How to Stream Live Content Effectively
ou’ve likely noticed how much more common live-streaming is these days. It’s a growing area and has taken off even more since the global COVID-19 pandemic meant people have been stuck at home and facing movement restrictions at times.
If you’re interested in becoming self-employed and building a work-from-home business or want to develop your blog numbers or social media followers, it’s worth trying out live streaming content. There’s quite a bit to learn in this area, though. Follow a few tips to help you get the most out of this communication method.
Choose the Right Platform
Take care choosing the platform(s) you want to live stream on. Many social media sites and other apps and tools offer this functionality these days, so examine the features they provide access to, plus costs, scalability, security, and audience demographics.
Facebook Live, for instance, works well for many people since the tech giant has a large, ready audience and, if you have built a good following on the site, you could start advertising live sessions and generate interest right away.
Set Up Your Tech Gear Properly
When you’re streaming live content, you can’t afford for tech glitches to interrupt your service. Invest in the right tech tools and set up your video services effectively to limit the risk of issues. It pays to own helpful gear such as backdrops, headphones, microphones, decent lighting, and a computer that’s new and efficient enough to handle what you will ask of it when live streaming.
It also pays to close as many programs and tabs on your computer as you can before you begin transmitting content so your machine is less likely to freeze or otherwise glitch. It’s a good idea to free up some disk space, too. This way, your machine will run more smoothly. Save time and download a trusted, free PC cleaner that takes the hard work out of cleaning up old and unused programs.
Plus, test all your devices and programs before going live to ensure everything is working as it should. This includes your internet connection, which is one of the critical factors in steady, error-free broadcasts. Focus on security, too. You don’t want hackers interrupting your live streams or finding a way into your networks to steal personal or financial data, whether yours or that of your listeners and guests. Utilize comprehensive security software that protects against viruses, spyware, spam, ransomware, and other malware to keep systems safe.
Know Your Focus
With so many topics to talk about and many different customer types you might pitch your live events to, it can be tempting to go broad with your offerings. This is a mistake, though. It’s better to work out a specific, narrow topic for each live-streaming video and hone in on a particular target audience, too. Choose an area where you have both expertise and passion and know you already have some interested followers or can build some quickly.
Concentrating in this way will help you stand out from the crowd and offer viewers real value. Many available webinars and other presentations don’t provide anything much new, interesting, specific, or shareable. Help yourself develop your brand and grab interest and attention by focusing your content and creating engaging, entertaining, educational, or emotion-provoking live feeds.
Plan and Market
To get the most impressive results possible from your live content, don’t leave everything to the last minute. Give yourself plenty of time to plan and market your videos. You want to develop the best content you can, which doesn’t generally happen when rushing. You also want to build interest and anticipation over at least a couple of weeks, so you draw a good crowd each time you share.
It helps to create a sense of urgency with your marketing. In turn, people are more likely to watch your content. When mentioning what events you have coming up, highlight timeframes for live streams. You might like to set deadlines for bookings and maximum viewer numbers to increase the “fear of missing out” among your target demographic and boost audience numbers as a result.
Another idea is to tell people you’ll mention a limited-time offer during your live content that’s only available to those listening on the day. Or, you can name-drop a special guest who’s joining you or talk about the newsworthy data or tips you’ll share that people won’t find elsewhere.
Engage ASAP
During your events, don’t waffle. Get right into the heart of your topic to draw attention quickly and ensure you don’t lose people early on. Start providing insightful interviews, information, offers, or other drawcard details within the first 30 seconds, roughly, so people listen carefully and don’t click away or pay more attention to another task.
Live-streaming can be a great way to reach your business and personal goals. Follow the steps above to help you create content that wows consumers every time.