Most of us have not been aware of the benefits of live streaming in the past few years. But in this digital world, live streaming has many benefits for businesses and social media; we should take advantage of them. A new world exists for events, church services, gaming sessions, meetings, and conferences. Be it high-profile influencers or business tycoons, live streaming is flipping the entire content production landscape and consumer consumption patterns.
In this Article:
Top 7 Benefits of Live Streaming
Reach Highly Targeted Niches
The most commonly cited benefit of social media live streaming is the increased outreach to the potential audience. Interestingly enough, live streaming allows reaching out to highly targeted niches, primarily because viewing live streams requires more commitment from followers.
They must tune in to your streaming destination on your streaming time, regardless of whether it is the best time for them. This then applies an automatic filter that keeps unrelated audiences away and the targeted audience hooked to your streams.
Moreover, audience targeting is not restricted by physical or geographical location. This means that attendance at your content can surpass the limitations of a physical event; you can even reach out to a nomad living on the North Pole, provided he has an internet connection.
Cost-Effectiveness
Live streaming marketing is relatively less costly than professionally recorded videos and footage. It is incredibly cheap! Better put, it’s free!
You don’t need any special equipment, hardware, software, or streaming gear to go live. All it takes is a laptop with a camera and an active account on your desired streaming destination, such as Facebook.
Can’t afford a laptop? A smartphone works equally well! Hence, live streaming is a cost-effective and highly accessible strategy for anyone anywhere. It is also more time-efficient than other content strategies, such as writing a blog post or a comprehensive art.
Real-Time Engagement
One of the primary reasons live streaming has always made headlines in content marketing is its ability to offer real-time user engagement. Go live on all platforms that will engage your audiences so they can directly converse with their favorite brands or idealized influencers.
When reading a blog post, you’re reading a work of the past. But you interact with the streamer in real-time while watching a live stream.
Many business enterprises use live streams to offer interactive Q&A sessions, virtual office tours, and live customer support. If your content is exciting and engaging, your live video streams can quickly whip up online interaction.
Revenue Opportunities
Interacting with potential clients opens up new revenue-generation opportunities for businesses. The easiest of these is to charge subscriptions to view your streams. Don’t forget that if your stream were a physical event, you would have charged both an admission fee for the physical attendees and another for online attendees. Or, you can charge a Freemium; instead of giving away your entire content for free, a freemium will allow viewers restricted access to your streams, who must pay to watch the whole stream.
Similarly, churches, worship houses, and non-profit organizations can seek online donations during live events. Also, you can monetize your live streams through sponsorships and collaborations with advertising agencies and digital marketers.
Sales Conversions
In the end, it’s the dollars that matter the most. Live streams are proven to provide better sales conversion than any marketing tactic. eCommerce businesses are increasingly deploying live streaming to sell their products and services through integrated promotional offers on their live streams.
The online video market is a billion-dollar opportunity:
- Use pre-event teasers and notifications to create a buzz of excitement.
- Host events and product launches to showcase products and create awareness
- Offer ‘Buy Now’ discounts to bank-impulsive buyers.
- Organize competitions and live auctions to compete with rivals.
- New content ideas for live streaming will help you to increase your conversation rate.
Brand Recognition and Awareness
Today, an average digital marketer is intrigued by the question, “Why is live streaming important for brands?” Here’s why:
- Authenticity: Live video streams add a humanized and personalized element to your brand. Despite the stutters and stumbles, the viewers enjoy a genuine experience, making the content more relatable and authentic.
- Interaction: Customers interact with their favorite brands in real-time, which makes customer relationship management even more dynamic and productive. Facebook Live’s research suggests that users are three times more likely to watch and ten times more likely to comment on a live video stream than pre-recorded footage.
- Community building: Viewers can leave comments, share feedback, and establish a long-term relationship with your brand through live interaction. This interaction can develop a sense of community, improving their overall experience.
- Transparency: When brands respond to viewers’ queries in real-time, they demonstrate their commitment to transparency. A live demo or a live tour can cement high trust in the brand.
Ability to Repurpose Content
While this benefit is generic to any content, live video broadcasts can be easily repurposed to meet desired objectives. Easily put, they can be easily transformed into other forms of content. Be it an infographic or a reproduced YouTube video – the opportunities are limitless:
- Create a highlight reel for easy access for new viewers.
- Use stills for promotional content.
- Make teasers for subsequent events.
- Publish a video transcript on your website, blog, or social.
Regardless of what you do with the video content, it has immense potential to multiply the outreach.
Why Use a Professional Live Streaming Service?
While live-streaming video content has several benefits, a professional live-streaming service has many advantages, and live streaming has become an essential tool for businesses and individuals alike. Setting up your live stream requires the technical skills and experience that an average business or individual needs to gain. A professional streaming platform like OneStream Live makes it easier to broadcast your videos to multiple social media and the web with just a few simple clicks.
- Superior Quality: Professional live streaming services offer higher video and audio quality than free platforms.
- Reliable and Stable Streaming: You benefit from reliable and stable streaming with professional services. They offer dedicated servers and robust network support, minimizing the risk of interruptions, buffering, or downtime.
- Customization and Branding: You can incorporate your logos, graphics, and other branding elements into your stream.
- Enhanced Security: Security is a significant concern, especially for businesses. These measures ensure that your content is protected from unauthorized access and piracy.
- Advanced Analytics: These insights allow you to fine-tune your broadcasts and tailor your content to meet your audience’s needs better.
- Technical Support: Technical issues can arise anytime during a live broadcast. This support ensures that your stream runs smoothly and promptly addresses any problems.
- Scalability: As your audience grows, you need a streaming solution that can scale with you. These platforms ensure you can reach a larger audience without worrying about technical limitations.
What are the Benefits of Live Streaming with OneStream Live?
- You can easily live stream your public or private events, invite guests into your live streams, and brand your live streams with overlays, backgrounds, stickers, and much more.
- Share your screen or media in your live streams with OneStream Live.
- Enjoy high-quality streams to deliver a wholesome streaming experience.
- Reach a greater audience by multistreaming to over 45 social networking platforms.
- Embed your streams on any external website using OneStream Live Embed Player.
- Configure & stream to your own Custom RTMP streaming destination using the Server URL & Stream Key.
- Schedule pre-recorded videos in a playlist and schedule them to go live on your desired date and time and according to your preferred time zone.
- Upload videos from multiple cloud storage options, including OneDrive, Dropbox, Frame.io, etc.
- Live stream with ease and convenience without any software installation.
- Troubleshoot any technical problems with a knowledgeable 24/7 customer support team.
- Track analytics of your streams to assess the viewers’ behavior through essential metrics such as the number of viewers, engagement, etc.
- Enjoy seamless mobile streaming using OneStream Live mobile apps for iOS and Android.
- Stay secured and enjoy reliable global delivery with OneStream Live’s powerful CDNs.
- Take benefit of integrating with external tools such as Zoom and OBS.
- Add captions and subtitles to your pre-recorded videos for better audience outreach.
- Manage your team members to collaborate and livestream more efficiently.
OneStream Live is a cloud-based live streaming solution to create, schedule, and multistream professional-looking live streams across 45+ social media platforms and the web simultaneously. For content-related queries and feedback, write to us at [email protected]. You’re also welcome to Write for Us!
