We’re entering a brand new and rollicking era of online marketing thanks to live streaming for business. Two years ago we may have thought that video is going to change everything, considering the sheer amount of video uploaded to YouTube and the growing number of vloggers popping up everywhere. Turns out – that’s true, but there’s more to the story. Enter: live streaming.
Benefits of live streaming for business
When it comes to the desire to develop a closer relationship with your audience, live streaming has become your best friend. It comes with a sense of exclusivity and if used in the right way – it can enhance your brand engagement enormously. The two main components of live streaming are authenticity and trust, which are more than enough to make your users feel closer to you.
Real-time content is the new black on social media, especially considering how much our attention span has shrunk in the past decade. The opportunity to capitalize on that is invaluable – and exactly what live streaming can offer. People want to be participants, not customers – and now this can be achieved in a win-win situation for them and your business.
Real estate companies and travel agencies were among the first do adopt live streaming as part of their branding strategy – and it’s definitely paying off. Entrepreneurs are using Facebook live streaming quite often in order to answer questions live – a great example is Ivanka Trump, who hosts these at least once a month. Saving time and money has always been a priority for brands, and they’re also part of the equation here – why make hundreds of calls today to try and sell your product, when you can make people come to you by showing them an entertaining live stream?
Here are some of the most profitable ideas for live streaming for business:
Live streaming ideas for businesses
Behind the scenes look
This has been happening for a while now and companies have seen a big boost in engagement thanks to it – without live streaming. Now imagine what you can achieve with it! A creative agency in New York called Sagmeister & Walsh installed a camera in their studio to stream live footage of the agency’s work to their home website. This can have a really powerful effect on consumers by making them feel like a part of the creative process.
Live contests and giveaways
Giveaways have always been a hit as well – and they’ve become an even bigger one with the possibility of someone hearing his name and knowing thousands of others have heard it too. The first brand to do this was Doritos – they hosted a contest that included a live giveaway with the goal of promoting their new product. They cleverly incorporated social media in their campaign by asking people to tag three of their friends. It’s not surprising that this resulted in a huge exposure for their product launch.
Q&A sessions
This is an innovative way to attach a face to your brand to make it resonate with your users better. One of the best examples here has got to be the online publishing platform Medium. By inviting people to tweet a question with the hashtag #askmedium in order to provide them with a real-time video response, they managed to make their brand more accessible and entertaining.
Live events
Enable your users to dive into the world of some of the most interesting events by letting them see what you see. Businesses can live stream parts of their events and use them as teasers so that their audience doesn’t miss the next one. Adidas went a different way: they live streamed Real Madrid star James Rodriguez while he was signing a contract extension with the brand.
Breaking news
Share updates about your company in a live stream instead of simply announcing them on social media. You can do a live press release, which will increase trust among your audience.
Tips to successfully stream your videos
The first thing to do before live streaming should be to promote your live stream at least a day in advance. That will give your users the time to make sure they won’t miss what you have to say. Then, prepare your event live stream checklist: like everything else, this action requires planning in advance. Also, even though it shouldn’t appear staged, your video should still have a clear structure.
Something most people who do live streaming underestimate is their Internet connection. Don’t rely on your 3G/4G, because that could cause problems and your followers could lose seconds and event minutes from your content. Don’t forget to make your live stream social media and mobile friendly: most likely the people who will look at it will be on the move, so it’s important to take that into consideration. Make sure you’re able to usher quick replies to people’s questions!
If you’re going to use the recording later, you have to enable the option to save it to your camera roll – so having enough space is essential. Before you start, you also need to be completely sure you’re using the app that you feel most comfortable with –so choose wisely and test before you commit.
Last, but definitely not least – emojis. That’s right – to create the ultimate catchy titles to draw in a bigger audience, use a lot of emojis – most of the people who have thousands of followers have them in their titles.
Live streaming services to use
Currently, the most popular applications when it comes to live streaming for business are Periscope, Meercat and Facebook live. What is sad, but probably good for your business is that they still remain largely underutilized. This means if you get into live streaming now, there won’t be too much competition out there
For now, Periscope live streaming is the most used and the most reliable option for businesses – it has beaten the other ones in both subscriber base and traffic. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give others a chance – Facebook live video seems like an interesting tool to explore. The important takeaway is that a lot of companies are in the process of implementing a live streaming business model – so it’s good to get on board now! Your users will be thanking you for providing them with something interesting to look forward to, especially when it comes to your Facebook live feed.
Don’t forget: if you want to save your videos for later use, edit it to make it more entertaining. If you need any help – we’re always here for you! Just post your project and we’ll take care of your video editing needs.
