The Role of Live Streaming in the Digital Marketing World
The Rise of Live-Streaming
The year 2016 has been witnessing an astronomical rise of live streaming platforms. Many companies have launched live streaming platforms, in which Facebook and YouTube are the current leaders in live streaming platforms, other companies such as DaCast, Ustream and Periscope (Twitter) are also expanding their customer base. While people enjoy live streaming concerts, sports and event experience, marketers find this trend of great potential as a marketing strategy in the digital world.
Live Streaming Marketing
Live streaming marketing takes a similar approach as traditional TV media; it gathers people from across the network to view and discuss content together at a particular period of time. The live streaming marketing also takes advantage of prime time. In this case, the prime time might not necessarily be a certain period of time on a daily basis, but rather a scheduled event or incident.
Benefits of Live Streaming
While live streaming marketing and traditional TV media share some similarities, live streaming brings more benefits than TV media does.
- Gain Brand Awareness
- Live streaming delivers enormous brand awareness, as people actively view and discuss relevant topics with a sense of participation while the event is live.
- Convey Brand Image
- Live streaming represents the brand and gives the audience an impression of how the brand looks like in a genuine way.
- Zero Level Intrusiveness
- Audience actively participates in the live streaming rather than passively, hence a higher likelihood of engagement with the content.
- Cost Effective
- Company’ s expense of live streaming is very little, as most of live streaming platforms are free of charge. Simply a camera or mobile device that can shoot in HD quality will do the work. However, inviting celebrity to promote the brand or appear in the live streaming video would surely be costly.
- Sense of Community
- Live streaming allows the audience to discuss and chat at the same time while viewing the live content. This allows interaction among the audience and leads to the formation of a community for the brand
Six Ways to Live Stream Your Business
For business that is new to live streaming, the Social Media Examiner suggests the following ways to start:
- Share Live Events
- Live streaming an event gives your audience a chance to participate in that particular event. This shortens the distance between you and your audience, and increases audience engagement as they are actively involved in the event.
- Host Interviews
- Interviewing your employees help convey your company image to your audience. This gives your audience a better understanding of your company, and makes your audience feel more engaged and connected.
- Show How You Create a Product
- This gives your audience an idea of how the product or service they received are made. Your audience will appreciate the product or service more when they see how much effort has been put into the creation process.
- Give a Behind-the-Scenes Look
- A glimpse lets the audience see something about your company that they previously do not know about. This is a great way to increase engagement.
- Conduct Training
- Giving product training sessions allows the audience to better understand the products. This is especially useful for companies that sell high-tech equipment or complex software.
- Host Q&A Sessions
- Hosting live Q&A sessions makes your company look more genuine and trustworthy. This not only shows your audience that your company values their opinions, but also gives you invaluable customer insight.
Conclusion
Live streaming can be an effective marketing tool to increase engagement and brand awareness. Marketers and companies must grab this opportunity and take advantage of using live streaming to improve their brands and stand out from the competition.