8 Ways Instagram Can Take IG LIVE to The Next Level

Instagram’s IG LIVE has redefined the way we engage in online events and conversations.

Over the last few months, we’ve seen how influential the product has been, bringing celebrities, organizations, creators, politicians, and entrepreneurs closer to their fans, constituents, and beneficiaries. We’ve seen battles between legendary artists, DJ’s doing Quarantine Clubs, business leaders inspire us, families getting closer together, and friends having fun.

As the Co-founder and CEO of FloraMind, an organization supporting youth mental health, we’ve used IG LIVE to host online mental health discussions with psychologists, entrepreneurs, musicians, and artists. It’s been really critical for us to continue pushing our work and impact. I’ve done near 15 IG LIVEs as a host, and have attended many others as a guest. I’ve seen a bunch of great things about IG LIVE and have seen where it can also improve! I’m excited to share them because I think IG LIVE has a lot of potential and can push the needle forward in rethinking online streaming.

1. Events on IG LIVE

• The ability for event hosts to create an event on Instagram for an IG LIVE in advance so that users can easily register for the event. This will help hosts with organization, information collection (names, emails etc.) and overall efficiency. For attendees, it will be super helpful to know all the events you sign up to and receive reminders for them! This should be easily redesigned and integrated from the Facebook events product.

2. Paid tickets for Private IG LIVE Events

• The ability to host an IG LIVE conversation that is private — it may require you to sign up in advance and have a ticket, which may or may not cost money.
• The ability to charge for a ticket for an IG LIVE will make it easy for creators and organizations to monetize on the platform. Instagram can receive a cut from each ticket sale for processing $ through the platform.

3. Multiple Guests on IG LIVE

• IG LIVE has become a central place for discussions, speakers, and events. The ability to interact with multiple people LIVE — like FaceTime’s feature, will enable discussions with more people — and enable people to host panels, discussions, and more. This will increase utilization and overall better user experience.

4. Donations on IG LIVE

• Adding donations to stories was a great idea!!! Now adding the ability to donate to an IG LIVE will be even more awesome — especially for people doing LIVE fundraisers! Which people have been doing through concerts, conversations etc. — Like @Diddy’s Massive Fundraiser / full day danceathon.

5. Longer IG LIVE

• Some people want to use LIVE more than an hour — it’s super disruptive and not cool that it cuts off so quickly. It would be a better user experience and add more value to organizations and people to host IG LIVE’s on the platform.

6. Record, Save, and Easily Post IG LIVE

• This is a huge missed opportunity at the moment where it’s extremely difficult to take content created from IG LIVE and post it to one’s page. Even though it does save for 24 hours, there needs to be an easy to implement a way to take an IG LIVE and post it directly to IG TV. You should also be able to download it easily (without using third-party apps or recording it through screen capture).
• Edit: I just noticed the feature to post directly to IG TV has recently been updated! Awesome. I would add a suggestion to this: Allow people the option to post with or without the audience engagement. For a lot of conversation, audience engagement is awesome and drives conversations!

7. Ads on IG LIVE

• A lot of people are tuned into IG LIVES and are fully attentive there! This is a good opportunity to give people an opportunity to make money on the platform. As a creator, it would be awesome if I enable ads throughout my IG LIVE (think of it similar to a recorded podcast but with LIVE adS) — in the middle or beginning or somewhere during my LIVE — and for me to make $.

8. Mute

• It would be great to be able to mute yourself in the IG LIVE when you need to. Sometimes there is a noisy environment or you want to make sure the other person gets the space they need without your sound!

This was a fun creative exercise for me. I didn’t spend too much time editing this for the sake of getting it out ASAP! It would be so cool to see any of these implemented. I’m sure the team is already thinking about a bunch of them! Let me know what you think.

Follow me on IG @moody.io!