San Diego Live Event Streaming Company

Live Event Streaming – How, When & Why you Should Use It

Technology has taken over the art of communication and it won’t be wrong to say that live streaming is the jam of today’s times. In the past 5 to 10 years, live video broadcast services have taken off. Today billions of people worldwide watch live stream videos on a palm sized device using the internet. Live video broadcast services are the top rung of marketing services used by top leaders in businesses as well as new, up and coming services that want to get noticed.

You no longer need a fancy satellite and heavy television set to watch a live event on the other side of the world. With live streaming being so accessible, anyone with access to a mobile device and the internet can go to YouTube, Facebook, and various other sites to enjoy a live video. This technological advancement enables organizations and businesses to reach a huge audience base around the world, improve exposure, and boost their sales.

There are various San Diego live event streaming services that help companies increase their views, engage with the audience, and increase interaction by live streaming online town hall meetings, product launches, shareholder summits, investor relation meetings, public question and answer sessions, etc. For a beginner who hasn’t quite followed live video broadcast services throughout their exponential rise phase, this guide will help them know more about it.

Here in this article, you will get to know everything about live event streaming, from where it started to its future and how to incorporate it into your business.

Live Video Streaming History

Over the last half a century or so, people have been fascinated by live video. On September 4, 1951, Harry Truman spoke at a Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco and for the first time, it was broadcasted live. Few months later, The Today Show became the first broadcast morning news program airing live in the US. Since then, live streaming has moved forward and people have been loving videos more than ever, from favorite news stations to guilty pleasures of reality television and everything in between.

The 1990s and 2000s were the official eras of what is tilted today, The Internet Explosion. People started getting used to the internet, dial-up networks were becoming a common sight in every household, and people started discovering a brand new world of information and entertainment on their computers. This happened because governments around the world increased the technical bandwidth of computers. With the birth of the internet, came the birth of live streaming content. However, these live streams were just single-event broadcasts and not a continuous stream of 24X7 live streaming that we see today. Also, most of the first live-streams happened were around audio rather than video, as it was easier to manipulate audio than video back in those days.

The first concert live streaming took place in 1993

In 1993, Xerox PARC was hosting a small show in Palo Alto when engineers decided to test their new technology to broadcast on the internet. A band known as Severe Tire Damage was playing at the event and their event officially became the first-ever event to be streamed live over the internet.

However, being the first doesn’t necessarily mean the best. The live stream had a resolution of 100 lines and a frame rate of 4 per second. Also, the striking fact was that the live stream took almost half of the entire internet’s bandwidth.

The first massive-scale live video broadcast took place in 1996

In 1996, the first large scale live video broadcast took place with the streaming of Tibetan Freedom Concert. The man behind this was a digital pioneer, Marc Scarpa. Top musical acts of the 90s such as The Beastie Boys, Rage Against The Machine, Bjork, and the Smashing Pumpkins headlined the concert and were featured in the live stream.

Live streaming of the first online presidential address took place in 1999

The year 1999 saw a national political event streamed live for the first time ever. President Bill Clinton’s town hall meeting was streamed live. He was also the first president to take part in webcast delivering a few words like “Citizens now are using Government websites to file their taxes, compare their Medicare options, apply for student loans, and find good jobs. They’re tapping into the latest health research and browsing vast collections in the Library of Congress and following along with NASA’s missions in outer space. This is just the beginning.”

And he was right when saying this, as of now live video streaming has ingrained into our lives.

2002 witnessed the launch of FlashPlayer version 6

Flash Player was a major tool for online videos. It served a major role in putting online videos on the global platform and facilitated the online streaming of videos. Initially, the Flash Player was launched as a browser plug-in enabling users to play streaming audio and video formats. But in 2002, Macromedia launched version 6 of Flash Player that supported Real Time Media Protocol (RTMP), which hugely supported live streaming at that time and is in fact, still used for some live streaming use cases.

The rise of online video

2005 saw a major boom in live-streaming with the launch of YouTube and Google Video. As the broadband internet began to plow into people’s lives, it became easier for people to live stream videos online. The two services were later merged into one and continue to be the world’s largest video streaming platform today.

Within a year YouTube became one of the fastest-growing sites on the World Wide Web with 65,000 videos uploaded every day and reaching 100 million video views. YouTube was certainly not invented with the idea of live video streaming, but it did significantly contribute to the popularity of online video and the notion of peeking into someone else’s life via a video.

Since YouTube, we have seen the expansion into actual live video streaming platforms. 2007 was the year when the first video live stream platform named Livestream was launched. Today, there are dozens of platforms such as Upstream, Bambuser, Showcaster, and DaCast to name a few.

Olympics were streamed live for the first time

In 2012, live streaming began to be taken seriously as a legitimate marketing solution. After all, 2012 was the year NBC streamed live the Olympics games for the first time. The practice of live streaming Olympics was adopted as a staple practice in 2016 and every game since then has been live streamed globally.

Live video streaming gets social

Since the launch of video live streaming platforms, social media sites also launched their own professional live streaming platforms. Periscope, a live video streaming app, was developed in 2015 and acquired by Twitter before it was even launched. While airing a live video, Periscope users can tweet out a link to their live stream to gain attention of the viewers. The users can also choose whether to make their video public or not and also have the advantage to make it visible only to select users. This is a great option for users like the financial advisors who want to host a live video presentation to clients who don’t live locally but don’t want any outside viewers seeing.

Instagram, the popular photo social network site also introduced the ability to upload video clips in 2013. These video clips were limited to 15 seconds until early 2016 when the limit increased to a whopping 60 minutes.

The most popular social media platform among the younger generation, the Snapchat, launched live video streaming. With more than 100 million daily users, you can post images and short videos.

The latest to enter the live streaming world is Facebook with Facebook Live. It allows the users to stream live videos, invite friends and followers to watch, send out early notifications, and allow viewers to interact in real-time. Facebook Live is one of the most impressive streaming platforms as it is easy to use and can make the biggest impact.

All of these points highlight the history of live streaming; how it started, how it grew & what all milestones it reached. Further below in the article, we will see the present day scenario around live-streaming, why you should it for marketing, the advantages, the tools used, and the future of live-streaming.

Live Video Streaming Today

Live streaming in today’s time is fully developed, accessible, and easy to deploy. The popularity is such that the biggest companies in the world utilize it for their business needs and reach out to more potential customers. Not just big brands and companies are turning to video live streaming, but universities, entertainment typhoons, and charity organizations are also making use of live streaming to hook people and get the word out.

Unlike the 2000 decade, today it is possible to live stream videos online from the palm sized device and conduct multi camera live streaming webcasts. And the good news, live streaming in today’s age is much easier and affordable than even watching TV.

In today’s world, global content delivery networks can live stream videos to audiences worldwide via top-notch live video broadcast services such as offered by Hildreth Media Group, Sani Diego live event streaming company. Live streams today rack up millions of views globally and most of the people today love to watch live videos than just normal video content. In fact, over 60% of people aged 18 to 34 watch live streamed content regularly, and by 2025, live streaming is expected to be a $124.57 billion industry. So, it makes sense to use it in your marketing strategy right now.

Why Live Video Streaming Strategy is a Must Have for Businesses

In today’s world when technological advancements brings us new and exciting things at an increasing rate, avoiding the need to be an early adopter of every new shiny piece of tech is often the sensible move, especially for a business owner.

However, it is a risk management thing at its core, early adopters are the first ones to benefit if the thing succeeds, but they’re also the ones who lose if it fails. Business owners need to be careful where they devote their time, money, and attention into choosing the new technology that comes their way. But it’s with that in mind when we say that, in 2020, dipping your toes in live video streaming is a no-brainer. It might even be one of the best business moves you make.

So, let’s take a look at why live video streaming is a must have

Live Streaming Market is Huge

The live video streaming market is huge and is getting bigger and bigger with each passing day. It is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.1% during the coming six to seven years, reaching a size of $124.57 billion by 2025. It is not the marketing that will drive the growth of the streaming market, its corporate training and education.

Video live streaming has several important benefits that make it appealing to new brands and businesses. Four out of five marketers, who already use video content for their businesses, probably have a good foundation of technical knowledge that helps them start live video streaming. However, live video streaming is also appealing to the one remaining marketer out of five who have not yet tried video marketing, because of the benefits it offers such as:

The learning curve to using live streaming isn’t too difficult, consumer-friendly solutions offer great ease of use.
The hardware used for live streaming is inexpensive and readily available, with only a smartphone being enough to start streaming.
Everyone has access to communication channels, as every major social network now offers a live streaming service.
There is a relatively low level of expectation when it comes to production value, as opposed to video-on-demand content.
However, a booming live streaming market is not enough, you need an audience willing to watch all that live streaming content. Thankfully, live streaming has an enthusiastic audience and a pronounced effect on the audience’s willingness to engage with the content.

People Love to See More Live Stream Videos

There is something about a live stream that people enjoy. Profanities, wardrobe malfunctions, and announcing the wrong names of the award winner are a few of the slip-ups that can occur during a live event broadcast. This may stress out event organizers, but to the audience, knowing that anything can happen is part of the appeal watching a live event. It makes them feel like they are in the middle of the action and part of an active, engaged audience. Viewers can feel a sense of friendship, especially in the comments section, and get in on the action with contests, polls, and when their comments and questions are acknowledged by the presenters.

Encourages Trust and Transparency

People prefer to buy from brands they trust and streaming live videos can help you build that trust and transparency with your customer base. However, transparency is more than offering a money-back guarantee or including a disclaimer. It should extend to every facet of your business including the way you communicate with customers, no matter your industry. Live streaming helps you achieve that. It is a form of media that allows room for open and authentic communication between the company and its audience.

However, you need to use live streams correctly to not only promote your products or your company’s image but build trust among your viewers and customers. You can use live streaming to show candid moments and processes, or other ways you can magnify your company’s transparency to the audience outside of your customer base. When you share your stream on social media, it earns a lot of positive comments or a lot of likes, both of which further the impression of a trustworthy brand.

Cost Effective

Live streaming is incredibly cost-effective. Before it was invented, most businesses relied on television to showcase live reports or videos. This method was, of course, costly, for instance, a 1-minute commercial aired on television in Los Angles costs around $17,000. Today, any business or brand with a strong internet connection, a high-definition camera, and a social media account can easily broadcast live. Various popular sites like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and others allow users to broadcast live for free, though there will likely be advertisements. However, if you want professional high-quality live streams without the advertisements, then San Diego live event streaming services offered by the broadcasting agencies run a few hundred dollars per month depending on the level of service you need.

Videos are Easily Shared

As said above, people like to watch live streaming videos and if they find them enticing, they are likely to share them. Especially if you upload on social media, this is because there are 1.65 billion active social media users worldwide and out of this about 95% of users are aged 18 to 34 who follow a brand with a social media account. With live streaming on social media, you can reach out to millions of potential customers and engage them.

Social media makes up a majority of digital marketing campaigns, especially because it allows for easy sharing. Facebook is one platform that helps live videos see more exposure by showing when a user’s friend reacts to or makes a comment on the stream. Furthermore, when the live stream has concluded, the broadcaster can save the video and post it to their Facebook page.

Real-Time Engagement

One of the biggest reasons why live streaming is continuously making waves in marketing is its ability to offer real-time user engagement and join a direct conversation. Social media platforms, especially Facebook fetches six times more engagement on live videos than on-demand videos. Sharing live streaming videos not only provides real-time engagement benefits, but also an opportunity for you as a business to offer live support, Q&A sessions, and office tours.

These are some of the reasons why you should start live video streaming for your business.

Now that you know why implement video live streaming for your business, the question is how to use live video streaming? Do not worry, we will help you guide through.

How to Use Live Video Streaming

So, how your company can benefit the most from using live video streaming? Well, we have already touched on the fact that you can use it as a part of your marketing strategy, but that isn’t the only way to use it.

Here are some other great options you might want to think about.

Give Behind the Scenes Look

People these days don’t want to be just customers on social media, they want to be participants. Give your audience behind the scene look, this helps build trust that your customers have for your company as you are showing them things that other businesses might keep a secret. You can show how you create the product or service and who creates it or anything that is typically off-limits or provides a different point of view. This will interest users and create your credibility as a brand.

Broadcast Live Events

Sharing an event in real-time with your online community will increase the connection and the loyalty they feel to your business. A conference, a celebrity endorsement event, a product launch or anything that creates your brand’s history, make it a part of your public’s history too. Share it live and do not forget to engage with your followers while broadcasting. Talk with them throughout, answer their questions, make them feel acknowledged and listened. This can be a big marketing plug for you, as it helps build excitement for your targeted audiences and customers.

Share Breaking News

Sharing news through a best-crafted press release is a great marketing tactic, but letting your CEO share an update about the company as a live stream feed might be more effective. Major changes, upcoming new products, etc. make a place for questions your customers may have about it. You can share live streams either on your Facebook fan page or arrange a media production team to get the news out. Build some anticipation for the moment and inform your audience about the live streaming I advance so that they book time for you.

Give Live Product Training

Getting customers to adopt a product or service can be challenging if it is unique or hard to understand. One way you can spur adoption is through offering live product training that walks customers through typical or advanced use cases. This helps both potential customers and current customers to learn about your product or service and it also helps as a sales tool.

Don’t think of live video training as a session where you lead your audience step-by-step through a process. Simply discuss a topic and let viewers ask the questions.

With that said, let’s get to know, how to get started with live streaming.

How to Get Started With Live Streaming

Set your Strategy

The first step to starting live streaming video production is to set your strategy. Despite your working knowledge of live streaming, you will need to ensure your content strategy is built for live. While on-demand video offers you the luxury of post-production edits to refine the final product while live streaming video is of the moment and requires ample preparation and testing.

Content dictates everything when producing a live event. Here are four key components to keep in mind.

Interest – Make sure the content you will be live streaming aligns with the interest of your audience as well as matches your brand voice and targeted prospects and customers.

Action – You need to keep your content interesting so that your audiences are glued to it. The number one thing that you need to pay attention to is to ensure that the screen never goes black.

Consistency – If possible, turn your live event into a series. Keeping your events consistent is a guaranteed way to increase brand awareness and equity while engaging meaningfully with your audience.

Add Actionability – You need to add a call to action at the end of your stream. If you want to turn your event audience into conversations, you will need to facilitate viewer interaction after the stream is over.

Choose a Destination

Choosing a destination for your live stream depends on how your audience watches videos online and who you want your live stream to be seen by. You can embed live streams on your website, share them through social media or on live streaming platforms.

If you are streaming a private event, it is best practice to embed the stream on your website or create a password-protected event. In case you want to stream a public event, the more eyes, the better. Share your content on multiple platforms and websites so that it reaches the maximum number of people.

Look Into the Quality

When streaming live videos you need to ensure that they are superb quality. The streaming setup should not interfere with the in-house experience. In essence, make the viewing audience feel like they are at the event, without harming the experience of the in-house audience. To ensure that both in-house and viewing audiences are happy, you need to plan and test everything before the event. San Diego live video production company, Hildreth Media Group can help you here. Their live event streaming team works in a way that we are invisible to your in-house guests while creating an incredible online experience for your viewers.

Test Equipment Thoroughly

Live streaming without doing a test run first is like skydiving without checking your parachute. Sure you might have a perfectly working parachute and have used in n number of times, but there is also a chance that it may not open. Same goes with the live streaming, run a full test, preferably at the venue where you are going to stream the real thing. Check for any sound, lighting, or encoder problems as well as your cameras, microphones, and other equipment before you go live.

Record All Your Live Streams

Unless you purposely record your streams, they might be lost forever. That would be a waste of time and effort that went into production on a one-time broadcast.

That’s because video recordings are extremely valuable. They can be turned into on-demand video files (VOD) and streamed again and again. If your online video platform has an automatic recording feature, we recommend turning that on. You can record locally as well, using your encoder or hire video live streaming services.

Include Captions with the Content

The final step is to consider including captions and subtitles in your video streams. There are hundreds of millions of people who are not able to hear in the world today. Reaching these people can significantly grow your audience. It may also be a legal requirement depending on where and what you are broadcasting.

While live streaming events you can either DIY or use live streaming services. Setting up a live stream on your own requires technical skills and generally the easiest and more affordable is using video live streaming services.

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should use live streaming services.

High-Quality Streams

When you stream on your own using your servers, it is difficult to achieve high-quality streams. You need to have a live streaming service with a robust infrastructure and a good CDN (content delivery network) to achieve high-quality video. If you stream on your own, there is a high possibility that you will clog your servers. When you broadcast live to other viewers, you want to ensure that your stream works perfectly and functions consistently without any technical glitches. This is why you should first select a solid video live streaming service with a good CDN just like that of Hildreth Media Group.

Wider Audience Potential

Physical events usually have limited space available at a given venue. However, with live streaming, you can invite as many people as you like to attend your event. Often time’s people are interested in attending a particular event in person, but they can’t due to work commitments or increasing expenses. Live streaming your event can make your content accessible to these people whom you wouldn’t reach otherwise as well as anyone in the world remotely.

Completely Ad-Free

When viewing live stream videos on YouTube, unwanted ads come up at the beginning as well as in between the videos. You, and your viewers, won’t have to suffer through ads and promotions when you use professional video live streaming services.

With San Diego live event streaming company by your side, you never have to burden your viewers with unwanted ads.

Analytics Tracking

It is important to be able to see and evaluate the Return on Investment you have made on your live stream. You will need tracking tools and analytics dashboards to evaluate the outcome of your live event which is readily available when you work with video live streaming service providers. These services offer relevant metrics like viewer numbers, engagement, and behavior. This data helps you identify more clearly who your real customers are and what they like. With this data on hand, you can assess which aspects of your broadcast may need to be changed for future events. Thus helping you refine your overall content and strategy.

Affordable

There are many free video live streaming services, but free services usually entail spam-filled pop-up ads that irritate viewers. Professional live streaming services are better for business and they are affordable too.

Customer Support

It can be difficult to troubleshoot technical problems if you have little to no previous experience with live streaming. Using San Diego live event streaming service and other similar services means you will have someone to support you if unexpected technical issues arise. If you live video stream on your own, your only support will be the information you already know about live streaming and the Google. A dependable live streaming service will provide you with ongoing customer support and will guide you through any difficulties you encounter.

Using video live streaming services can help you stand out from the crowd and show your consumers that you are a forward-thinking and technologically savvy organization skilled at implementing innovative and up-to-date solutions. Overall, live video streaming services allow you to access a broader viewer base and customize the viewing experience to meet the needs of diverse consumers.

Now that you know what benefits video live streaming services offer, why not try it out today? Start with Hildreth Media Group, one of the leading San Diego live event streaming company providing a complete all-inclusive event live streaming and video production solutions. Focus on your event while they manage the technical, creative, and logistic operations. They also help stream your videos to multiple destinations simultaneously including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, or your company website. Headquartered in San Diego, HMG services all of the Southern California Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Irvine, San Francisco, and the United States. Their services include live streaming, webcast, show direction, technical direction, audio/video support, and equipment and engineering support for businesses of any size at a price that fits your budget.

The Future of Live Streaming

With the launch of 5G networks being around the corner, the future of live streaming is set to undergo some major changes and revamps. Without a doubt, live streaming will still be the holding force in the online video, but it will need to keep up with technological circles to remain relevant and useful.

Here are some major things that we can look forward to concerning the future of live streaming.

Marketing and Ecommerce Involvement

Just like printed and video ads earlier, we will see live video streaming start to ingrain deeper into marketing, becoming its keystone tool. We will see more brands and organizations going live with their shows, introducing their brand ambassadors, and trusted experts. More live events will be used as see-now-buy-now for e-commerce platforms offering live online shopping experience. As a result of frequent and intentional use in marketing, live video production will become a regular part of the digital marketing education curriculum. New and better tools for measuring ROI of live streaming campaigns will become readily available.

Video Customer Support

Live Q&A sessions will become more widespread to receive help immediately and from knowledgeable, real people. Similarly to current over-the-phone customer support, live video customer support centers will emerge. Receiving support from real-time visuals will help solve issues faster.

Live Stream Aggregators

With an increased amount of simultaneous live video traffic, internet users will have a tough time keeping track of all the events. This issue may be resolved with live content aggregation services that will categorize streams, help viewers decide what to watch, and even schedule and set reminders for upcoming streams.

Soon, live streaming video will have the strongest effect on the way we learn, market products and services, collaborate, consume advertisements and entertainment, and receive tech support. The key purpose of live streaming is to ultimately help us understand each other better despite being physically far away.

Conclusion

Live video streaming allows you to build brand trust and reliability, launch products and services, connect with your audience and train your users about the new product sitting overseas, and many more things. It is one of the best decisions that you take in the growth of your business. You should always refer to all the solutions available and compare them to find out the best one that fits your needs and budget