Every brand and his dog is jumping on board the Facebook live bandwagon at the moment and recently I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to run a Facebook live session well and professionally. Aside from all the planning bits, there are a few bits of inexpensive kit you can get to up your Facebook live game considerably. Don’t fall into the trap of producing cheap looking content just because it’s cheap to produce.

With the exception of your smartphone, below are the 3 bits of essential kit to bring your production up to a decent level.

Tripod

The days of Tripod’s costing an arm and a leg are over, there are many to choose from but you can get a pretty decent one for only a few quid. This one is a pretty good entry model, or if you’re out and about the Gorilla Pod is pretty solid as a choice – this model is designed for smartphones and comes with a mount so you don’t need extra bits.

Tripod mount

Most tripods come ready to attach a DSLR, so you’ll need something to anchor your smartphone. This one literally costs a fiver and saves you from shaky frame syndrome!

Microphone

Depending on how noisy it’s going to be this may not be necessary, but you can really up the quality of the audio with a decent directional microphone. This is the more expensive of the pieces you’ll need, but arguably could also deliver the biggest increase in quality. The Rode VideoMic Go works really well, but make sure you also grab this cable for use with smartphones. If you can’t afford the VideoMic Go, this lapel mic is a good second option.

It’s not much, but even a couple of these things will up your game, and that’s a good thing for everyone.