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When to Livestream: 5 Situations Where Live Video Thrives
Livestreaming has skyrocketed in recent years as not only a popular way to consume entertainment, but a viable way for businesses and brands to significantly grow audiences of their own. But it can be difficult to discern what situations may be best suited to livestream for your brand or industry.
Setting up a livestream is easier than ever, with so many ready-made platforms like IGTV, YouTube and Facebook Live, LinkedIn’s live video feature, and many more. But you may not realize just how much of an impact it can have on your business and brand.
Especially when we tend to think of livestreaming in terms of just gamers on Twitch or concerts on YouTube. Luckily, we have you covered with 5 situations your company can utilize live video. Start taking advantage of the exciting, unscripted, engaging world of livestreaming today!
1. Live Events
When you think about live video, what comes to mind? Maybe a big sports competition, an important speech, or even a concert. Well, unsurprisingly, large-scale events are some of the most common (and powerful!) ways to utilize livestreaming for businesses and brands.
Think about your business. Do you organize any customer-facing events throughout the year? Are they the kinds of events that require a ticket or registration to attend?
With livestreaming, you can pull in an even larger audience by engaging and including anyone who may not be able to attend in person, but wishes to still experience your big event. It might require a little extra legwork on your end. For instance, if your event is ticketed and requires visitors to pre-register, you may need to set up a separate, lower registration cost for any livestream users.
You’ll also need to take the time to properly set up all of your equipment. As well as manage any issues that could arise with a live feed in the moment.
It’s important to consider the viewer experience for any livestreamed events. Consider where you’ll place cameras and ensure they’re in a clear, accurate, and engaging position to capture the essence of an attendee’s experience.
One of the best parts of livestreaming events is that it instantly becomes evergreen content. Save the raw footage and repackage it to promote an annual event the following year. Redistribute marquee speeches or important demonstrations on social media. While livestreaming “the moment” is important, it never hurts to look ahead to how the livestream content can be used to reinforce your brand long term.
2. Customer Service
One of the more interesting, growing uses of livestreaming in businesses is in customer service videos. Rather than putting people on hold with phone lines, or inefficiently causing more problems with text-chat bots, a livestream session can really help build customer trust.
A one-way livestream, or even a recorded video chat can do wonders in solving problems. For one, it gives the experts at your company the chance to build personal relationships to customers. And of course, it’s an opportunity to easily explain instructions or provide demonstrations.
It will not only help solve customer problems faster and more efficiently, but it creates a strong impression for your brand. Think about it: rather than a phone call you’re willing to meet people face-to-face. And if you’re a business that operates completely digitally or serves customers outside of your physical location, livestreaming provides a means to create a personal touch that’s otherwise unobtainable.
Platforms like Zoom and Webex have become popular livestream video conference options for businesses. For one, they have a much more professional feel than Google Hangouts, Skype, or FaceTime, and can easily integrate with your other customer-facing digital assets.
Additionally, Zoom allows users to connect easily, only requiring an invite from one party without the need to swap personal contact information. Which means when a customer reaches out to your help desk, all your team will need to do is share a link and in minutes you’re livestreaming with a customer.
3. Behind the Scenes
It can be difficult to maintain a consistent output of quality branded video content on a regular basis. Luckily, live content can help motivate your creative team to come up with interesting new ideas to fit your brand and add a new facet to the types of content you’re producing.
One great way to do that is to offer behind the scenes livestreams of your business or brand. There’s nothing like a peak behind the curtain to engage and excite audiences. What’s it really like to work at your company? How are your products produced? What kind of culture have you grown?
Live video is your chance to be transparent with your audience about who you are. It can show the “real” side to your business, and not just the touched up photos and commercials you put out on social media. Utilize those easy-to-access livestreams like IGTV for business or Facebook Live and show a “day in the life” of one of your employees. Or provide a walkthrough of the manufacturing process of your product. The more exclusive it feels, the better!
Be careful though, as live video can have also have its pitfalls, depending on who is behind the camera. The last thing your brand needs from live content is a PR nightmare because an employee accidentally said something inappropriate on-air.
It may be wise to institute company policies on livestreaming conduct or limit who has access to producing any live content. And even though livestreaming is happening in the moment, it never hurts to practice and rehearse what you want to capture before you ever press record.
4. News and Announcements
Targeted marketing roll outs and high production videos are great for big news and product announcements when it comes to your business. And we’re not saying to abandon that practice entirely. But consider how livestreaming can impact the way you present important news and updates with your clients and soon-to-be customers who are keeping a close eye on your feeds.
For instance, live-streams can be used to:
- Highlight new products in an unboxings and review style format
- Take the place of a press release to announce an exciting development
- Showcase the opening of a new location
- Welcome a new hire or important partnership with another recognizable brand
- Capture your product or services “in the wild”
It also gives the chance to give your company a face and a voice. Especially if you’re a CEO or other company leader, livestreaming can help build that brand and customer trust by simply putting a face and personality to a name.
A livestream announcement brings about an element of exclusivity as well. Viewers can get excited at the prospect of hearing important news or developments in the moment as it’s happening. In turn, they become a part of the brand experience.
Livestreaming is all about transparency. And it’s hard to get more transparent than sharing important company news live as it’s happening!
5. Direct Brand Engagement
Take your customer service approach to the next level. Rather than offering face-to-face engagement when problems arise, create a special event around your brand. Offer spontaneous, live meet and greets via livestreaming. You can set up a format similar to a Reddit “Ask Me Anything,” where a company leader or brand streams and answers live questions submitted by viewers.
Creating a communal atmosphere by encouraging participants to ask questions and start conversations around the latest trends in your industry or your latest product announcement can increase feelings of brand loyalty even further. Depending on the size of your company or specific industry, you may even take it a step further. You might put together an entire livestreamed panel of industry experts soliciting questions from a digital audience.
And if your business is producing any original podcasts, filming and livestreaming episodes offer additional layers to production, distribution, and user engagement. Now instead of just listening, your customers can watch a podcast, and potentially join the conversation. All of which helps to build a level of brand trust and connectedness that’s difficult to replicate.
Livestreaming truly offers the chance for you to engage directly with your audience in ways that few other mediums can offer. If you’re looking to step into that side of production, but need a little help getting started, get in touch with us at Crews Control. We have over 30 years of experience and can help you shoot your project to achieve the best livestreaming moments. Work with the best local crews and let us help you execute your next video project every step of the way. Don’t wait, get your free quote today!
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