How To Keep Your Audience Engaged While Live Streaming

Live streaming refers to the online activity of watching, creating and sharing videos in real time. Live streaming services are accessible through an internet enabled device such as a computer, smartphone or tablet, and a website or application to host or watch the live stream from. 

Its popularity is evident. Live streaming consumption grew by 13% in 2021 compared to 2020. The demand for live streaming comes from the ability for anyone to globally broadcast their current agenda in real time. 

It’s particularly appealing to young people who have more free time on their hands, as it gives them the opportunity to be a creator and presenter and be acknowledged by a wide audience who could lead them to bigger opportunities.

Interactivity features in live streams such as live chat, donations and loyal subscription plans fosters parasocial relationships, which according to statistical data, amounts to a whopping 51% of Americans. This underscores the unintentional need for individuals to seek out online role models whilst simultaneously consuming entertainment, which stimulates the demand for live streaming.

The most popular live streaming platforms currently include Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Twitch and TikTok. These platforms have all experienced a surge in popularity since 2020.

Live streaming also hinges significantly on influencer marketing. Within this realm, Instagram Live and Facebook Live have surpassed other live streaming platforms linked to influencer marketing, such as TikTok and Snapchat, though Instagram is undeniably the biggest livestreaming platform by market share.

Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Gaming have however distinctly established themselves as influential players in the realm of video game live streaming, becoming the top live streaming platforms for video gaming. Notably, eSports has also become a central component of the video gaming ecosystem which allows paid advertisements to be utilized organically.

TIPS FOR KEEPING YOUR AUDIENCE ENGAGED ON A LIVE STREAMING PLATFORM

Audience engagement is argued to be the most important factor that makes a live stream successful. There are several ways that you can boost a viewer’s interest in your stream.

Make sure your live stream is in high quality

Many live stream operators struggle with fluctuating video and audio quality when streaming for long periods of time which blunders viewership experience. Viewers can become frustrated and click off the content. It’s best to ensure you have the most reliable setup in terms of internet connection to avoid such inconveniences!

Enable live chat

Make sure you have your live chat enabled on live streaming platforms when you are streaming content. 

Letting your audience virtually communicate with each other in your stream actually boosts their engagement with your live stream by 150%, as it helps fuel interactivity and thus generates entertainment beyond just the content creator’s content. 

Q&As

Doing Q&A sessions during live streams on your live streaming platform is another way to foster engagement between the content creator and their audience. 

It has been found that 71% of marketers use polling as a way to make sure that they keep the attention of their viewers. These are especially important for businesses marketing products during the livestream. Just setting aside 5 minutes for a Q&A session makes a huge difference. It’s also helpful to pin this in the title or in a chat for visibility.

Promotions and giveaways

You can also host promotional giveaways on the live stream. 

These can be treated as raffles where you email out codes to those who are successful or respond depending on the type of promotion or giveaway. You can randomly draw these codes to provide people coupons for discounts on your goods and services, subscriptions to what you have to offer, and discounts on items such as T-shirts and other merchandise or memorabilia. 

Doing this at random intervals throughout your live stream will encourage people to be paying constant attention to what you have to say. Consider merging this with your Q&A sessions by announcing codes at the beginning of every Q&A that you host for convenience.

Accessibility

Make sure your live stream is accessible for mass consumption to maximize your viewership potential. 

Double check you are on the most popular live streaming platform for the type of content you are creating, and make sure you have past broadcasts of your streams so people can watch them back. This could generate you new viewers even if they didn’t see it live. 

It may also be in your best interest to reupload Twitch streams to YouTube for preservation purposes as Twitch automatically deletes videos after being on a creator’s channel for longer than 2 months. For influencer marketing, this may not be so important as Instagram live streams tend to be shorter and less substantial.

FAQ:

What is the best platform for live streaming?

The best live streaming platform depends on whether you are using live streaming for influencer marketing or video game streaming. Respectively in these sectors, Instagram is best for influencer livestreams and Twitch is best for gaming livestreams.

What are live streaming platforms?

Online sites or applications that allow users to watch real-time content from creators. These include Twitch, Youtube, Instagram Live, and Facebook Live for example.

How does live streaming work?

Live streaming is when you broadcast real-time content to viewers online. It usually requires users to have a video capture device (camera or screen recorder) to record content, as well as a live streaming platform to broadcast this content live for people to view.

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