Live streaming is a great way to engage with your audience that you may be missing. The numbers and data supporting the importance of live streaming to your audience reveal you should be including live streaming as part of your marketing strategy.
This article will help guide you through ways to increase audience engagement by live streaming and best practices for implementing this marketing strategy.
What Is Live Streaming
Live streaming is the process of using social media channels to stream live content directly to your audience, and bonus points if you create content that is directly interactive with your audience on those channels.
The market has seen exponential amounts of growth in the live streaming industry, from $30 billion in 2016 to an estimated $184 billion by 2027.
Why should your company be concerned about live streaming at all? Take a look at these numbers and you will see why:
1.1 billion hours logged in live streaming in 2019 (Livestream)
Your audience is 39% more likely to share video content (99 Firms)
Live streaming accounts for one in five Facebook videos (Facebook)
Live streaming leads to ~24X as many comments on LinkedIn (LinkedIn)
Brands leverage the platforms they are already on and use live streaming to create a deeper connection with their audience
With the right equipment and content, you can grab your own slice of the pie from this booming industry. All it takes is connecting with your audience in a unique way that gives them the opportunity to engage with the human faces and voices behind your brand and business.
Which Social Media Platforms Should You Live Stream On?
The easiest way to start live streaming is to start where you are. Take advantage of whatever social media platforms you are already utilizing well and start there.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Twitch, and many other platforms already have built in live streaming services. You just need to learn how to use them and leverage them to grow your brand and business.
The beauty of live streaming on these platforms is they boost your engagement with your current audience while also bringing in new audiences. Some people prefer to watch videos and live streams instead of reading posts or graphics you may be posting already.
Knowing which platform makes the most sense for your audience is the key to live streaming success. Here are a few of the features and benefits for each major social media platform and their live streaming services.
Facebook Live Streaming
Facebook is the most popular social media platform right now. If your business isn’t already there, then you are missing out on a large portion of your marketable audience. Facebook launched Facebook Live in 2016 for live streaming and this service has made a huge impact on the Facebook platform.
Research shows that live streaming gets 10x more comments and 3x longer watch time than other video content. Roughly 42% of businesses on Facebook use Facebook Live to attain their share of this market value. What do you need to do to utilize this platform?
Instagram Live Streaming
Instagram is not as big as Facebook in terms of users, but it does reach a different demographic than Facebook. Instagram is popular with the 18-34 demographic that is mostly untapped on Facebook.
Instagram being a visual platform sets itself up well for live streaming. Their streaming service is known as Instagram Live, but these live videos are then saved on their InstagramTV platform which is focused entirely on video content.
The biggest issue to take into consideration with Instagram live streaming is it must be tied to a mobile device. This does allow the platform to automatically have a more personal experience, which you can use to add a human touch to your brand and business.
YouTube Live Streaming
YouTube was the original video-based platform that has adapted over time to become its own social media platform. It is second only to Facebook in terms of social media presence and second only to Google in terms of use as a search engine.
This means people are organically coming to YouTube to find information, be entertained, and seek guidance. This offers a huge amount of potential for your marketing strategy, especially by using the YouTube Live capabilities for live streaming.
As an example, YouTube Live videos have been known to have more concurrent views than the average number of viewers for some professional sports games, like the NBA. This is a massive potential for market value to grow your brand.
The added benefit of YouTube Live is that these videos are then saved as videos that can be viewed later on within your YouTube profile as well. So they can continue building your brand far beyond the initial live stream.
LinkedIn Live
If you are involved in B2B, sales, or marketing, then LinkedIn is a powerful network and social media platform. LinkedIn Live is available to members and pages with upwards of 7x engagement and 24x comments compared to regular posts.
LinkedIn is a social media platform for professionals and your content will need to be tailored as such, but it can still be an opportunity to build human connections with your brand and grow your business in more ways than sales and revenue.
How Do I Get Started Live Streaming?
Now that we have discussed everything you need to know about why you need to get started live streaming for your brand and business let’s discuss some tools and tips to get you started on the right foot.
There are plenty of options available to make your live streaming the best it can be and even more tips on how to do things the “right” way. What’s important is to not go overboard and trying to use every tool under the sun.
You have to do some research and educate yourself about the available options and what will work best to fit your brand and communicate the values of your business effectively.
We’ve compiled some tools we recommend to help you get started.
Restream.io
This tool is for streaming across multiple platforms simultaneously. If you have a large audience on several different platforms, then Restream.io allows you to stream across all of them at the same time, schedule the live streams to begin automatically, chat with the various users on the different platforms in the text chat, and much, much more.
There is a free forever plan that is great to use to get started. They also offer some reasonably priced packages that should fit your budget to launch your live streaming marketing strategy.
Restream.io has a feature called Restream Studio where you can launch your streams to all your platforms from a single browser tab in as little as two clicks. Coupled with the dozens of other features Restream Studio offers like HD streaming and multiple guests for live Q&As, this makes Restream.io a powerhouse of a tool for live streaming.
One last factor that can be vital in determining the usefulness of your live streaming, as well as helping you improve over time, are the analytics built into Restream.io that will give you plenty of feedback on what is working and what isn’t. It brings in all the analytical data between all your social media platforms in one convenient location.
Social Media Scheduling Tools for Promotion
Making sure your audience knows you are going to be live streaming is a vital factor in utilizing live streams to grow your brand.
Your social media needs to be consistent and it needs to be pointing back to previous live streams and pointing towards future or current live streams to best promote your live videos.
There are several different tools for scheduling social media posts and content available. Hootsuite, Buffer, SocialPilot, etc. can all help make sure you are staying consistent across all your social media platforms.
Even if your audience engaging with your live streaming is primarily on Instagram you need to make sure you are connecting the dots and promoting your content to your audience on Facebook and LinkedIn, too.
Image Creation Tools
Social media platforms such as Instagram are hugely visual. And it has been proven that using graphics and visuals for written posts drives up engagement on other platforms, too.
Your visuals for your social media platforms are going to point to the quality of your live streaming, so your visuals need to be of equal or higher quality than your live streams.
Pablo and Canva are great tools that will all you to create stunning visuals and graphics for all your social media platforms and communicate a clear and consistent message across all your social channels.
Both Pablo and Canva have free options to get started as well as reasonably priced packages to help you create the right kind of visual content to go alongside your regular posting as well as your live streaming.
Video Editing Tools
As we mentioned before, many platforms save your live videos to your account. While you can let them sit as they are, it is usually a good idea to edit them for those who will be viewing them at a later date.
Once you’ve got your live stream finished you may realize that you could edit out some awkward pauses, some slip-ups in the conversation, or just polish up the audio or video quality. These videos can be valuable to your marketing strategy just like your live videos.
Lumen5 and WeVideo are great options for video editing that will do everything you need and allow you to recreate the magic of the live stream while making it a little more digestible for those who will be viewing it for weeks, months, or even years to come.
Equipment You’ll Need for Great Live Streaming
Here is the part you have probably been most concerned about this whole article. What kind of equipment are you going to need? How much is it going to cost?
Well, the best news is that live streaming doesn’t require a lot of fancy and expensive equipment. For example, Instagram requires you to use a phone, so you already have access to your camera for live streaming!
The most important pieces of equipment you will need to make sure are on par with what you need for live streaming is your laptop, your lighting, and your microphones.
Audio is a key component of any live stream that can often go overlooked. You need to make sure your microphones are high-quality and offer crisp, clear sound from everyone speaking on the live stream. You will need a computer that can handle a good amount of video editing capabilities as well. Lighting will be important to consider and there is a plethora of affordable lighting options available that will make your live streams look professional and help you to stand out in the market.
Looking For Help Growing Your Business?
Now that you have been equipped with the knowledge you need to get started live streaming to grow your business, how do you think it can fit in with your marketing strategy? If you want to know more about how live streaming can work into your marketing strategy to grow your brand, then we would love to start a conversation! At Catalyst Brand Group we focus on implementing proven growth strategies in brand, platform, and growth that will help your business grow by 2x-3x per year. If you are looking to implement some of these strategies or for some help in other areas of your business, then Contact Us to start a conversation about how we can help.