Live Streaming on Social Networks

by - Abhishek Rao

n the last decade, the Internet has made many significant leaps. If we have to narrow down on few of the most important contributions of this period, Social Media will surely be one of them.

According to a recent survey done by ComScore, Facebook had nearly 162 million visitors in the month of July. (http://www.digimouth.com/news/july-sees-record-number-of-visits-on-facebook-and-twitter.html)

Social Networking websites like Facebook and Twitter have become an integral part of a users life. With the help of posts, photos, links and videos, users put their stories and updates on to these websites.

With each passing day, developers are introducing newer innovations to make the social media experience a more vibrant one. A live-streaming plug-in on social media sites is one such development.

Using a live stream, users can broadcast their lives, events and occasions in real time on a web platform. For quite some time, streaming a live video on the Internet or Lifecasting as it was called was toyed around with, but there was no significant breakthrough.

The biggest breakthrough arrived when popular video hosting website YouTube began streaming videos of certain events live on the Internet. Live video streaming took the concept of sharing data online to a completely new level. On February 2010, Striker became the first movie in Indian Cinema to release officially on YouTube. 9 days later, the blockbuster My Name is Khan displayed its pay-per-view event at the Berlin Film Festival on Facebook.

It was not long before marketeers found out the potential of live streaming. In recent years, everything from official announcements to product launches have gone live on the Internet.

Currently, Google + has gained mass popularity for its live streaming tab called as Hangouts which provides video conferencing on its network. YouTube is now in talks with Google + to take some of its Hangout streams live on their website. Browse through this video of Hangouts to know more about it.

In the year 2009, Facebook partnered with LiveStream, a popular video streaming provider to start Lifecasting on its network. The first live stream Facebook experimented with was the speech of Barrack Obama which could be seen on the CNN website.

CNN

About two million status updates regarding the stream were put up on Facebook. Banking on its immense popularity, Facebook soon added its own app and currently, live streams can be seen on Facebook.

For brand builders, the live stream tool is an innovative and cost effective method of capturing attention. It is not very difficult to have your own live stream channel on Facebook. Just follow the steps below:

Visit the Livestream for Facebook page
On the bottom half of the page, you shall find the 'Get Started' button, click on it.
A request asking your permission for a news feed will appear. Accept the request.
Once you have done this, you shall be reverted to the Livestream Tab manager page.
Select the desired page and press the 'Add Page Tab' button
On your page, click on the Livestream tab that shall appear
Select 'Start New Channel'
Sign up by filling your details like email id, password etc and create a LiveStream account
Add information and select a channel background to make your page look attractive
Once you save all the changes, you can start live video streaming on your Facebook Page

Internet marketing has become significantly important for taking your brand forward. With everyone using social media as a tool for building their brands, marketeers have to give themselves that extra push to stand out. In such a case, an interactive live stream will surely grab the attention of the intended target audiences.