Live casting today has become an integral part of online marketing. It’s one of the easiest ways to connect with the audience in real-time and results in transparency and authentic engagement. The genuine interaction on live streaming creates a deeper connection between the audience and brand along with expanding your reach. Furthermore, amidst this lockdown, you need it more than ever to reach out to your audience. Wondering about how to get the best results out of live streaming? Below we have listed down various ways that will help you do live casting the right way.
Phone/Camera: The easiest way to commence with live casting is by getting your hands on phones that provide high-quality videos. If you want to level-up your video quality, you can also opt for video cameras.
Tripod: If the live streaming requires you to be mobile, do invest in a tripod. The same will ensure the video isn’t jerky and blurry. You can mount your mobile or camera on the tripod and can get started.
Microphone: The audio too should be given as much importance as the video. The reason being, if the video starts to stutter, live casting will continue to go fine till the audio quality does not suffer. Hence, here a microphone comes to your rescue. You can choose the basic wired 3.5 mm lavalier mic to the high-quality XLR microphones.
Audio mixer: When a lot of people are going to live together on your stream, an audio mixer helps a great deal. It allows the usage of various microphones, helps in adjusting individual microphone volume, and also combines various audio signals together.
Internet Access: For live casting, quality internet connection is a must. Ensure your device is connected via Ethernet to a network and avoid the usage of Wifi and 4G internet as that can cause disruption.
Be.Live – Using Be.Live is like hitting two birds with one stone as a shareable link of the live videos is available to be shared on Facebook and YouTube. Live comments are visible on the screen. You can also invite up to 10 guests and 4 people can share the screen at one time. Other features like ultra-low latency, full HD 1080p video along with the recording and playback facilities are also available. You can try it for free for up to 3 shows per month.
Restream: One of the wow factors about Restream is that it allows you to live stream to 30-plus social platforms at once. Their audience varies from gamers to media and politicians. You can stream the recorded videos live by using the scheduler. Moreover, it’s quite easy to reply to comments from different streaming platforms on one screen. Paid plans for Restream starts with 1,219 Rs./Month.
StreamYard: The live streaming studio helps you directly go live on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and many more. You can customize the live stream by choosing favorite colors and uploading images, GIFs, and even videos. StreamYard allows you to have 6 participants in the stream and thus is perfect for interviews. You can use it for free with StreamYard branding or go for a paid plan starting at 1,524 Rs./Month.
Stage Ten: One of the best tools to create professional live streams. You have the option to choose from an array of layouts for your live stream, can get creative and customize it with graphics and watermarks. Some other great features are mixing video and audio clips in the live video and taping the stream before and going live later. Various guests can join you at one time and you can also stream for platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Paid plans start at 1,447 Rs./Month.
Zoom: Along with allowing you to hold video meetings, zoom is also a great platform for video webinars. The app allows around 100 panelists to interact with the viewers. The broadcast of the live webinars can also be shared on Facebook and YouTube. An interesting feature is that you can track the viewers who are most interested and engaged. The webinars can also be monetized. Paid plans start at 952 Rs./Month
Before taking the plunge of going live, devise a plan, and answer the purpose of live casting. It should have thought to it, like informing, entertaining, and interacting. You can also keep the audience in suspense about what the live streaming will be about. We did something similar for our client APL Apollo.
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People love to watch their favorite celebrities and what’s better than having an opportunity to interact with them live. When the celebrities who had been endorsing your brand go live from your social media handles, it makes your brand look more authentic. One of our clients, Sunfeast Mom’s Magic, collaborated with celebrated singer Harshdeep Kaur in their Insta live series ‘Mom’s Magic Concert’.
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Leverage the engagement and interaction level live casting has to offer. Live streaming has the highest engagement rate compared to other content forms. Instantly answering the questions leads to a deeper connection between the followers and the brand. Here’s a video of a live session on our client’s page ‘Landmark Stores’ where the presenter is interacting with the followers and you can see the response for yourself.
Sunday Bricks is LIVE here for a fun filled LEGO workshop 🥰
Posted by Landmark Stores on Saturday, 18 April 2020
Timing is everything. You should be mindful of when to go live as it will impact the number of viewers joining you. On weekdays, the peak viewership ranges from 6 PM to 8 PM. On weekends, the peak times differ and range from 4-6:30 PM. In the three examples shared above, live streaming took place between 5:30-6 PM.
To sum it up, all brands should make use of live casting as it lends human attributes to the brand, makes it look more relevant, and forms an emotional connection with the audience. Start with live casting occasionally and see the results for yourself.