Tag Archives: social media

How Important Should Analytics Be To Your LiveStreaming Strategy?

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Analytics

An exchange I had on twitter yesterday got me thinking…   Of course I often go to football for analogies because I have a background there, so as a former player and a football “purist” I may enjoy comparing statistics for fun, but I would never play “fantasy football”.  I never have and never will.  I actually like statistics – I do.  I’ll even use them from time to time in debates about teams and players and who was better.  However, analysis can cause paralysis and “fantasy football” takes analysis (and analytics) to the point where the appeal and the game of “fantasy football” itself actually has little to do with the team sport of football. 

Meanwhile I participate in a live twitter chat and Livestream every Wednesday at 3PM EST called #LetsLivestream which you can tune into on Periscope at http://pscp.tv/letslivestream/.  This week the topic was centered around favorite Livestream apps and one of the questions was as follows:

Analytics

If you aren’t quite sure what a twitter chat is, it’s where a meeting, presentation, or just a conversation centers around questions on a topic that are put out to the group with a selected hashtag and the questions are tweeted out as “Q1” etc. as you see above.  You then can jump in the conversation by using the hashtag and answering the question with an “A1” etc.  My off-the-cuff answer to this question was “A6 Important yes – they don’t DICTATE a TON of what we do per se for LIVE, but we definitely use them “  As a side note Eggdrp and FullScope are the two main websites we use to grab our analytics for our Periscope broadcasts.  Facebook Live and YouTube provide plenty on their own.

At this point an exchange ensued where a Canadian Livestreaming company named Livescale chimed in and replied to my tweet stressing the importance of analytics – that’s one of the great things about a twitter chat – you meet people and have conversations around a shared interest – twitter should be SOCIAL!  Don’t forget that.  But the exchange got me thinking as you can see by my reply:

Analytics

How Important Should Analytics Be?

My reply is a perfect lead in to the football analogy.  See here is the thing…  Analytics – statistics – data – numbers that tell you how many viewers you had watching on a broadcast, how many comments they made, how long they watched for, how many times they shared in the app or on other platforms, how many times they took screenshots or gave other feedback like hearts on Periscope – all these numbers can give you an idea of how successful the broadcast was depending on your goals.  They can tell you what your growth looks like over time and give you endless ways to measure how you’re doing.  Livescale isn’t wrong.  These numbers are indeed important.  For example, Tom Brady (another #10 at Michigan after me – ha) is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game of football, and as a quarterback he is responsible for commanding the offense down the field to score more points than the other team to win games.  He handles the ball on every offensive play and if you look at his statistics they tell the story of a guy who yes, would be considered at the top based on the numbers:

Tons of statistics there – he’s thrown for over 61 thousand yards and over 450 touchdowns.  The numbers dotting his career in bold indicate statistics where he was number one in the NFL in that statistic.  These are just regular season statistics – he’s also been the winning Super Bowl QB more than anyone in history.  The data goes on and on, and these statistics / analytics tell the story of success on a massive scale.

Now let’s look at Larry Allen….

Analytics

In my opinion Larry Allen was the most dominant offensive lineman to ever play.  As a Dallas Cowboys fan I probably watched Larry Allen in around 140-ish of the 176 games he played for Dallas (on TV) and he was a beast.  Strong, massive, quick, nasty – a first ballot Hall of Famer.  And just look at those stats….  Wait what?  You see, while his coaches may have been breaking down his game films and grading him out on his performances, the only official statistics for Larry are the 4 fumbles that happened nearby him on the field that he was able to recover over the course of his career.  As an offensive lineman Larry may have never touched the ball aside from those 4 times in 14 years.  So how do we know Larry was successful?  Because we were there watching Larry – watching him move, neutralize and flatten defenders one after the other.  There are no official statistics for what Larry did and it doesn’t matter.  Statistics DON’T tell the story in this case.  

It’s not all that different in Livestreaming.  Analytics don’t always tell the whole story.  Sure they are important and shouldn’t be ignored.  However if only 10 people watched your broadcast but it changed their outlook, started a relationship or converted a client then it may have been a more successful broadcast than if 500 people were there live and none of that happened.  If one person watching your broadcast made a comment that opened your eyes to a new way of thinking that’s better than 578 comments of nonsense because you’re broadcasting drama that attracts people like a train wreck and you’re not even looking at the comments because you’re so wrapped up in your own…..drama… 

The same goes for all social media – build your community organically and yes track your analytics.  Watch for trends and try to track towards your goals.  But make sure you focus on your relationships and the vibe and culture around your brand, your broadcasts and your content as a whole.  Be true to that and then the analytics – while they are important – won’t be the only thing that tells your story, and they shouldn’t be.

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

YouTube Gets LIVE, Periscope Monetizes, & More – Doug’s Social Stream of Consciousness

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So much has been going on in the social media world this past week (Periscope Monetizes) or so – or at least it seems this way for us.  I’ve got a few topics to cover with a few tips and of course a couple of observations and opinions….

Periscope Monetizes

Let’s get to it, starting with the major headlines for this post…

YouTube Gets LIVE

We had heard about YouTube livestreaming for a while but weren’t sure if it would be on our radar anytime soon.  The rollout seemed somewhat shrouded in mystery as this article from techcrunch.com pointed out last month… But at this point we can tell you that it’s available to verified accounts with at least 100 subscribers, so at the urging of our wonderful Periscope friend Sonam (who loves YouTube Live) we gave it a shot with no warning or announcement…  Here’s the result:

 

We had a lot of fun and we had people there!  There were people we knew and new people we didn’t from shares during the broadcast.  We picked up three new subscribers during the broadcast and we got this little report at the end:

Periscope Monetizes

Observations from a veteran livestreamer but not a YouTube expert:

  • The comments are a little delayed (time from when a viewer comments to the time you see it and respond) but the delay got better over the course of the broadcast
  • You can block a viewer or put one in “time out” for 5 minutes if you’re being trolled
  • Viewers are only allowed to comment so many times – there’s a limit on comments (apparently there is a monetization model that allows you to override this once you get to 1000 subscribers)
  • The comments do not show on the playback so be aware of this if you are creating a video that you want to stand on its own after you finish.  Keep in mind that you can edit, tag, select a thumbnail – all the things that you can do with all other YouTube videos you upload.  We are putting our livestreams there into a separate playlist.
  • Oh – and the filters!!!  You’ll see them above if you watch but here’s a sampling…

Periscope Monetizes

Ally likes the bubbles – I think they’d be cooler if you could pop them… lol

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Taaaaaaake Onnnnnnnn Meeeeeeeee……!  Hehe…

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Paranormal Activity anyone….?

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Vintage grainy black and white…

And of course…. the dance party / disco ball effect…..

Periscope MonetizesPeriscope MonetizesPeriscope MonetizesPeriscope Monetizes

Awesome moves (if we do say so ourselves lol), lots of possibilities, wheels are turning here at Frameable Faces.

A couple more YouTube tips while we’re at it:

  • If you want to get to 100 subscribers so you can go live (once you’ve had your page verified) you should make sure people are able to see whom you’ve subscribed to so they can follow you back if they are so inclined – otherwise they won’t even know you subscribed:
Periscope Monetizes

Make Sure That Third Box Is Unchecked!

One more thing:  Be sure once you do hit 100 subscribers that you claim a custom / vanity URL for your channel!  http://youtube.com/frameablefaces/ looks way better and consistent with our other profiles than some random gibberish.

Periscope Monetizes

Periscope Monetizes

Periscope announced an update that brings monetization to the game for scopers and for the app!  I won’t lay out ALL the details here, but suffice it to say we generally see this as a good thing overall.  Are there questions about what effect this may have on content creation on the app and whether the introduction of money will “infect” the community somehow?  Yeah I suppose.  But this just came out two days ago and you can now purchase coins to use to give three levels of “super hearts” to a broadcaster during a livestream there.  We’ve already jumped in giving and receiving.  Here’s a screen shot from our broadcast yesterday:

Periscope Monetizes

You can see the message from Periscope that our friend @redefiningrich1 whom we call “Suzi Q” gave us a “super heart” and you can actually see that the super heart is extra sparkly to the right.  As a side note – the compliment to Ally on the screen is a funny auto response from the “Eggbot” from eggdrp.com.  There are three levels of super hearts – they increase in value and animation effect on the screen.  They then are tallied as “stars” and once you receive 185,000 total super hearts / stars you can apply with Periscope to be a super scoper of sorts and get payouts on the hearts monetarily.  I know, it’s a little confusing but it does make sense after a bit.

A couple quick thoughts on Periscope Super Hearts:
  • Our stance on this has always been that if people want to donate or tip we would accept it if Periscope made that an option on the app.  We aren’t going to call a ton of attention to it and we certainly aren’t going to make anyone feel like we require it or expect them to do it in order to be in our broadcasts or a part of our community.  We do certainly appreciate it and we don’t take it lightly that people find value in what we do on our broadcasts.
  • One major flaw we see in the rollout of Super Hearts is that not everyone receiving them will reach 185,000 stars anytime soon, and even those who do aren’t guaranteed to be approved to receive any payout, so people may be purchasing the coins to donate the super hearts to scopers who may never be able to redeem them.  Periscope will get that money.  Now I want Periscope to make money – I’m fine with that – the platform should make money.  Could you make the case that there is nothing wrong with the app making money by being available to bring you the specific content you like and donate to?  Well yeah, but without the scoper getting a piece and without you knowing if the scoper will ever get a piece?  I don’t know….  I think they should address this somehow.
  • To be continued…..

A Couple Of Thoughts on other platforms while we’re at it…

LinkedIn has legs….

Another platform I’ve spent more time on in the last year or so than ever before is LinkedIn.  I’m no expert there either but one thing I’m noticing is that posts there can have an extended life that I don’t see on some of the others.  I’m finding that a good random post continues to get discovered for weeks on LinkedIn if it’s getting likes.  I posted a good one two weeks ago that has been getting steady likes and views and it even seems to be picking up pace.  That doesn’t happen on Facebook or Twitter.  At least not without shares or retweets.  I suppose it happens on Twitter on a popular tweet with a relevant hashtag and enough activity (maybe even on Instagram to a lesser degree with hashtags).  But I think the difference here is that the post seems to be getting discovered in feeds without any hashtags.  The activity and the views seem to be keeping it afloat so to speak.  I don’t know a ton about LinkedIn algorithms but I think this example is noteworthy.  Same thing when you write an article on LinkedIn – I’ve had articles picked up by LinkedIn Pulse that get views for over a year to the point where I went in and updated them so they were still accurate because people were still reading them.

As for the recent post that is getting views from a couple weeks ago…

Periscope Monetizes

25 likes is more than I normally get and it’s been a steady rate of 1-2 per day for two weeks now, and 2310 views is a lot for me for a random post.  It clearly crossed some threshold – there haven’t been any shares and I only have 778 followers there.  Meanwhile – take the advice in the post PLEASE!  The Bitmoji I used is a full “Bye Felicia” even though it’s cutoff above.  Haha… 

Here’s a little further breakdown of who is seeing the post from the analytics:

Periscope Monetizes

Views from all over the country – various level employees and various companies.  Pretty cool!

A Little Annoyed With Snapchat… But Geofilters Still Rock

Maybe we’re an exception in this case but as a small biz that mainly consists of Ally and me, it made sense to link my Bitmoji to our Snapchat profile.  I man the Snapchat so once in a while I could add my Bitmoji to a snap, or use it in chats with our connections and our high school seniors – it’s fun!  Even better, I could screen grab dual bitmojis of me and Ally from the chat and we’ve had a blast with those.  Take this instagram for example with Ally and I flying in huge paper airplane!  Lol…

Periscope Monetizes

But here’s the problem and the recent decision by Snapchat which I find to be absolutely ridiculous…  They changed everyone’s profile pic in their snapcode to their default Bitmoji if it’s linked with NO OPTION to use anything else.  Like so:

Periscope Monetizes

Now before you start with the wisecracks, I don’t WANT to be the face of Frameable Faces.  I don’t even usually like both Ally and me to to be the faces of Frameable Faces!  I usually like the logo for our avatars – or at least a photo of both of us like this:

Periscope Monetizes

I’m not the only one who is mad about this….  nothing like taking away personalization from all of your users eh?  Doesn’t seem to be the smart move when you’re locked in a battle for survival with a hostile Instagram.

On a positive Snapchat note, geofilters still rock for small brands.  Here is one of our senior spokesmodels Lauren using one we placed at her high school on the last day of school:

Periscope MonetizesRandom Twitter thoughts:

Why would you pay someone to show you how to get “15,000 new twitter followers” who has 2387 themselves?  You wouldn’t.  Why would you want “15,000 new twitter followers”?  You wouldn’t.  Make connections people – not just numbers.  This garbage and this approach by many so-called “gurus” is prevalent…

Periscope Monetizes

Wait a sec – What About Facebook…?

Wait!  No tips or ranting on or about Facebook in this post?  WHAT?  That’s weird….    well that’s okay I guess.

Oh wait yes – I almost forgot just a little thing I picked up that you may know already, but when you upload a native video to Facebook (which is a good idea for better presentation and reach on Facebook as opposed to a link to a YouTube video) you should consider offering captioning – like the closed captioning you see on TV.  Some people may catch a video in their FB feed without clicking on it and pulling the audio.  They can still follow a bit with the captioning which is pretty slick and easy to implement on Facebook.  Here’s a screen shot for one I added the captioning to for our client Mark Mandell, Attorney At Law (the link is to his YouTube page by the way – please subscribe if you’re interested).Periscope Monetizes

Note the text at the bottom that has been pulled right from the audio by Facebook.  It’s pretty spot on but you can edit any words that are incorrect.

You can find the option to add captions in the “edit video” menu shown below – you just click the “Generate” button under the “Captions” tab to get started:

Periscope Monetizes

Thoughts?

That’s all for now.  What are your thoughts?  Do you have tips of your own?  I hope you enjoyed this – I want your feedback – please share and comment!

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Why Local Brands Should Be Killing It On Facebook Live – Periscope not so much…

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Recently I wrote an article here on the blog comparing and contrasting live streaming platforms to help people make some informed choices on which platform to consider between Facebook Live and Periscope for different types of strategies.  It’s a solid piece if I do say so myself and I enlisted 4 people in the social media / entrepreneurial game I respect to include their take.  That article is still on point and relevant, but this is basically a part 2 digging into a main advantage Facebook Live has for local brands.

Facebook Live

I’m seeing more and more jarring evidence lately that points to Facebook Live as the best opportunity for small businesses and especially brick and mortars that operate mostly on a local level like us.  Now to be clear, here at Frameable Faces we are NOT planning on “switching” to Facebook Live from Periscope overall.  Periscope is still our first love for live streaming and our favorite especially for our Doug & Ally Morning Show that we start most of our days with.  We don’t have plans to change that.  But something happened this past Saturday that cannot be ignored as an obvious example of why Facebook Live is starting to pull ahead for our strategy as a photography studio as opposed to morning show hosts.

We broadcasted parts of an amazing photo session with twin babies…

Saturday we did a photo session here in the studio for twin one month old babies.  The article with sneak peeks from that session will be available here on the blog soon.  We did a bit of live streaming of the session and it was just cuteness overload!  We’ve had plenty of babies in the studio and plenty of twins, but never twin babies!  We started with Periscope and we even mentioned to our Periscope community earlier in the morning that we might go live in the afternoon with twin babies.

Periscope Results:

We Periscoped for 13 minutes and 13 seconds.  68 people watched it live.  Everyone was genuinely enjoying it.  People were commenting.  Since the broadcast ended 39 people have watched the replay (7 more since the screen shot below) – most replay views on Periscope happen within 24 hours of a broadcast on the app.  This is all fine – it was a fun scope and over 100 people got to enjoy it – nothing wrong with that at all!  Here are the analytics provided by Periscope:

Facebook Live

One more sidenote – as you can see above the thumbnail (the representative image from the broadcast) is me with a relatively silly face.  NOT the amazingly cute twin babies from the broadcast.  I have pointed out how important it is to be able to choose a custom thumbnail to the Periscope team but they haven’t made this a priority.

Facebook Live Results:

We then went live on Facebook Live right after the Periscope broadcast for 8 minutes and 29 seconds.  There were maybe 5 – 10 people who tuned in to watch live.  There weren’t many live comments if any…  Granted we don’t broadcast on Facebook Live often or at regular times which can contribute to a small live audience, plus there are delays on the comments and it’s not as fun of an experience on Facebook.  BUT…..  I tagged Carlos (the dad) in the post who then shared the post and tagged me and his wife Gina in the post (he only tagged me and not Ally and me him and not Gina because he and I did the FB friending exchange) and then I went back and tagged Ally in the post, and then all his friends started to see the post in their feed, and a few of them shared the post, and then more people saw the post, and more and more people liked the post, which Facebook likes, so Facebook showed it to more people, and then a few more of those people shared the post, and so more people saw the post and they liked (and loved, and haha’d, and wow’d) the post and commented on the post and Facebook liked that even more so Facebook showed it to even more people and pretty soon the video had reached 3648 people and 2129 people watched it.  Oh and there’s definitely a chance some people watched it because I chose an image of Harrison and Henry surrounded by Ally and their parents to represent the broadcast as you can see below (as opposed to just my face with a weird expression which I didn’t choose).

Facebook Live

When a Periscope broadcast ends it just sort of fades into the distance of the feed of ended broadcasts…  When a Facebook broadcast ends that’s when it starts to get going if it’s worthy of watching.  In the case of Harrison and Henry boy did it get going….   let’s look at a few more stats which Facebook provides in about 200 different ways, sliced and diced – more information than you would know what to do with about the demographics of who watched – age, gender and a lot more.  With Periscope you have to use third party apps like Fullscope or Eggdrp (both great by the way) to get any analytics worth a darn.

Now check THIS out.  Here’s a visual representation of the viral nature of a really good Facebook Live video that I described in my run on sentence above (which was done purposely for emphasis haha).  

Facebook Live

This broadcast was the only one in the time frame of this graph.  Note how the views climbed on the third and fourth days…  the broadcast was on Saturday May 20th, but on Tuesday May 23rd 653 people watched it!  You can see it spreading and the buzz growing!  But wait there’s more….

Remember the emphasis in the title of this article is on local brands right?

Facebook Live

This graphic shows me that 70.3% of the total minutes viewed of this video were viewed in MICHIGAN.  Our studio is IN Michigan.  This is the core of our target market for studio portraits from a practical standpoint.  That’s who we’re reaching on Facebook – lots of potential clients who are friends of Carlos & Gina and friends of friends of Carlos & Gina.  We have a physical storefront where we take pictures and it’s in West Bloomfield, MICHIGAN.  On Periscope our audiences are 10% from Michigan at best and that’s probably very generous, not that there’s any data anywhere that tells me this conclusively.  Now once again – that’s fine – we love our international community and the friends we’ve made around the world on Periscope – that’s part of what’s amazing about Periscope.  We’ve traveled to photograph people we’ve met on Periscope which has been amazing and we’re even expanding our photo restoration business to clients on Periscope which isn’t bound by geography.

But if I’m advising a new local brick and mortar store on where to start broadcasting live and build community to get more people showing up at their door and becoming clients, I’m recommending Facebook first.  I’m not saying don’t do Periscope per se, but if I’m picking one it’s Facebook.  If I’m recommending a platform primarily to see the world, and have an amazing time for entertainment purposes and making new friends from everywhere, I’m still recommending Periscope.

Since we started broadcasting on Facebook (which we made a part of our strategy well after Periscope) we have more people saying “Hey I saw you guys doing one of your live uh…video things – like online!  Looks like fun!”  And I always would ask “Oh cool!  On Periscope?”  and they would say “On what?” and then I would say “Oh wait maybe you saw us on Facebook (remembering that yes we go live on Facebook now too)” and then they would say “RIGHT! Yeah I saw you on Facebook!”  You know why they say that?  Because EVERYONE IS ON FACEBOOK.  Some are on Twitter where you can also catch Periscope broadcasts but not nearly as many and fewer still are actually on the Periscope app.  When we started broadcasting on Periscope on March 31st, 2015 it wasn’t long before we were sure that within a year or two everyone would be on Periscope because it’s that amazing.  Well we still think it’s amazing – we were right about that.  But shockingly to us most people walking around on the street – the people we want to walk into our mall and into our store – yeah those people – still don’t know what it is.

These two broadcasts of the twins were done back to back, one right after the other with the same subject.  Vastly different results.  Results that favor Facebook Live for small local brick and mortar businesses.  It’s the most obvious example I have, and while one example doesn’t necessarily prove anything, I can tell you that the conclusions I’m drawing here are not just based on this example alone…

Food for thought.  For you live streamers – what do you think?  There are more layers to this topic to be sure but I’d love to hear your thoughts…

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Doug Cohen provides social media training and services and can be reached at the following:
Mobile: 248-346-4121
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

Charity Channels Her Inner Charm For Her Champion Senior Session!

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Inner charm, outer beauty, inner beauty, outer charm – all of it – Charity channels it!  Charity is another North Farmington Raider which is always a bonus for us as fellow Raider alums and we had a fantastic session with her!  Charity had to be a champ because it was chilly out – really chilly (how many words can Doug squeeze into this blog post that begin with “ch”?).  But she stuck it out and delivered some pure awesomeness in Pontiac for some city shots before we made it back to the warm confines of the studio…  Let’s get to it!

Charity Channels Her Inner Charm…

Charity is a sweetie and a dancer too so she’s got a lot going for her.  Her mom Caren joined us as we headed out on location.  First we have this photo on the fire escape…

Charity Channels

Love this because her outfit blends right in with the colors around her for one thing, and she just looks happy and great all the way around.  We actually have plenty of behind the scenes to share as well, and we’ll start with the replay of the Periscope live broadcast.  You can download the app and be part of the fun at @FrameableFaces at this link or you can also just watch from twitter here.

I have to mention that there is an amazing moment on this broadcast where Caren got very emotional watching her girl have her senior pictures taken and like a reporter I took a risk and ran over to catch it and ask her how she was doing – it was a good cry and so sweet!  Caren was great sport about it too!

Awww…..

At this point we relocated for a wardrobe change to another spot on a different set of steps and had some great backlight going for this one.

Charity Channels

That lighting and that smile!

You would never know we were pretty cold by the results…. and at this point it was time to get back to the studio.

First we have a close up of our girl on the red paper backdrop which is one of our faves for sure.

Charity Channels

We also have more behind the scenes fun this time from the replay of our Facebook Live broadcast!

Here’s a dramatic black and white version of our “black and blowy” setup that we are in love with…

Charity Channels

And we’ll end it with the Snapchat story we posted that day – you should be following us there too!  Snap us back!

So there you have it!  When Charity channels her inner charm it comes through with wonderful outer results!  We hope you enjoyed our highlights from our day with her!

Equipment used:

These are our affiliate links to the products we used on this session:

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

Comparing Facebook Live to Periscope – Which Is Better For You?

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As you know social media is my thing.  I spend the majority of my time creating content to put out online for our studio and other businesses from time to time.  I train people on how to use social media and very often the photography business leads to discussions about branding with our clients who come here for professional headshots to market themselves.  So it makes sense for me to write articles on the things I learn about smallbiz marketing and in this case we’ll be tackling our two primary Live Video apps that we use – Facebook Live and Periscope (which is also the platform that is owned by and powers Twitter Live).

Facebook Live

If you follow us at all or have been to this blog before you likely know that we are heavy live streamers on Periscope and more recently Facebook Live as well.  There are plenty of other Live Streaming platforms (Instagram, YouNow, Twitch, Busker just to name a few) and several popular ones which have already come and gone in the last two years (Meerkat, Blab.IM, and MeVee to name a few).  For the purposes of this article I am limiting my thoughts to Periscope and Facebook Live.  Just a little bit of comparing and contrasting of the two to help you understand the differences and how you might use them both (or not).  Let’s start with the “feel” of each:

The “Feel” of the two platforms and the Live element

Periscope

Part of the reason we just enjoy Periscope more is because we have always found it to be a much more visceral experience.  The sense of community is significantly stronger because the comments are flowing in real time.  As a viewer when you type a comment in, the broadcaster sees it immediately and you can become a true part of the flow and the conversation.  In addition you can tap on someone else’s comment and comment directly to them, so the conversations that happen between all the viewers make it a much more social scene.  If you want your broadcasts to be more interactive with a lot of audience participation Periscope has the edge.  Besides, Periscope is a Live Video platform and community…..and nothing else.  The people who find you there are generally looking to interact with a live broadcaster.  That’s the only reason they go to that app because that’s all that’s there.  You can tap the screen to give “hearts” that float up the side of the screen and they accumulate.  It’s like a colorful fun applause!  Periscope is very much “for the moment”.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live is not as enjoyable as Periscope for us, but what it lacks in feel it makes up in effectiveness in other ways (more on that in a bit).  Meanwhile most of what Periscope is Facebook Live is not.  The comments come through in a delay.  It can take a while for your broadcast to be seen in the feed among all the other status updates, memes, tired political arguments etc.  Heck Facebook even tells you “keep broadcasting – we’re building an audience for you” or something to that effect as if to admit “we know no one is probably here yet but just keep going” hehe…  The viewers can tap a “like” button (along with the other emotion buttons) but they float upwards a bit and then awkwardly make a left turn zooming sideways and they don’t accumulate.  They are actually more distracting then fun.  As a viewer you can’t comment directly to another viewer – you can “like” a comment or just use the person’s name you’re talking to and comment to them assuming they’ll see it, but it’s just not the same.  You end up a little closer to “watching mode” than in “active participation mode” in my opinion.  Now as a broadcaster if you would rather have the space to talk and present without the distraction of comments or expectation of the audience of you responding to all of their comments in real time than this could be a better platform for you.  Sometimes when I want to show our clients and potential portrait clients examples of what we’re doing I’ll broadcast here.  The video becomes a little bit more of a distilled version of our services without the shenanigans – more “professional” if you will.  If Periscope is “for the moment”, then Facebook Live is “for the news feed”.

Reach

Periscope

For us Periscope has a broader reach globally.  We’ve grown our community way faster than we ever have on Facebook and our viewers come from all over the globe.  New people we don’t know pop into our broadcasts from various countries every time we go live, and that just does not happen on Facebook.  The audiences started to grow pretty fast on Periscope and we have over 21,000 followers on Periscope which is way more than any other social media platform for us by far.  We gained over half of those from making the “trending list” on the app, but even without that we grew more followers organically than anywhere else in the span of less than two years.  By comparison we have only 1652 followers on our FB business page.  Our Periscope broadcasts tend to average between 500-2500 viewers live and then usually another 50-100 who watch the replay, but people only watch the replays usually for just a few hours after the broadcast is over.

Facebook Live

Our Facebook Live viewers tend to be more localized because our following on our business page has been built over several years mainly with our local clients.  So the makeup of our audience base is much different.  Most of our actual photography clients are not Twitter or Periscope users, but almost all of them are on Facebook.  As I mentioned before depending on the nature of your business model your audience may look way different from another business.  But here is where Facebook Live starts to reveal some major advantages – you can extend the reach quite a bit after your broadcast is over by tagging people in the video and boosting it in a very targeted way just like any other status update.  This is a big advantage for Facebook Live.  You can reach however many people you like for as many days as you want if you want to spend a few dollars to boost it – it’s not that pricey for a little boost.

Repurposing and Editing in the App

With either of these apps you can mirror your smartphone with a desktop and record the broadcasts with the comments intact or just save the raw videos to your device, edit them and repurpose them wherever you like.  But within the apps themselves being able to edit and extend their life can be a big benefit.

Periscope

You are extremely limited here.  You can have a Periscope go out as a tweet and you can then retweet it if you like.  You can embed the broadcast from Twitter into a blog post which we do all the time, or you can pin your broadcasted tweet for additional exposure so it’s at the top of your page if people visit your twitter profile, but those are your main options…  You cannot choose or change the thumbnail image that will represent your broadcast in the feed, nor can you tag people after the fact.  

Facebook Live

To me this is where Facebook Live really shines and why I said earlier that Facebook Live is truly for the newsfeed.  Once you’re done with the broadcast you can go back in and re-title the video, tag people who may have appeared in or been mentioned in the video, you can give the video keyword tags for searchability, you can select from 10 random thumbnails Facebook generates or upload your own.  These screenshots say it all – all of this is available in post-production right in Facebook.  NONE of this is available with Periscope.

Facebook Live

That’s the first drop down, and then if you select “Edit Post” you get this…

Facebook Live

Notice above that I selected “8/10” or the eighth thumbnail of 10 choices.  I picked one of Ally and Angela gazing at baby Aubrey – so cute!  With Periscope if the image it gave me was a bad angle of my face (is that possible?  haha) I’d be stuck with it and it wouldn’t represent the content at all.  So there are tons of options…. and with the overall audience on Facebook and the continued resources Facebook pours into Facebook Live you can’t really ignore it even if Periscope is way more fun.  Keep in mind that these are just the basics – you could easily write a book about how to use both platforms.

But don’t just take my word for it.  I reached out to 4 different pros who are my peers and friends.  We’ve met all of them through live streaming on Periscope.  All 4 of them continue to use both platforms consistently so I knew they would be perfect for this article…

What others are saying…

Rachel Moore

Facebook Live

Founder of really.social, founder of #LetsLivestream & Letslivestream.live, and #BusinessUnusual & businessunusual.live

“Facebook Live may be touted as the best platform for overall livestreaming, but Periscope is uniquely poised for authentic engagement. If you miss a comment on Periscope, you missed it. Facebook is more asynchronous, allowing users to revisit threads and comment after the video has ended. However, both platforms have quality content in mind as they continue to expand production capabilities for their users.”

*Doug’s note – notice Rachel’s take on the difference in the type of engagement which basically echoes my take about Periscope being “for the moment” and Facebook “for the feed”.

Leslie Nance

Facebook LiveCancer Survivor, host of amazing cooking shows and food blogger at go2kitchens.com, shorty awards nominee 2017

“Periscope is where I gather my followers with my show “Lunch with Leslie”. There is less clutter on Periscope and I have found it easier to build a very authentic following there. I broadcast on schedule, every weekday at noon. After a few visits they want more so I ask them to sign up for my VIP page, g2kvip.com which amounts to a ton of freebies and they get access to a private Facebook group. This is where we continue the conversations after the Periscope show.  It’s a powerful community building tool.  I do live FB broadcast in the private group that are directed at my fan base and what they want to hear.  It is a great way to keep the fly wheel turning.  I love Periscope! It’s real time genius in my opinion!  Facebook Live is a good tool but it would not be where I would send someone that is new to live broadcasting, UNLESS they had a huge fan base there already.”

*Doug’s note – Leslie refers to Periscope being “real time genius” – for the moment!  FB Live is where she is going deeper to continue conversations and conversions with a private FB group.  Leslie takes advantage of the ability to broadcast directly to her FB group which I didn’t even get into earlier – that’s a BIG deal (you can create groups on Periscope to broadcast to as well but they are not nearly as effective as a FB group).

John “Chocolate Johnny” Kapos

Facebook LiveSmall Business owner of Perfection Chocolates in Sydney, Australia, speaker and business advisor at chocolatejohnny.com

“Facebook Live is total business so Perfection Chocolates only does chocolates and sweets there – customers, behind the scenes, products, promos etc. etc.   I’ve got a separate Chocolate Johnny FB Live and on that I do more of the fun stuff but not as much.  I don’t use it as much.  I use Periscope Chocolate Johnny totally for everything,  BUT – the big thing is I’ll say to everyone ‘hey guys go to my FB Live at Perfection Chocolates in a half hour and I’m going to be there showing you some products or sales or discounts’ – something like that.  So that’s the great thing – when you’ve got 4-5 thousand people watching you can get an extra 10-15 people coming over to a FB Live broadcast”

*Doug’s note – notice this is somewhat in line with my comments above that you can present your services without as much distraction on FB live – it seems to me that’s Johnny’s strategy in the last part of his comment is to bring people from the fun Periscope show over to FB Live where he can present his services and products and some good conversions can happen.  He has fun on Periscope but FB is more business.  See a pattern here?

Tawanna B Smith

Facebook LiveDigital Marketer and speaker – owner of MGT Travel Media and travel blogger and planner – creator of Mom’s Guide To Travel

FB Live and Periscope differ greatly on the engagement side for me, personally.  I am still in building mode with FB Live on business page so the viewership and live video interaction is low.  If I were to go live on my personal page it’s a completely different experience because I have way more friends than I do fans and the notifications work more in your favor on your personal page than they do on your business page. The benefit of using Facebook Live over Periscope is the ease of repurposing the content, receiving comments even after the live broadcast has ended, the number of third party tools built specifically for Facebook Live, and the advertising angle (advertising before you go on, setting notifications, advertising a live video after it’s done, and soon-to-come mid-roll ads). I’m not sure if Periscope even has any of this stuff on the horizon but I do love the in-app singular purpose of Periscope that evades Facebook which is now trying to be all things (social) to everybody.

*Doug’s note – Tawanna emphasized the advertising angle and the ease of repurposing the content on FB Live, including the fact that viewers can continue to comment after the broadcast is over (another great point in FB’s favor) but once again she goes back to that “in-app singular purpose of Periscope” that FB Live just doesn’t have.

I encourage you all to click on the links and follow these brilliant creators on all the different platforms wherever they are!

So Which is Better?  Who wins?

Well I guess it depends right?  Who’s the winner between an apple and an orange?  I don’t think there is a winner here per se.  What are you trying to accomplish?  Let that guide you as to which one “wins” for you.  As I have mentioned we use both for different reasons and will continue to do so.  Please comment with any other tips or creative ways you use the platforms or ask whatever questions you may have, and we’ll see you on Facebook Live and Periscope!

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Our Appearance On #LetsLivestream! A Recap And Follow Up Comments

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We have been live streaming on Periscope (and now Facebook Live too) for almost two years and the best thing about it has been meeting all the great people we’ve met from around the world.  We continue to broadcast live 5-6 days per week and we continue to meet new people like Rachel Moore whom we met just within the last few months.  Rachel has a social media marketing company called Really Social in Colorado and she hosts a Twitter Chat and live stream show every Wednesday afternoon at 3 PM EST called LetsLivestream.  Once we connected she started inviting me to join the weekly conversations which then led to her asking us to be guests on the show.  We happily accepted and it was a great discussion on Live Streaming for small businesses which is something I’ve learned a lot about in the last couple years…

Our Appearance on LetsLivestream!

Here is the actual replay of the show from Facebook Live if you want to check it out:

The format of the show is pretty cool – Rachel asks 8 questions about the topic and then anyone watching the show can tweet their own answers to participate with an A1 – A8 and the hashtag #LetsLivestream on twitter.  Here is a Storify slideshow of the questions along with my twitter answers and some of the others that were tweeted if you want to just flip through:

 

Meanwhile just to summarize some of my main points (and a few follow up ones)….

How We Live Stream and What You Should Consider If You Are Thinking About It For Your Business

What is Live Streaming?

We have been live streaming now since April 2015 just one week after Periscope was launched by Twitter.  At its simplest form you download the app, login, give your broadcast a title, hit the “start broadcast” button and start recording with the camera on your phone.  Only you’re not just recording, you’re broadcasting LIVE to the people who follow your account, and they can make comments with their keyboard that you can see on your screen!  Completely interactive.  We’ve met people far and wide around the world doing this as our brand Frameable Faces – you can check out our channel here.  The same thing goes for Facebook when you select the “Live” option and you can broadcast to your Facebook friends, fans of your business page and even groups you’re a member of.  The options are many and they keep growing and morphing to other platforms as well (Instagram, YouTube etc.).

What’s the Strategy?

As our audience grew we started to develop shows and concepts, a schedule of broadcasting and ways of repurposing the replays on our blog and elsewhere to promote our studio.  On the LetsLivestream show I discuss various elements of the strategy including the benefits, how you can grow a community around your brand, how small businesses have a big advantage since you can do this with barely any budget and connect with your audience without five levels of approval and red tape that big corporations have to deal with.  Live Streaming as with other forms of social media is a way to promote what you do and drive traffic to your owned online assets such as a website and self hosted blog – in our case they are both right here at frameablefaces.com.

What Exactly Should You Live Stream About?

If you’re a small business share your expertise, be fun and be vulnerable – it’s LIVE so it won’t be perfect, and your imperfections can make you real.  People will see how you react to questions and situations and they will want to work with you if you acquit yourself well.  Involve your clients, show your process, go behind the scenes, highlight your partners, vendors, even your friendly competition!  Show variety and provide value!!!  Where many business owners who try to create content online fail is that they don’t look at their services and products as vehicles to tell stories and build community!  If you do this you won’t run out of things to say like so many do.  Your strategy will be sustainable when you look to your community for content and then give back to your community.  The cool part is you can build community fast with live streaming because it’s such a visceral and participatory experience.

Be social – DUH…

We didn’t really discuss this on LetsLivestream and it should be obvious but you.  Must.  Be.  Social.  On. Social Media.  With Live Streaming you need to network, network, network – go into other broadcasts and watch others.  Jump in and join in the real time conversation – other broadcasters are very appreciative when people contribute to their show with comments that are on point.  You’ll start to meet and connect with other people watching and commenting in the broadcasts who share your interests and you’ll join each other’s communities!  You cannot just be a broadcaster and reach the full potential for success, just like you can’t just post stuff on Facebook without ever commenting and engaging right?  It’s the same thing on Live Streaming but it’s even more important there because it’s real time!

Hope you enjoyed this and found it valuable!  Please let me know in the comments if you have anything to add!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

21 Reasons Photography Is Completely Overrated

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Yes.  Photography blows.  We should know better than anybody – we’re photographers.  Through extensive research we have compiled the 21 reasons why photography is completely overrated. 

21 Reasons

 

21 Reasons Photography Is Completely Overrated

  1. You’re ugly and no one wants to see photos of you (shots fired! okay you’re not really ugly – this is an intentionally silly list)
  2. Your friends are ugly and no one wants to see photos of them either
  3. It costs a lot of money to actually get a good photo taken – like by an actual pro
  4. Good cameras are like way too expensive and hard to use
  5. Smartphone cameras can be a pain in the butt to figure out and even harder to use effectively than actual cameras
  6. That one time you looked really fat in that photo that was posted on Facebook
  7. You have all these photos with your ex that you never want to look at again
  8. Actual memories are better and you can kinda change them in your head to make them even a little better than they are – it’s harder to change a picture
  9. Because like, leave me alone
  10. Smiling makes your face sore
  11. Your dad is annoying – always wanting to take a picture of you
  12. Your dad is even more annoying thinking selfies make him cool
  13. Your dad is yet even more annoying doing snapchat selfies with half of his face cut off because he knows “it’s a thing”

    21 Reasons

    Exhibit A – Reason #13

  14. Your mom is annoying for all of the three previous reasons even if slightly less annoying than your dad
  15. Instagram overposters
  16. Having to explain……..like, anything
  17. Okay an example of #16 – You told someone you didn’t feel like going out but then got photographed…….out
  18. Narcissists aren’t cool in general and photography gives them an outlet to be….narcissists.
  19. Storage / Syncing struggles
  20. The awkward moment where someone is trying to imply that they want to take a picture of the rest of the group who have something in common that you don’t really have with them.  I mean, it makes sense but still totally awkward.
  21. Lists like this

So there you go – 21 reasons photography is completely overrated!  Feel free to add more to the list…. 

Check out The Doug & Ally Morning Show PODCAST!!!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Mad About Marie And Her Wonderful Senior Session!

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We’ve been mad about Marie for a long time now.  From the time she joined her older twin sisters on their session for a few photos a couple years ago to her spokesmodel session earlier this year and now culminating with her own senior session in Birmingham, we’ve been fans from day one!  We planned a total city photo shoot in Birmingham with her and she really nailed it – not that we were surprised.  She’s a real pro and so yeah, we’re mad about Marie!!!

Session in the City

We started at the top (of a parking structure) and worked our way down, and we had great conditions even getting a few well timed breezes before the storms came in.  We’ll start on the parking structure here:

Mad About Marie

Love the little hair lift from the breeze!

At this point we headed over to Quarton Lake because we liked the light we had and we knew a storm might roll on in…  It was a good move – this photo is perfect!

Mad About Marie

Let’s pause here for a minute for some behind the scenes action from the shoot shall we?  First we have our 6 second vine for your looping pleasure…

Next we have the replay of the live Periscope broadcast from the session.  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet and / or watched our channel on twitter you can do so on Periscope here or on Twitter here.

Fun right?  Okay let’s get back to a couple more photos…

Mad About Marie

At this point we headed back to downtown Birmingham to get our last set of shots – here we have a pop of color with some beautiful flowers to complement our girl…

Mad About Marie

Beautiful!!!

We heard some thunder and the skies were looking ominous as we captured this last photo that we’ll leave you with.  Marie is a pro – you’d never know we were rushing to finish before the storm hit!

Mad About Marie

And there you have it!  You can see why we are mad about Marie and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Sal Was Smashing On His Birthday! It’s How He Looked And What He Did!

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Sal is a smashing young lad to be sure.  We were excited to get this call since we have photographed many members of Sal’s family before including his two older siblings, but this was our first time photographing Sal.  And….we got to do it ON his first birthday!  What an honor to be able to spend some time with someone on their very first birthday!!!  That’s about as good as it gets.  We photograph plenty of first birthday sessions but they aren’t always on the day of their birthday so this was very cool.  Oh – and yes there is a cake smash – an epic one at that which we’ll save until the end…  🙂

Sal Looked Smashing…

We started on location and Sal arrived displaying a real sense of fashion!  The kid looked fantastic!  Haha…  We went to one of our favorite spots and started on the bridge and Sal turned it on immediately!  Check him out:

Smashing

How awesome is he?  And the vest rocks.

It was hot out but Sal was a champ and we got a few more photos before we headed back to the studio to cool down…  Here’s one more…

Smashing

Before we head back to the studio let’s take a look at our behind the scenes action shall we?  First we have our fun 6 second vine for your looping pleasure:

Now we have our extended replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from the day on our YouTube channel which are a ton of fun – and here is where you’ll see the real smashing come into play!!!  Lol…

Sal Was Smashing…

Now it was time for the real smashing – a cake smash!!!!  But before we let Sal “take the cake” we had to get a couple of him just being his awesome self – like this one:

Smashing

And now for the smash!  I think he enjoyed this….

Smashing

And there you have it!  A smashing session indeed!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights of our day with Sal!