Is Live Streaming Important for A Company’s Social Media?

Karim Alsharif - April 14, 2017

Live streaming can be seen all over current social media platforms. Just recently Instagram and Facebook began allowing users to create live videos that stream on their platforms. Users can watch their friends, family, mentors and people of interest online live and interact with them in real-time. This revolutionizes the way that account holders interact with followers and creates a back and forth dialogue in real time that has never been seen before. The questions we have now is simple. Can businesses benefit from streaming video in real time on social media? How and why would companies find streaming videos important?

Live Streaming: Grab Attention & Keep It

The average attention span of a person is 8 seconds. In the span of 8 seconds, you can become interested in a topic, mentally explore that topic and quickly reduce your focus on it as your mind travels at warp speed onto other related subjects. Social media platforms allow us to scroll or swipe through media so quickly that we don’t have to pay attention to anything for longer than 3 to 4 seconds. Think of the last time you were scrolling down through photos or memes on Instagram or sifting through Pinterest posts or swiping down Facebook updates. Never has there been a time that it made sense to focus on a post or video on social media as much as there is now with live streaming.

Businesses can revel in the attention they can receive from live streaming. Companies can engage in real time with their current and future customers and even with those who are teetering on the edge of using the company’s product or service. Live streaming allows real-time responses, real-time dialogue and real-time content! That’s pretty amazing, considering it’s free. Social media platforms don’t require an account upgrade to take advantage of these features either. Should businesses take advantage of free exposure in real-time? The answer is YES!

Your Marketing Strategy: Promote Your Brand in Style

Forbes published an article calling live streaming “the natural extension of video marketing.” Companies understand that video ads and posts on social media generate a higher number of views, clicks, likes and comments than text and even photographs. Videos stimulate a part of our brain that grabs the user’s attention and interacts with it, whether by informative content or entertainment. Live streaming allows us to do what videos have always done, but include a real-time dialogue that brings consumers into a businesses store front or into the boardroom.

Ask your consumers questions about your product or service and get a response right now. Live streaming can enhance top of mind awareness for brands by creating a sense of urgency. When a consumer sees at the top of their social media screen that your business has created a live video, they immediately think of your company without having to spot a post or a video by chance. By live streaming, marketers place themselves at the forefront of their user’s attention. The use of live streaming shows users that this brand is technologically relevant and they care about keeping up with the times. Understanding that streaming live content on social media has factors that allow brands to engage with consumers, is it also a cost effective method that justifies the time it takes to implement? Absolutely.

Your Marketing Strategy: Live Streaming Has Many Benefits

By 2020, video will make up 80% of all web traffic, according to Cisco.  With live streaming, you’re able to use a hashtag to announce your videos use as well as have the video remain available to those who aren’t present at the time of the live stream.

Live streaming is far more interesting than video in more than a few cases. This is because your content is raw. Viewers are able to see past your polished advertisements and prepared engagement pieces. This raw, unpolished content tends to stimulate more emotions than produced videos. Why? There’s something about real-time that generates emotions and extends to views a sense of intimacy, exclusivity and a feeling of right here, right now engagement. Letting your consumers take a peek behind the curtain will make them feel more included in your business operations as though they’re participants in your value proposition, not just viewers.

How To Use Live Streaming Video: Can You Increase Brand Awareness?

You can increase your brand awareness with live streaming. Currently, your brand exists online via posts, ads, and high quality video content. Live streaming will allow you draw back the curtain and invite your customer to your office. Broadcast an event or hold a session for questions and answers or stream a webinar. Any news or updates about your brand can easily be done on live streaming and you’ll have more viewers than you think. Not only is this free, it’s the forefront of social media marketing and hopping on board means your brand can reach a new level of engagement.

You don’t have to buy a fancy camera or a pricey set. Successful, high engagement live-streamed video happens with a webcam or your iPhone camera. Don’t be apprehensive about giving live-streaming a try. You’ll show that you care about your customers and you’ll seem more human to them, not just a shiny brand with a tall building somewhere filled with manila folders and swivel chairs. Live streaming is social media’s gift to marketers. It’s simple, it’s cost effective and the returns can be great.

In conclusion, live streaming is an excellent way to make your brand relatable to current and potential customers. Brands in almost any industry can benefit from live streaming company or industry news, hosting a Q&A, introducing a product or service, broadcasting an event or bringing that customer behind the scenes. It’s raw content and makes the user feel exclusivity and intimacy with your brand. You might be surprised at the effect live streaming can have on your brand.