Experimenting with Live Streaming Video in the Lab

Live streaming video as a platform is somewhere between the adoption and gestation phase of its life cycle. It can be a valuable tool for engaging your audience.

But it is not something you should add to your content marketing mix without heavy experimentation. We’ve been broadcasting a live video stream once a week week for a month using Livestream and still do not have the process perfected.

Here are five observations from our experimentation — In The Lab — that will help you create high-quality, valuable, relevant live streaming video.

1. Choose a channel

One of the first steps in experimenting with live video is to choose a channel.

We’ve done some extensive research into the main platforms for live streaming video, including Justin.tv, Livestream, and UStream. All of these channels have their pros and cons. But Livestream may be the best platform for long-term growth for few reasons.

Livestream…

• Is a robust, free platform with an advertising-free Pro edition. If your live stream becomes popular and successful you can opt for the Pro version.
• Has many tools to help enable a high-quality live streaming experience. You can also integrate desktop applications to direct your live stream. Wirecast and Procaster are both great apps.
• Enables key functionality like live chat, instant replay, and storage for your live video streams.

2. Set appointment viewing

The most important thing when you’re experimenting with live video is to have a regular schedule. For example, Iwearyourshirt.com broadcasts live every day at noon on Ustream. Like tuning in to a regularly scheduled newscast at five o’clock in the evening, you want to cultivate your audience’s expectation of appointment viewing.

Another great example is Hubspot. Hubspot broadcasts every Friday at 4, and they’ve managed to garner a regular audience that numbers in the hundreds.

3. Create a format

You also need to create a show format that differentiates you in the marketplace. There are far too many low-quality live video shows on the web today. Great live broadcasting is well conceived, follows a format, and engages the audience from start to finish. It is not a free-form discussion between you and your buddies that lasts an hour and a half.

Pick a theme for your broadcasts. We’ve titled our live broadcasts every Tuesday at noon “Lunch and Learn.” In our 15-minute live broadcasts, we open with a short introduction to the topic of the day. We try to present a provocative, interesting, or different angle.

Next, we take some questions and start a discussion. As the discussion nears the 13-minute mark, we end with a scripted close, making sure that we promote next week’s broadcast and invite users to follow our blog or submit a question or topic for the future broadcasts.

Your format doesn’t have to be complicated or tightly scheduled, it just needs to be well thought out.

4. Stay on message

Focus your broadcast each and every time. Do your best to script it. Use a Teleprompter to ensure that you engage your audience often. With features like live chat, it’s no longer a one-way broadcast. Conversationality and accessibility are what make live video streaming such a powerful tool. The challenge is to keep your message focused while engaging different viewpoints.

If you are going to host a roundtable discussion, rehearse with your guests. Keep the conversation focused. Minimize the banter. As tempting as it might be to act like you’re the host of a morning talk show, keep it professional and make sure that you’re adding value to your audience each and every time.

You may even try experimenting with a remote guest using Skype.

When you’re getting started, keep your live broadcasts short. Leave your audience wanting more. There is nothing more off-putting than a long, boring, live broadcast with no beginning, middle, or end. As you build an audience, leave them wanting more. Ask for feedback. Invite users to submit topic ideas for future broadcasts.

5. Pay attention to production values

Don’t neglect production quality. You want your live broadcast to look and sound good.

• Make your video broadcasts visually stimulating.
• Give each person a microphone.
• Use cameras that broadcast with a high-quality signal.
• Light your set.
• Use video roll-ins, PowerPoint slides, or desktop screenshots to emphasize a point, demonstrate your product, or enhance the discussion.
• If you’re sharing a desktop or using video roll-ins, make sure that they work with your content and with the systems you’re using to broadcast.

Start experimenting today.

Takeaway

Experiment with live streaming video to learn how to engage your audience.

My questions to you

What services do you use for live streaming video? Do you have any favorite live streaming shows? What have you learned from your experiments?

About the author

Andrew Davis -

In 2002, Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with journalist James Cosco. Since then, he's spent countless hours exploring the online universe and building a methodological approach to developing digital strategies that drive revenue or reduce costs.

Andrew's always asking big questions and analyzing data to understand markets, online forces and even business models. Andrew's research has resulted in the creation of innovative online metrics including Online Brand Value and Category Brand Value, eye-opening graphical representations of website evolution through the New Media Life Cycle and even using online data to predict offline revenue.

When he's not surfing the web, Andrew's traveling the globe speaking to a wide-variety of audiences about everything from social media to the future of print. Andrew is a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint Labs website and has been creating valuable content since the early 1990s for The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and MTV.

He's contributed to a book of short stories, called The Way Things Were and produced and co-wrote Roadside Ambition a documentary film about one small town with two huge balls.

"In a world where content is consumed as rapidly as it's created, companies need to develop a sound strategy to creating valuable online experiences that can, and should, be leveraged enterprise-wide. There is a content solution to every business challenge."