From the archive: Samantha McLean reflects on a 30-day Facebook Live experiment in 2021. The article has been refreshed as a standalone account of the lessons about confidence, content and accountability.
In 2021, my coach challenged me to do 30 live videos in 30 days.
The technology was the easy part. Putting myself in front of people was another story.
I can only speak from my own experience, but you might recognise the inner critic that tries to stop you from making progress:
“Nobody wants to listen to me.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“People will make fun of me.”
The thought of the challenge filled me with the kind of dread you feel when someone says you have to exercise for 30 days straight. Or, worse yet, no wine for 30 days.
Thirty days felt like it could be forever.
But having been in my own business for so long, I recognised that feeling of dread as a possible opportunity for personal growth. So I accepted.
Then I got sick, lost my voice and found a ton of other reasons why it just wasn’t the right time.
Eventually, I had to acknowledge how uncomfortable I was with the challenge. I switched my internal language around and called it a marketing experiment. Everything is a test until it’s not, right?
On June 9, I hit the live button for Day 1. And yes, I saw it through to the end.
Here’s what I learnt.
1. Don’t wait until you feel confident
It wasn’t as though I had never done live video. I had done plenty in our coaching programs and training sessions.
But those were closed groups. Going live in public, where family and friends could watch, felt like a much scarier proposition than speaking to people I worked with.
For the first two weeks, I absolutely regretted saying yes. Putting myself out there felt painful.
Hitting the live button day after day was a little like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Eventually, I got used to it.
My advice from that experience is: don’t wait until you feel confident. Practise until you feel more confident.
I also learnt to focus less on what I couldn’t change – the video I had already made – and more on what I could do in the next one.
Reviewing your work can help. Rewatching everything just to look for faults can keep you stuck. Give yourself something useful to work on, then move forward.
2. Not every response arrives as a like or comment
One of the most useful surprises was what happened away from the public posts.
I had a supportive cheer squad – Chris, Claudio, Kathy and Claire – but plenty of other people watched quietly and then contacted me privately.
During the challenge, people emailed, texted or called to ask for advice. Sometimes their questions had nothing to do with what I had discussed in a video.
My interpretation was that appearing more often had made me more top of mind. That was an observation from my own experiment, not proof that Facebook would deliver the same result for every business.
The useful lesson was to look beyond the public reaction count. A conversation that starts privately can tell you something a like or comment cannot.
3. Start with something you know that will help someone else
My confidence grew when I started “fixing nervous with service”.
Around Day 18, I had no idea how I would fill the next 12 days.
So I got out my notes for an email-marketing program I had been meaning to write, chose 12 actionable things and talked about them.
Everything became easier when I was discussing something I knew, enjoyed and believed other people would find useful.
For real estate agents, the same starting point is available in the questions people already ask you. Pick a topic you understand and explain something that will help the person watching.
Plan ahead, and give each video a job: help someone understand something, solve a problem or enjoy a moment.
There is room for personality too. I think the most engagement I got during those 30 days was when I went to Kmart to buy a dog bed.
You don’t have to turn every ordinary moment into content. But you don’t have to hide the person behind the business either.
4. Give useful material more than one outing
The challenge also made me think about how much more I could do with an idea after the live video had ended.
Rather than chasing a fixed number of posts from every recording, look for the parts that are useful on their own. An explanation might become a written answer, a short clip or a follow-up email.
The point is to make something worth sharing, then help it reach people in a form they can use.
5. Accountability helped me finish
Apart from the content itself, my biggest lesson was about accountability.
If I hadn’t stated my intention publicly and had people encouraging me, I might not have followed through.
Once I had told people what I was doing, backing out became harder. That commitment helped me get through the awkward early days.
A daily challenge is not the only way to practise, and it is not a schedule I would choose to keep forever. But those 30 days gave me a skill I could use in other ways.
I started out worrying about whether I was good enough to appear on camera. I finished with a more useful question: what do I know that could help someone today?