Tips for Tech Hiccups During LiveStreams Ep 82

Ever faced the pressure of staying composed when tech gremlins wreak havoc on a live event? This podcast breaks it all down for you, due to a recent LinkedIn Live interview, which you can watch here:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/7160420507631190016

 From audio mishaps to frozen screens, I dissect LinkedIn Live's every unpredictable moment, demonstrating how to pivot strategies, keep cool, and communicate with your audience to turn tech turmoil into a masterclass in adaptability.

This episode isn't just about rolling with the punches; it's about embracing them, laughing along the way, and delivering value—and a good story—for you!

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15 LinkedIn Profile Tips for Coaches and Consultants

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This checklist provides 15 quick and easy ways to update your LinkedIn profile TODAY and help generate more leads for your coaching / consulting business.

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:02

You ever have a LinkedIn audio event or a webinar that you're doing and it seems like the technology is just not working. Hey, my friends, it's Brenda Meller and in today's episode I want to talk about a technology hiccup that I just had with my most recent LinkedIn Live interview and I want to tell you what I did to troubleshoot, to try to troubleshoot it, and what I'm doing as a next step in on the process. So first, by way of background, I do a LinkedIn Live series that I broadcast live on StreamYard typically every Tuesday. I'll be moving to twice a month in the future, but every Tuesday I'll bring on a guest with me, someone that will be an expert in their category to speak to those of us who are self-employed coaches, consultants, speakers and authors. And I had a client that I did a LinkedIn training with in November. This is actually a team training that I did for an organization called Rose Pest Solutions and, just like the name of their company, they do pest solutions, pest management, pest control, critter control, all those wonderful things working with businesses, predominantly in the metro Detroit, but also some other surrounding states, and they do work with businesses, but also with consumers.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Now, one of the individuals who is in the training. He does a lot of public speaking, he's on a lot of conference stages, he does podcast interviews and a really just a great personality. So when I was doing some follow-up phone calls with the individuals that attended the training, I, at the end of the conversation with this individual his name is Shep, he goes by Shep I said, hey, would you ever like to come on my LinkedIn live series with me? But I said here's the catch, though it's really designed for people that are self-employed, because the show is called, Enthusiastically, Self-Employed. So you've got great personality, You've got a lot of really great insights in your background as a speaker. What do you think? And Shep said, yeah, we ended up booking a show for today Today's date is Tuesday, April 2nd and he came on today to talk about the topic of presenting over video, to offer you, the audience, tips on how to be a better presenter on video.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Now, as any good speaker will do, Shep set a practice call with me the day prior and yesterday. In our practice call, we were having all kinds of audio issues and technical issues. The screen kept freezing, we couldn't hear each other and at that point in time, Shep was at his office which was on the Wi-Fi. I believe he was at his office. I could be mistaken. He may have been at a different location, but he wasn't at home. I know that. And he said hey, let's try this again later on today and when I'm in my home office we'll try the call.

Speaker 1: 3:37

So we did another practice session last night and it seemed to be a little bit better. The issues weren't resolved entirely, but this has happened to me before with StreamYard. Sometimes the audio and the video quality are not good in the beginning and it seems to work itself out over time. And it seemed to be enough of an improvement that I said you know what? We're just going to go, we're going to do this tomorrow, we're going to go live and if we are having issues beforehand, I always have my guests come in 10 minutes before. So I said, if we're having issues beforehand, we'll make a call there, but if we can make it work, I'd like to keep the interview going and we'll just let our guests know what's happening. So this was at about 1155, we joined and then at 1205, we went live, and in that 10 minute period we were still having some issues, but we figured out that it appeared that we could hear each other. The video seemed to be pretty clear on both sides, but there's a little bit of an audio lag. So I said let's do this. When we do the interview, I will ask you the question and as soon as I'm done asking you the question, you'll talk. I won't jump in, as I normally do, and ask clarifying questions, so it will be less of an interview style. It'll be more of you presenting and talking for 15 to 20 minutes, and he knew at the point that at about 12.25 is when we would start to move into audience Q&A, so he knew how long he had to present. He wasn't using any slide deck or anything. He just had some tips off to the side that he was referring to and we proceeded with the interview.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Now, in the beginning we did have a couple of tech hiccups. I explained our audience what was happening and I explained that we are enthusiastically self-employed or at least I am and I don't make mistakes. I have learning experiences and in our prep call we discovered the glitches that were occurring. So I gave a shout out to my live viewers and I said hey, if you're watching this on LinkedIn, on YouTube or on Instagram, let me know if you can see and hear us clearly or if you're having any issues. And I did get one person on YouTube that said no issues here, and the same person came over onto LinkedIn and said, yeah, it was a little glitchy, but it seems fine now. But nobody else was coming in. Now I did have a lower than average number of people that were watching the live video, and typically I get 20 to 30. And this one was around 11, 11 to 14, I think, is the numbers that I saw in there.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So my guess is that there were people that came on, and I share this with you because all of these learning experiences are not only helping me, they're helping you. So I share this with you because all of these learning experiences are not only helping me, they're helping you. So I share this with you because when you're having glitches that are happening, whether it's audio or video, the people that are your super fans will work with you through those issues. That individual who was on YouTube, who came onto LinkedIn, she was one of my super fans. She was trying to be helpful and supportive. Now the average person will come into a video and you've probably done this yourself If you come into a video or an audio room and it seems to be there are audio quality issues or video quality issues.

Speaker 1: 6:33

We just don't have the patience for it. We just close out of the video and we move on to the next thing, right? And that's just human behavior, especially for people that don't know you very well yet and really have no vested interest in staying in there, because their time is valuable, right? So I anticipated that we may have some issues. I let my audience know. I could see that my viewership was lower than average, so I was guessing that there were some issues.

Speaker 1: 6:56

But we ended up proceeding with the interview at about the 25 minute mark, after Shep had offered wonderful advice for those of you who are virtual speakers. He talked about lighting, he talked about background, he talked about audio quality. Then we went into audience Q&A and, not surprisingly, there were no questions from the audience. So this is another tip I share for you If you're going to do a live segment where you'll be asking the audience for Q&A, you never want to have yourself without any questions at all. In case there is no audience in there, in case there are no questions coming from your audience, you want to be prepared and have some questions of your own, that this was not an interview style type of a scenario, which I normally do, and I'll ask questions of my co-hosts as we go along. I had questions and I was ready to ask those questions as we move into our Q&A.

Speaker 1: 7:46

So I let Shep know there was a little bit of a delay. It didn't look like I was seeing all of the comments on LinkedIn in StreamYard and I had. In the midst of all of this I was in a chat with StreamYard help and they were trying to troubleshoot the issue. At one point they said shut down every other window that you have, and normally when I'm co-hosting, I don't know if you do this too, but I will have the live stream in another window muted, but I wanna see what's happening, Even though I know there's a delay. It lets me know the live stream is going delay. It lets me know the live stream is going. I can see the number of participants. I can see the comments that are coming in, even if the comments don't make it over to StreamYard.

Speaker 1: 8:21

And I share this with you because I think it's important to go into any live presentation scenario, whether it's live in person or live on video or live on audio and think about all the possible technical scenarios that could be happening. And you do want to do your best to ensure a great experience for your audience that's watching live, for your audience that's watching in playback, and also for your VIP co-hosts, your guests. You want to make sure it's a great experience for them. So I did mention to my audience what was happening. I did mention to my audience that this was not going to ruffle my feathers. I'm experienced as a speaker, as is Shep, and we anticipated the issues that were happening. Here's the workarounds that we had.

Speaker 1: 9:05

So when we went into Q&A and I couldn't see any audience comments coming in, I said, Shep, no worries, because I have some questions I'll ask of you. And we went through my questions. At the time that I asked the question and after he heard it, there was a little bit of a delay. It was about seven or eight seconds and I could tell and I said the first time I asked it, I just noticed it's about a seven-second delay. So if you hear me asking the question and a pause before Shep answers, it's because of these little tech gremlins that we're having right now. So we proceeded to go through the Q&A and then we moved into our closing. My guest Shep knew what to expect because I had sent him an email letting him know the general flow. He had watched previous interviews that I've done, and we did a prep call the night before as well as just before we started. So after we moved into our closing, I asked him to tell us about his company how we could work with him if we're interested in learning more about Rose Pest Solutions and then I asked him to tell us about his company how we could work with him if we're interested in learning more about Rose Pest Solutions. And then I asked him if he was open to people connecting with him on LinkedIn, and then we did our sign-off.

Speaker 1: 10:04

I had my outro video playing, the live stream ended and then I had Shep in the green room with me at the end. This is in StreamYard but not live broadcasting. I like to call it the green room. So as we're sitting there talking, the screen was freezing. My screen went blank. His screen went blank. Now I had his phone number. I always do this in the bookings for my shows. I always ask my clients, as well as my co-hosts, to provide a cell phone number in case of any technical issues. So I called Shep while we're on the stream Merit, and I said I kind of gestured into the screen pointing to the phone I'm calling you and then I could hear my phone ringing and I disconnected. I shut down the stream yard after he picked up the phone and we just did our debrief on the phone instead. I know I am not the only one that this has happened to before and I was debating about deleting the video off of LinkedIn and on YouTube, but I think I'm going to leave it up at least for a few weeks.

Speaker 1: 11:03

I'm asking Shep if he's okay with leaving it up because his interview itself, at the point that he started giving his tips about presenting over video, he had clear sound, he had clear, continuous video, there were no apparent lags, and even told some jokes that I missed because of the lag that I was experiencing, but I told him his jokes even landed Now from my end when I'm watching the playback. There were several issues. The sound freezes and then speeds up at certain points in time. At time my audio dropped off entirely. You couldn't even hear me, but you could see my lips moving or my screen froze and you couldn't see or hear anything and there were times where the video screen freezes and the audio continued. And because of the fact that we had these delays and I chose not to do an interview style, I, as the host, had zero interaction with Shep as my guest during the interview, which is unfortunate but, I think, a wise choice given the tech issues. Now, after we did our debrief, I told Shep I was going to watch the video back and then I would send him an email and let him know, and that's what I did, and I'm using this email to guide what I'm sharing with you here today.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Now a couple things from a technical standpoint. I do need to get to the bottom of this issue because I don't want this to happen with my next week's guest, Kendra Korman, and I don't want this to happen in future StreamYard webinars that I do so. During the chat with StreamYard, they suggested I run a speed test, which I did, and then they said reboot your computer, like shut it down entirely and then run the speed test again, and I did that and it seems that the speed test has improved Now. I did recall that earlier in the day I had done some video editing work and I think this might be the culprit and I'm going to let Shep know this as well. Now the person on StreamYard said make sure that all of your tabs are closed down, which I did. I closed down all of the tabs.

Speaker 1: 12:50

The problem here is my video software that I'm using is not internet-based, it's laptop-based. It's called Camtasia and I think I may have had Camtasia still open in the background Even though I wasn't doing any video processing. The video files are very large, so I think that might have been pulling from some of my memory on the local laptop. Having that shut down completely, as well as a reboot of my computer, I feel fairly confident that that will resolve the issue. So in the meantime I did send an email over to Shep. I explained the scenario, told him he looked and sounded great. I told him the issues seem to be on my end. Only I'm going to try to do some clever, creative post-production with his and convert it into a podcast. And I gave him the links to watch the playback on LinkedIn and YouTube and I asked him you know, let me know if it's okay if I keep these up or if you would prefer I can delete these. So I'll see what he says to that and I'll honor his wishes there. And, given all the issues, I'm also reaching out and asking Shep if he'd like to come back on the show with me again, perhaps later in the summer or in the fall, and I'm hoping he will agree to that, and perhaps we can do the same topic again, presenting over video, or I'm giving him an option to do a different topic of his choosing. So that is it, my friends.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Lessons learned about what you do when things go wrong during your video interviews or your podcast interviews. What did you think of this today? Did you find this helpful? Hopefully you picked up at least one new tip, something that you'll incorporate when you have tech hiccups happening in your future, Because when you are enthusiastically self-employed, there is a good likelihood you're going to experience some issues at some point during your speaking journey, and I want you to be prepared. Don't let your feathers get ruffled, because we are professionals. My friend and I've always known that if you are calm and composed as the speaker and host, your audience will also stay along that journey with you, and if they don't, you can always reschedule once the tech issues are resolved in the future. All right, Hopefully you enjoyed this segment. I look forward to watching all of your live streams, live audios, webinars, et cetera, in the future. Until next time, my friend, take care and we'll see you soon.