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6 Ways Your Company Can Benefit from Streaming Video
Last year, apps like Periscope and Meerkat brought the concept of video streaming to a mainstream audience. And companies such as LiveU and Livestream are making streaming possible for the professional video market. Their success is incredible. Within its first ten days of operation, Periscope was able to attract over one million logins. An audience which is growing that quickly is well worth fighting for.
The difference between streaming video and traditional video is fairly obvious. Streaming videos are live. Your audience will be able to tune in and see exactly what you’re doing as you’re doing it. Traditional videos, on the other hand, are taped and edited before they’re viewed. Giving you the chance to carefully plan and control your presentation.
Producing a successful streaming video requires a bit more skill than traditional videos. There’s only a loose script, if there’s even a script at all. You need to be quick on your feet and charismatic enough to draw an audience in. Your video crew has to be extremely skilled as you don’t have the luxury of editing after everything has been filmed. Live streaming has an immediacy which has great appeal, but a lack of control which can be a danger.
Here are six ways your company will be able to boost engagement and freshen up your marketing by leveraging streaming video:
Giving a Glimpse Behind the Curtain
Streaming video is the perfect way to show your audience something that’s usually off limits. Take them behind the scenes of your operation, walking around your office and chatting with employees from a variety of departments, or live stream the shooting of a traditional video, giving your audience a view of the process. Let your audience feel that they are in the moment.
The key here is to give your audience a glimpse into something they’re interested in. Ask them to leave comments about what they are seeing. Create a quick poll to see what kind of live content they have interest in for the future.
Q&A Sessions
The live, engaging nature of streaming video makes it the perfect venue to conduct interactive question and answer sessions with your audience. It’s a good way to position yourself as a knowledge leader in your industry while giving your audience a reason to believe that you value their questions and concerns.
Schedule a regular Q&A session with yourself or various experts in your company. If possible, change it up every session so that each video is fresh and new. When you take the time to answer a question, thank them and address them by their name. This will improve engagement even more and entice viewers to keep asking thoughtful questions.
Sharing Live Events
Live events are a great way to engage directly with your audience. Streaming these events live lets you share the experience with your entire audience, whether they’re able to attend or not. If you are able to make your users a part of the show, you will be able to engage with them just as well as if not better than those attending live.
Use the event as a chance to tell your viewers stories about your company and the people attending. Walk them around the event, getting an opportunity to take everything in. Use the comments section to see where they’d like to go next, and take questions for your guest speakers from them. Your streaming audience will be just as involved as everybody else there.
Generating Content For Later
If you’re running into a creative rut, streaming video is a great way to supplement the rest of your video content. You don’t need to brainstorm great ideas since the best streaming video tends to be quite simple, like covering a live event or a simple Q&A.
The best part is that you can easily convert your streaming videos into downloadable materials after the fact. You can take three or four of the most interesting questions each week and post them one at a time on your YouTube channel. Or you can offer coverage of a particularly powerful keynote speaker to anybody willing to subscribe to your email list.
Interviewing Other Experts
If you’re able to leverage your current network of experts, getting them to agree to an interview improves your brand in a major way. Their expertise rubs off on your brand. It gives your audience the chance to engage with industry experts that would otherwise be out of reach, giving them value and providing an important reason to stay connected with your company.
You’ll also be able to increase your audience each time you conduct a new interview. Not only will you be attracting your own audience, you’ll attract any audience your interviewee has as well. As long as their field of expertise is relevant to your target audience, there should be enough cross over to make the effort well worth it.
Interviewing relevant experts is a great way to reach an even larger part of your target audience.
If you’re interested in producing streaming video, it’s critical to find the best crew you possibly can. With so many alternatives available, your audience will leave quickly if they perceive your production value is low. The crew needs to be quick on their feet, able to handle any problems on the fly since they can’t be edited out later. Quality is critical and although Periscope and Meerkat are fun for the home audience, bringing in a professional crew with streaming capability will give you a production that lives up to your company’s standards.
Click here to contact us and see exactly how we can help you out by matching you up with the perfect video production crew, whether you’re looking to produce streaming video, traditional video, or anything in between.
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