Before you go live, you need to figure out WHERE to go
Live video is particularly compelling for video marketers due to the additional interactivity and urgency it adds to social video. Social media itself already encompasses those qualities, but the added feature of audience interaction, which can steer the direction of the video, is truly unique to live video. But as distribution options continue to increase, it becomes increasingly difficult for video marketers to figure out where to host their live videos.
As we all know, or at least understand since we have preached this time and time again on our blog, video has become the primary content choice of marketing communications in a mobile-dominated world. Video in general is extremely popular, and your followers are more likely to engage with video in all formats, as opposed to other content types. However, live streaming video is becoming a must-have in marketers’ content choices, along with traditional video.
For marketers who are searching for the right platform to share their live video content, the key to selection is to find one that your brand has built the biggest following, and where your target audience spends most of their digital time. And the ultimate goal of the live streaming video should be to garner the largest audience possible, while also encouraging engagement throughout the live stream. If you don’t even know where to start with live content, here are 5 live streaming video ideas that won't freak you out.
Facebook Live
Similarly to how Facebook is the default social media platform, Facebook Live is the default live video platform. You will get the biggest bang for your video buck. Take a cue Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, who has stressed the importance of the platform becoming "video first”. Facebook has spent a lot of time and resources to make Facebook Live a successful venture for the platform.
Facebook Live is ideal for face-to-camera videos, plus live event coverage, product launches, tours, behind-the-scenes and staged studio broadcasts. Use Facebook Live when you want to reach the largest audience, portray a marketing message or when you want to experiment with different live video content to see what works for your audience. But one unique benefit to Facebook Live is the potential to choose a particular audience; so as Facebook marketer, you can segment your follower lists and create different live video content for each audience segmentation.
Facebook Live videos can last up to four hours, and in addition to the video analytics, you’ll also be able to see the number of peak live viewers, people reached, reactions, comments, and shares. The detailed analytics are imperative for tracking results and testing out different content.
Following your live broadcast, the video will be on your Facebook page. Followers who frequently interact with your page - through likes, comments, shares, etc. - will receive a notification that you are no live on Facebook.
Twitter Live
Twitter’s live streaming video option is Periscope, an app that Twitter acquired a few years ago. So, in addition to your content streaming to your followers on Twitter, it will also be available on another app, Periscope. While Periscope is very well-established in the live video streaming market, the app’s audience base isn’t nearly as large as other social networks. Periscope has 10 million users, so even with that extra discoverability, Twitter’s live video feature does not have Facebook’s potential reach, with 1.86 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2016. (source)
While Facebook is great for planned marketing videos that will be streamed live, which have the potential to build and hold an audience for a longer period of time, Twitter is ideal for short, spontaneous live video news content, which is pretty similar to how you would use those platforms for other types of content. Twitter is great for anything that will catch your audience’s eye, but it’s not great for sustained interactions. A great implementation of Twitter Live is the behind-the-scenes type of content at conferences, product launches or events, but reset your frame of mind to showcase what’s currently happening, or the news, rather than portraying a specific message.
The analytics are not as substantial as Facebook Live’s - while you’re broadcasting, you can see the number of viewers, and hearts & comments from your audience. And following the live broadcast, Live Twitter videos will appear as tweets that remain on your timeline.
YouTube Live
Where do you go for video content? YouTube. The entire reason for YouTube’s existence as a platform is to serve video to its users, so it’s a natural fit for live streaming video content. Marketers are normally more familiar with this platform since they already host their business’ video content, like organic video and video advertising.
YouTube Live is a channel that will feature all current live streams and archived streams, after your video concludes live broadcasting. You have three options for live video content through this platform - Stream now, Events and Mobile.
Stream now is a quick and easy live video option. Once you’ve enabled your channel, you can start sending content and YouTube will automatically start and stop the stream via an encoder.
Events give marketers greater control of the live stream. You can preview before you go live, and you can set backup streams, plus it allows you the ability to start and stop the stream whenever you want.
Mobile is pretty self-explanatory - it is the YouTube app option to stream live video content, which was launched last month to users who had more than 10,000 subscribers. But, this month they changed that number - in order to stream mobile content, you have to 1,000 subscribers to your channel.
Each live streaming option provides the ability to live chat, but with different analytics, which you can find information about, here. Since YouTube is owned by Google, your YouTube Live videos have the potential to appear for search results, which is not a capability of Facebook Live or other live video platforms. So YouTube Live is great for video content that can help your SEO - anything business-related, live FAQ videos, how-tos, and event & conference coverage.
After the live broadcast concludes, YouTube will automatically upload an archive of the live stream to your channel.
Instagram Live
The live video feature of Instagram is a part of Instagram Stories, which as a whole is a pretty blatant imitation of Snapchat. Unlike the other live video platforms, Instagram’s live video disappears after you conclude the broadcast, which increases the urgency for people to watch, but reduces the number of views.
The best content to post on Instagram is more casual content such as short chats, demos and product features that you want to share with your most loyal customers and followers. Additionally, Instagram Live videos are shorter than other live platforms - from a few seconds to an hour. Keep in mind since Instagram started as a photo sharing app, all live streaming content should be visually appealing and colorful.
Similarly to the other live video platforms, you can see comments from viewers, but a distinct difference is viewers can repeatedly “heart” your video. Live videos are also a part of Instagram’s Explore tab, and videos that are trending based on the number of viewers, location and engagement appear at the top of the page. Since there aren’t THAT many live videos broadcasting at the same time, it gives marketers the potential to reach a large audience, but it only takes a left or right swipe to move onto another live story. No matter what platform you choose to stream your live video, one thing is consistent throughout - live streaming video is a format that marketers should be testing and incorporating into their video marketing plan. Does it still sound too overwhelming? Contact a video marketing agency to determine how to make live video work for your company, as a part of an all-encompassing video marketing plan.
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