The wide acceptance and global adoption of live Streaming have introduced huge opportunities for businesses that have given rise to various trends. The live streaming industry is booming constantly at a high pace and emerging as a highly sought- after technology and a big trend that is going to take off video content business after video marketing. It started a couple of years back when engagement was the most important aspect of a business goal. The growth of live streaming is incredible and that is why the entire world is moving live.
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People love it when they experience live videos that are engaging as compared to the pre-recorded videos. Live videos offer a lot of engagement, interactive elements, and versatile content ideas. This, in turn, will help to gain more reach and increase the conversion rates. Almost all popular businesses have started using social media platforms like Instagram Live, Facebook Live, Periscope, YouTube Live to promote their brands. All these live streaming platforms offer a unique user experience according to the content type and business requirements.
What Will be the Future of Live Streaming?
Live streaming, in fact, is a big industry and highly influential and useful for businesses. Statistics show that live video is more appealing to brand Audience to an extent that 80% of them prefer to watch live videos from a brand than reading blogs. Audiences like to watch live videos from their favorite brands as they can directly interact with the business. Statistics show that a typical online user spends 3 times longer watching live videos compared to normal videos. Hence it comes as no surprise that many brands and marketers are adhering to current live streaming trends to increase their brand awareness and to claim success.
Here are some of the recent live streaming trends 2020 prevailing in the industry.
Social Media is Driving Live Streaming Adoption
The increasing popularity of social media networks is driving live video adoption by businesses. We mostly see that live videos are breaking viewership records. Live video applications like Periscope, Facebook Live, IGTV, etc. have skyrocketed in popularity especially among young audiences. Social media live streaming gathers the audience together for a common purpose. From the launch of a new product to an inside look at your company’s work culture, live streaming gives your brand immense opportunities to build a strong community.
Broadcasting live on social media can bolster anticipation amongst your audience. Additionally, social media channels offer plenty of features to reach the live streaming announcements right on the feed of your customers.
360-Degree Videos Will Pick Up the Steam
A 360-degree video is captured with a camera with a lens on both sides to shoot everything around it. 360-degree videos will be the new trend in live streaming as a full-on view makes videos completely immersive. Viewers can see everything within the range of cameras whereas the traditional video is limited to wherever the camera is pointing. Along with 360-degree videos, augmented reality and virtual reality also will gain momentum.
This current video trend provides a fully interactive experience where the audience can immerse themselves in a new viewing experience, which is a huge marketing opportunity for any brand. Keeping up with this trend can be a smart way to highlight how your company is favoring new technologies and innovations. Even though 360-degree video craze is still in its infant stage, adopting the trend before anyone else will give you a jumpstart amongst the competition. Additionally, virtual reality powered 360-degree live videos is great in allowing viewers to experience a whole new digital world by putting at the center of your live sessions. So instead of simply watching the video on their screen your viewers will be placed inside an incredible virtual world and become a major part of it.
More Industries are Adopting Live Videos
With live videos being extremely easy to access, many industries are adopting live streaming to power their internal and external environments. Enterprises, governments, education institutions, healthcare providers, and other organizations are all live streaming for a variety of reasons. Ranging from patient care in holding real-time training sessions to an offshore panel of doctors guiding surgical treatments, live streaming technology is gaining momentum in the healthcare industry and enabling patients to have direct communication with healthcare professionals. When you take the educational industry many education organizations have already started using live class strategy to stream lessons.
Live streaming has much to contribute to different industries to bring both brands and customers closer. You can also leverage live streaming to enhance the internal business collaboration of any organization through live meetings. Short live discussions, remote employee training, and communication will bring ample engagement of business with employees and clients. Through ideal live streaming strategies, businesses can amplify their marketing efforts, create more authentic interaction with the audience, and drive sales.
Live Video Experiences Will be Automated
Like now, both artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to shape the live streaming trends 2020. They hold the key to offer outstanding outcomes when it comes to managing content production and distribution, streamlining encoding workflows, and personalizing the viewing experience. AI will help to create, organize, and distribute content to an audience with less human intervention. AI will detect certain cues in the videos like face and speech recognition, lighting changes, etc. to automate live video production including recording and switching overlays.
8K Videos will Gain Momentum
It has not been very long since 4K has entered the market but audio and visual companies are not carting out 8K computers, TV panels, and cameras. In the coming years, 8K will enter the mainstream but the true adoption of 8K is not very near. As 8K cameras are yet to become affordable, it will take some time for 8K live videos to become the norm. However, considering its current growth rate, in a matter of a few years 8K live videos will become a standard for live streaming. With 5G speeds delivering 8k content to devices, broadcasting top-quality videos will be easier than ever. You will be able to view the power of 8K streaming at the 2020 Olympics in Japan where 8k screens around the world will be streaming the event in the highest quality available today.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has laid new inroads in both online marketing and live streaming. The increasing popularity of influencer marketing has given brands a new way to meet the growing demand for offering exceptional customer experience to their audience.
For example, Mashable collaborated with America’s Test kitchen to live stream a cooking show on periscope which increased the exposure and reach.
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As influencer marketing thrives on interactive content, live streaming will indeed become a powerful weapon for influencer marketers to reach their loyal audience in real-time on the spot with engaging content. Allowing a popular influencer to take over the live stream for brands is a great way to promote an event, a new product, or to each a group of the target audience in particular. Influencer marketing paired with live streaming can be a valuable resource to create content for promotions and ads. Leveraging affiliate marketing is also a great option for businesses that are new to influencer marketing.
Live Streaming is an Integral Part of any Marketing Strategy
Live streaming is reinventing the way brands plan their marketing strategy. Live videos have already proven to be an essential marketing tool that helps brands engage better with their audience. Today we see brands heavily investing in live streaming set up and content delivery networks to ensure a smooth lime streaming experience to the audience. With its element of authentic real-time human interaction, live streaming helps brands to emerge more approachable and transparent. 95% of businesses consider live videos to be a significant addition to their marketing mix for 2020.
Proven Ways to Use Live Streaming to Build Your Brand
Since 2016, we have been seeing a lot of brands joining the live streaming bandwagon as Instagram unleashed live video, snapchat gained steam, and Facebook introduced video ads. Live streaming has become one of the best ways to forge an authentic and personal connection with customers in real-time. Brands are using live streaming to build and establish a strong presence in the industry and to reach audiences like never before.
If you are a business looking to build a large and better presence, there is no other tool effective than live streaming. Given that 72% of customers engage with personalized marketing messages, you must strongly consider integrating live streaming into your business strategy.
Regardless of whether you are new to live streaming or a seasoned pro, there are some tips that will help you to broadcast successful live streams. Here’s how you can use live videos to build and grow your brand.
Make your Live Broadcasts Personal
When it comes to presenting information on your live videos, there are a lot of ways to do it. You can either narrate things in “first-person” or personalize it in a way that you directly interact with your viewers by addressing them and talking to them. This helps in building a personal relationship with your audience and works great in building your personal brand. Every time you broadcast live, make sure you address viewers by their user name, make eye contact with the audience as if you are speaking to them directly.
Don’t Script it but Prepare a Plan
If you are not used to the idea of live streaming, you might need a little help before broadcasting live. Plan your live videos but don’t make the mistake of trying to script your videos because reading from a script ruins authenticity. It is okay to be prepared and plan but ensure that the video feels natural and real. Reading from a written script creates an off-camera glance and leads to unnatural delivery. To be on the safer side, prepare yourself with a list of main points to guide your content delivery. Recall the written points and practice a few times before you go live.
Go for a Professional Live Streaming Setup
There are plenty of options to broadcast live videos, you can even go live with a quality smartphone. But, if you are a business using live streaming as a marketing tool, it is very important to go for a professional setup. Focus on the video and audio quality and to achieve a good set up, invest on a good camera and microphone. Use a good live streaming solution as well to ensure that there are no delays or lag in your streams. Always do a test live to check the camera, sample the sound and make sure the setup works before you go live.
Diversify your Content
Even though your goal to leverage live streaming is to build your personal brand, you don’t have to rely only on one content strategy. When it comes to content for live videos, you can choose to do product launch coverage, Q & A sessions, interviews, create webinars, show behind the stage, quick live tutorials, etc. For example, when Birchbox collaborated with Benefit cosmetics to showcase its new product BADgal mascara, it bagged in more views and engagement.
Likewise, you can use live videos to broadcast about your new product launch or to explain the working of a product or a service.
Build Your Audience to Promote Your Videos
When you start with live streaming, you might not see much traffic in the initial days. This is why it is important to build a community early on. Once you build your audience, you can promote your live streams through social channels to drive in traffic and increase engagement for your videos. Most importantly, make sure to actively engage the people joining your live videos. This keeps the engagement up, spreads the visibility of your videos and encourages sharing.
Maintain Authenticity
When broadcasting live, make sure you don’t go over the top to drive a point just for the sake of gaining views. You don’t want to grow your brand in a direction that doesn’t reflect the true personality of your business. When you try to portray something that doesn’t match with your brand personality, that will have a negative effect.
Maintain an Entertaining Tone
Although you are a business broadcasting live, it doesn’t mean that you have to maintain a formal tone. By its very nature, live videos are engaging, and hence it is very important to maintain an entertaining tone throughout your live sessions. The content you share will be more memorable when its entertaining and encourages viewers to share what they have watched. You can also add a humorous touch to your videos but with a purpose. The right type of humor, when used at the right time, can keep viewers entertained and will help to improve your brand.
For example, Best Friends paired with Laura Clery to promote the release of their app and Laura infused her live videos with her characteristic humor which turned out to be a huge hit.
Broadcast Live Consistently
With live streaming, it is important to create a schedule and stick to it if you want to build your brand. The more often your stream live videos, the easier it gets, and often your viewers will remember you. This will also ultimately help to improve the quality of the videos you share. Sticking on to a schedule will help your audience to visit your channel to expect regular videos.
Conclusion
Live streaming is one of the fastest-growing marketing tools out there as it is incredibly easy to set up and doesn’t require a lot of investment but it can do wonders for your business growth. When you facilitate a personal interaction with your viewers, you are creating an authentic connection with your target market.
The future of live streaming video is quite bright. By 2021, videos will account for over 82% of the whole internet traffic and live videos will make up 13% of it. For channeling effective business growth along with live streaming trends, brands must ensure to avail the technology in the most efficient way to increase profitably.
