Your content is key to getting you noticed online.
There are standard formats that you’ve been using and winning with, but have you considered mixing it up?
Live streaming is still under-adopted by businesses in most niches, so now is your time to become a content innovator.
We’re going to tell you why live streaming is good for your business and how it can help you to:
- Build a regular audience.
- Educate your customers.
- Become a leader in your industry.
- Create a buzz about your business.
- Get the most out of your live streams.
Ready?
Let’s get into the details.
Why Should You Use Live Streams as Part of Your Strategy?
Live streaming used to be the talk of gamers and influencers, but it’s now being utilized by businesses across a range of industries.
It’s no wonder, with the potential profits it holds.
In 2018, Chinese eCommerce giant Taobao generated over $15 billion in sales through its live stream efforts, and 82% of people surveyed by New York Magazine said they prefer watching live videos from a brand over reading social media posts.
There’s definitely a huge audience out there for your live streams, so here are our top 4 reasons why you should work live streaming into your content strategy.
Reason #1: Engage Your Audience In Real-Time
Your audience wants to connect with you, in fact, Sprout Social’s survey found that 64% of consumers want to feel a connection with the brands they use.
Academic research has shown that viewers prefer to engage with live stream content for exactly that reason; it builds a connection and brings a sense of personal presence to your brand.
Live streams give your customers and potential customers inside access to your brand, which is why we at Uscreen ran a live stream session to announce our plans for 2022.
We made sure to have our team present in the live chat so we could encourage questions and real-time interactions.
Reason #2: Scale Your Content Efforts by Reaching More People
When you open your brand up to your audience by hosting a live stream, you can reach a much wider audience.
YouTube has an audience of over 2 billion and Facebook has nearly 3 billion users – so you’re bound to find an audience when you live stream on these platforms.
By 2018 – long before the pandemic that changed our viewing habits so much – 67% of people across the world were already live streaming video content.
Property entrepreneur Max Maxwell uses live streams to expand his reach and give his audience access to expert opinions.
Reason #3: With Live Streaming, You Control The “When” of the Interaction with Your Audience and Customers
Your customers can choose the time, day, and method that they contact you, but a live stream could help you focus that attention on one format.
Creating educational content through webinars, for example, brings all of your knowledge to one place in order to answer questions, address customers and potential customers, and store the information for the future – you can even pull in high-quality leads according to 73% of B2B marketers.Marketing strategist Dennis Koutoudis uses the live-streaming apps on LinkedIn to answer all the questions he gets in one go, making efficient use of his time and resources.
Reason #4: It Hasn’t Reached Mass Adoption Yet
Live streaming really took off with gaming and the rise of Twitch, yet it’s quickly become a useful and common tool for most businesses.
It’s by no means a saturated market yet, however.
Although live streaming accounted for 61% of revenue in the video streaming market in 2020, there’s still plenty of room for growth – with an expected compound annual growth rate of 21% until 2028 for video streaming in general. The graph below shows the potential for live-streaming growth in the Asia Pacific region alone, consistently taking the majority of the market over the next 7 years.
Let’s look at how you can tap into this growing trend.
Incorporate Live Streams Into Your Content Strategy Using These 4 Tactics
The value of adding live streams into your content strategy can’t be underestimated. With some simple equipment and a Keyword Research Tool, your business can quickly begin to leverage live video, and we’ve got some suggestions to get your ideas flowing.
Tactic #1: Host An Event Series
Want to build a lasting relationship with your audience and create them a reliable resource for the future? Running a live-stream series that’s relevant to your users, like Jeff Geerling does, will earn you a slot in your audience’s calendar and show them you really know your industry.
Jeff chooses a tech subject and explores it over a series of live streams, showing his audience how to use tools like Kubernetes or Raspberry Pi.
He’s an author and software developer who builds his brand by demonstrating his expertise and selling merch and ebooks related to the content he streams.
Viewers get access to Jeff’s skills on his terms, and he’s built a reputation as an expert over the years he’s been streaming.
Here’s our second tactic.
Tactic #2: Host live webinars
We’ve already looked at the power webinars hold when it comes to generating leads and controlling the “when” of your customer contact.
Another example is ConvertKit, the email marketing tool.
When the company was in its early stages, it was looking for a marketing strategy that was low-cost and high-return – aren’t we all?
They decided to run webinars, which was a natural fit for an up-and-coming business. Within a year, ConvertKit hosted 150 live webinars and saw their monthly recurring revenue (MRR) jump from $98k to $625k. Lemlist, an email outreach tool, is also going down this route, running webinars with industry experts to educate their audience about cold outreach, as you can see below.
Moving on to the next way you can use live streaming.
Tactic #3: Host Live Conferences
Another way live streams can enhance your content strategy is through live conferences.
These work as a way for your brand to build authority in your niche and position you to become a thought leader.
SaaStr has got this tactic down to a T, hosting regular events to complement their training and community-building efforts.
The company hosts conference events…
… and live streams them to YouTube for full accessibility:
This helps them raise awareness of their brand and reach a bigger audience.
Next on our list of live stream content strategy ideas is…
Tactic #4: Go Live to Announce News and Noteworthy Events
When you’ve got something to shout about, going live is a great way to get the news out there.
On most live-streaming platforms, your followers or subscribers will get a notification when you’re going live. You could even create an event to generate buzz with your audience beforehand.
When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launched his New Shepard spaceship in July 2022, it was an opportunity for content-focused businesses to go live.
Use newsworthy announcements as an opportunity to engage with your audience, taking questions at the end of the session so you can understand what people want to know about your product or service.
Our final way to improve your content strategy with live streaming is coming up.
Tactic #5: Repurpose Live Streams Into Videos, Blog Posts, and Other Content
The ideas that you use in your live streams have huge value and deserve to reach as big an audience as possible.
While live streaming is huge and only getting bigger, there are people who may prefer an edited down explainer video or a blog post that they can skim through.
Astronomy Cast runs a weekly show about everything having to do with space and space exploration, and streams it live on YouTube.
Following the stream, the content is then edited into a podcast that can be streamed or downloaded at any time.
This means they can reach more people without having to significantly increase costs.
These are some of our top ways you can incorporate live streaming into your content strategy – let’s wrap this up.
Now Over to You
Keeping your content strategy fresh will keep your audience engaged while helping you expand to new audiences – did you know the middle east and Africa have the most social streamers in the world?
Live streaming is becoming more and more popular, with huge platforms like Facebook and Instagram putting emphasis and resources into the format.
By choosing the right live-streaming tactics and tools for your marketing strategy, you can generate more leads and build a stronger connection with the customers you already have.
Are you using live streaming as part of your strategy yet?
Tell us your plans for going live in the comments below.