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How to Livestream: The Top 5 Platforms for Your Business
As industry professionals, we’re sure you already know how to livestream. We’re also sure you know overall the benefits of livestreaming.
With that in mind, let’s discuss the top five livestream platforms that can benefit your business.
A Comparison of Livestreaming Platforms for Your Business
Below, you’ll find a brief rundown of the top five livestreaming platforms currently available. See not only how they compare to one another on like or similar features but how each one may be able to uniquely serve your specific interests, perhaps more than the others.
More specifically, here are some of the critical things to look for in livestreaming platforms for your business:
- Security – When it comes to livestreaming, your content is your most valuable asset. It is, therefore, essential that the platform on which you broadcast that content keeps it secure. Your choice of the platform must also keep your users secure when they sign on to view your content. This is especially vital for internal communications, like live training and town halls.
- Customization – Can you remove the branding of the livestreaming platform from your broadcasts and replace it with your own branding?
- Authorization – To effectively manage your livestreams, can you enable different levels of access for various team members with different permissions for each?
- Authentication – How does the audience access your content, and can that easily be scaled as your business grows?
At the end of it all, pricing is the final consideration. When you add up all you’re getting from a particular platform, is it worth the price you’d be paying for it? If the answer is “Yes,” you may have found your platform.
Top 5 Livestreaming Platforms for Business
Here are five of the top livestreaming platforms to consider for your business.
1. DaCast
DaCast has the benefit of being both one of the most revered video streaming platforms for users and one of the easiest for beginners at livestreaming to get their feet in the door.
It doesn’t have all the fancy features of many other platforms to distract you from the key fundamentals. It also doesn’t have enterprise-grade solutions the advanced user might expect or large corporations might require, such as eCDN, SSO, or advanced security.
Some of the key benefits and features of DaCast include:
- Audio-only streaming option
- Auto-archiving
- Monetization (via pay-per-view and third-party ads)
- White Labeling (through its API)
For ease of use and clean, simple, classic-style livestreaming, DaCast can’t be beaten.
2. Brightcove
Having recently purchased the platform Ooyala to expand its reach even further, Brightcove is one of the largest and most prolific business platforms with all the advanced enterprise-level solutions your business could ever need, including for communications, monetization, and marketing.
Brightcove does not offer a lot of technical support, so newbies to the livestreaming game may not find this the most comfortable platform to get acquainted with. Also, Brightcove’s monetization offerings do not include integrated options within livestreams, though you can integrate a third-party tool for that feature.
To broadcast streams, Brightcove utilizes a built-in HTML5 player, the industry standard, and supports all mobile web apps and devices. Brightcove also offers its users more than 100 playlists, import video options, and templates.
Some of the key benefits and features of Brightcove include:
- Branded video galleries
- Domain restriction
- SSO and SSAI
- Adaptive streaming (offering smooth playback over an internet connection)
- Live clipping (for sharing on social media)
- Analytics
For enterprise-level facility, Brightcove is at the top of the pack.
3. Twitch
Once upon a time, Twitch was just a gaming streaming platform. Now Twitch’s extensive community-focused services and features have elevated it into a popular platform for music, art, and talk show broadcasts.
If you want all the advantages of livestreaming on platforms like Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Live but don’t have an audience on any other of those channels or have audiences across all of them, Twitch gives you a way to bring social to livestreaming instead of just bringing livestreaming to social.
Some of the key benefits and features of Twitch include:
- Compatibility with more alert, chat moderation and donation tools than any other livestreaming platform
- Friends lists and private conversations (or Whispers)
- Subscriptions and emoticons
If the price is your key consideration and you want all the benefits of social without an established or platform-focused social presence, you’ll find Twitch a bargain treasure trove.
4. Livestream
Now owned by ubiquitous video platform Vimeo, Livestream lets you customize the entire experience, from the look and feel to the delivery method.
Some of the key benefits and features of Livestream include:
- API
- Analytics
- Live chat
- Password protection
- Monetization
5. Specialized Platforms
In addition to these four aforementioned livestreaming platforms for general use by any business or brand, certain livestreaming platforms cater to specific types of content producers and audiences, like these:
- Stream.me – For projects still working out the kinks and not fully off-the-ground yet. A great and more forgiving testing ground that also lets you monetize your great ideas.
- Smashcast – For eSports participants, it integrates with Discord and hosts a lot of gaming livestreams.
- Picarto.tv – Focuses on art-related streams for fellow artists and art lovers.
- Mobocrush – Focuses on mobile gaming, as distinct from other gaming-related livestreaming platforms that focus on consoles like XBOX and PC gaming.
- Panopto – Besides being a leading video asset management platform for businesses, which means livestreaming is available if not its main purpose or offering, Panopto is also big with colleges and universities, especially for internal video communications.
There are also free social media livestreaming platforms like Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and Instagram Live. These are especially useful if you already have an audience on those platforms to help engage them further.
Meanwhile, other top livestreaming platforms that let experienced livestreamers and advanced technical users customize much of the experience include Wowza, Vimeo Live, and UStream (now IBM Cloud Video). Kaitura is an open-source livestreaming platform that also offers near-endless customization of an essentially Vimeo-based player. Still, it requires more technical knowledge than the other platforms to avail of these uses.
Does your business need experienced camera crew professionals? Contact with Crews Control. We’d love to discuss your project and how we can help.
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