Sometimes it’s just not possible to get your entire audience into a single room at a given point in time.
Maybe your team is spread out geographically and bringing them together is prohibitively expensive. Or perhaps your event would be of interest to people around the world.
Whatever the reason, if your potential audience is greater than the number of people who can make it to a particular place at a particular time, then live streaming is a great solution.
Live streaming allows you to broadcast your event in real time to people across the planet. It is becoming popular with brands around the world for:
- Product launches
- Event launches
- Conference presentations
- Internal communications, like company announcements to staff
- Town hall meetings
- Community events
- Podcasting
- Important family occasions, like weddings.
Here are some popular platforms that offer live streaming capabilities:
- Facebook Live
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Periscope
- Ustream
- Azure
- Verizon
- Cisco.
Here are six reasons live streaming is becoming a popular option for brands.
Reach a bigger audience
If you can reach more people with your message, why wouldn’t you? Live streaming using Facebook Live, YouTube or any other platform allows people all over the world to hear your message. That’s a chance to win customers you never knew existed.
Create a sense of excitement
People are watching more and more video online. What’s more exciting than watching a video? Watching live video! Live streaming adds a sense of immediacy and urgency. People want to be a part of it and they want to see what happens.
Encourage interaction
Live streaming gives people a chance to comment and ask questions in real time, while an event is actually happening. Live streaming allows people to feel truly involved in your event, even if they’re watching it on a screen.
Generate leads
Live streaming is your opportunity to convert new customers.
Creating excitement around your event means people are talking about you instead of your competition. Allowing people around the world to engage with your live streaming content also means your brand is going to be top-of-mind with audiences much further afield – in markets where not so long ago you could never have hoped to compete.
Create content that keeps on working for you
Live streams can go for as long as you want, but the potential for the content to win new audiences and customers doesn’t have to stop when the camera is switched off.
Video created during live streaming events on platforms like Facebook Live and YouTube are published on those platforms for later viewing. But you can also take the footage, edit it down, create highlight reels, and reuse it in dozens of ways.
The Lush team behind the scenes, live streaming a launch event in 2018.
10 questions to ask before you engage live streaming services for your business
When people think of live streaming, they probably imagine the kind of shaky, handheld, candid footage they see on Insta Stories of their friend’s Facebook pages. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, if you’re live streaming for business, it’s completely unacceptable.
Choose quality. Talk to a professional live streaming service provider in your community. A video production house or a content marketing agency is a good place to start.
Here are 10 questions to ask to make sure they can provide you with the service you need:
- Are you set up to provide live streaming services?
- Can you stream to the platform we want to use? (Like Facebook Live, YouTube or even a custom RTMP server)
- Do you provide technical set-up and support?
- Will you run the live stream for us during the event?
- Do you need an internet connection, or can you stream via 4G? (This is really important if your event is being held somewhere without wi-fi!)
- Do you use broadcast quality cameras?
- How many cameras can you set up and stream from at our event?
- Can you overlay title graphics and PowerPoint presentations onto the live stream?
- Do you keep a high-quality (1020p) recording of the live stream that we can use later?
- Can you edit our live stream into a highlights reel? (Or whatever other content you might require for your marketing purposes).
If you need live streaming services in Perth or Western Australia, Lush – The Content Agency can help. Get in touch with our team for an obligation-free chat about your needs.