's really up to you. I use ecamm personally because I love that I could brand it and make it my own. I think you could already tell I'm the type of person that's like, don't put baby in a corner. Right. I like to be creative, and I like to do different things. I also like to surprise and delight my audience. And so choose a platform that works best for you. You don't always need the fanciest gear.

It's not about the gear. It's about the gears up here. How do you connect and engage with your audience? Create a run of show where, yes, you are going to engage with your audience in real time, but you're also going to deliver value, and then at that point, hit the live stream button and run with it. I would say if this is your first time ever live streaming, practice. Practice listening to your voice. Practice. Do I talk with my hands? Sometimes with clients, I'll say, move your mic a little bit, because I know that once you get really passionate, you might bang the mic or you might hit the table. I'll say, go live to a private Facebook group or to a private channel and just get used to it and saying it.

And then bonus points if you have a teleprompter. Oh, chef's kiss. That's going to make your life a whole heck of a lot easier. Versus, like, does it look like I'm looking at the screen? It's like, no, it looks like you fell asleep because you're looking down at your notes.

Yeah, I think the teleprompter thing, that one's a great idea. Um, how does, how does that work? Do you have, like, a teleprompter that is, like, behind the screen that attaches to it? That's part of the screen? Like, how do you do it?

So, right now, you're on an ICann 18 inch teleprompter, and behind it is my gh five, but I use it as a secondary display. So I'm actually looking at the both of you, which makes it super helpful. Now, if it was something where I'm developing a run of show, I'll have, like, my show notes on there on the teleprompter. So I'll have, like, ecamm at the top and then my run of show on the bottom, and then I like to use, like, my regular, this trackpad, because then I could just easily scroll up without hearing me click in the background.

That's.

That's awesome. Yeah, those details make a big difference, and it's just getting those setups right takes time and effort and, like, buying the wrong gear and then, you know, redoing it. So I've definitely been there. I'm curious, what is the main difference between going live on social platforms? Versus a dedicated platform where you have your community. When should you consider, you know, whether you should have your own community or go live on YouTube or Facebook, etcetera?

Yeah, I would say if you want to leverage the social media platforms, the benefit to it is that it gives you better discoverability. So it's easy for people to find you. Whether you land on the for you page and they could share it with their friends, you could preschedule content. There's no barrier to entry to engage with you. Not only that, though, but if I were to go live on other channels, I could respond to them in real time. It will show up in other places. Like, one of the reasons why I first started live streaming on Facebook was cause I could cross post into all the different Facebook groups that I was a part of, all the pages that I owned, and even on my personal page, and then direct them to one email, email, sign up, or lead magnet and build my audience that way, which is then really great. If you want to direct people off of a social media platform to, let's say like a circle, so.

Or discord or things of that. Those are nice. If you have an audience that is already used to saying, okay, you guys are going to show up at this time, on this day, and then it becomes a habit. Right? So that makes it super helpful. I know. I think you guys do some things in slack, too, is that right?

Yeah, we do slack. Our community is in slack.

Yeah. So there are advantages to it because I think when you have people in a community, or let's say even like a Facebook group, those are probably like your hardcore users and they're going to ask the more in depth, advanced questions, whereas your audience that's probably hanging out on YouTube and heard about you at a conference or on another podcast, they might not be at the same level just yet. And so knowing how to differentiate your content from beginner, intermediate and advanced is one of the best ways. So I would say, like, hey, hang out with me on YouTube, and this is like your getting started tutorial, but oh my gosh, if you want the full framework and the case studies, then you have to go into the community. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes a bunch of sense. And I think it's something that, uh, that's so interesting because every different product or service, they have the different levels of engagement from their audience, right? You've got your super fans or your super users who might know more about yourself or your product than even you know, and then you've got other ones that, like, that'll check in every once in a while that, like, you might think are, like, really engaged, but then you realize they're like, oh, they haven't, like, engage with me or my content in a really long time. So I think that's a really great lens to look at things with. The next question I had, Stephanie, was kind of about what you do. Like, how do you make that jump then, from creating these live streams, which are really engaging to also, like, turning that into a flywheel for your content. Right. Whether you're actually repurposing the existing live stream, are you, you know, using a tool like cast magic to create content out of it? Are you taking the actual live stream and reposting it to, like, platforms like YouTube? Like, where does that piece of pillar content, which is a live stream, how does that, like, disseminate into the rest of your workflow?

Everything. It's basically what my business is built on. Like, no joke. I am known for taking a single live stream and turning it into 94 pieces of content. And the first way that I'm able to do that is I take my live stream, put it into Cas magic, and it creates the transcript. When I have the transcript, I know what certain sections really resonated with my audience, because in live streaming, you could see, like, when, like, the comments pop off or when, like, all other things come up. And so then when I'm repurposing the content, I could turn it into a blog post. That blog post turns into short form videos.

I embed the short form videos back into the blog post. I'll even take, like, the reaction gifs, and then I'll put it up on Giphy. And then I call it gif giving for my clients, because then they're like, oh, my gosh, I have all this content that I could repurpose. So basically, I create all this content from it, and I call it digital confetti, and I sprinkle it all across the Internet. And then when I put it on shorts, Instagram reels, and on TikTok, all of a sudden people are like, oh, my gosh, this is so much fun. Where do I get the rest of it? And so the digital confetti leads them back to the party, which could be on the social media platforms and whatnot.

No, that's awesome. And then what about the actual long form livestream itself? Does that live on, like, a YouTube channel or something like that? Or do you save the livestream just for people who can be there? Live.

Oh, it still lives in perpetuity on social media platforms. So I still have people even think, as crazy as it sounds on Facebook, watching videos from three or four years ago, still wanting to learn how to go live on Facebook. But I would definitely say if you are going to live stream, for sure have it on YouTube, that's where I get majority of my clients, because YouTube will definitely rank higher in the Google search results. And so if you're a small business and people want to learn more about live streaming or even live shopping, that's where they find me. And when they see the whole entire playlist of, oh, Stephanie's talking about this topic because she has the ten by ten formula, they realize, oh, this isn't someone that just decided to be an AI expert overnight. Right? She actually has so much content for live streaming. So that would be my thing is like, don't pull it down unless it was horrible, unless the audio was absolutely terrible and wretched, you know, definitely leave it there. And even if it's outdated, right? Like, let's say best Instagram strategy is for 2020, I wouldn't delete it because if people are still watching it, I would put in the comment, like, a pin thing that says, hey, if you want new strategies for 2024, go watch this other video.

So there's different optimizations that you can do and just really build off of it.

Amazing. And Stephanie, as we wrap up here, I think this conversation has been super fun because we've covered everything from live streaming, how it works, but also, like, how you're building a content engine out of your live stream, which is not so dissimilar from how Ramon and I build a content engine out of a podcast. But, um, you know, we're definitely taking notes. We have a couple different ideas, especially for our weekly workshops. I think, you know, Ramon, I think the funny part is Ramon's always, like, playing. It's like the same people are always coming back to our weekly workshops, and now, now I'm going to be like, that's awesome. So, anyway, really fun stuff for our audience. Who's connecting or who's listening in, might want to learn more about you, follow your content, learn more about live streaming.

Where can we find you? Why don't you shout out your socials?

Yeah. So the best place to find me is going to be on YouTube. You could just type in lights, camera, live, or Stephanie Garcia, I'll definitely pop up. Or if you're the type of person you're like, oh, my gosh, Stephanie, I need you to help me figure out what my launch, my live streaming strategy should look like, sound like, feel like, then definitely find me on LinkedIn. Those are the conversations where I'm like, okay, you get front of the line access because you know these two. Her.

Sweet. Well, thanks so much for coming on uploading. We had a blast.

Thank you, Stephanie.