Successfully growing a business has always been a difficult task, especially if your brand exists in a competitive market. Sure, there are plenty of marketing avenues for businesses to explore, many of which promise to measurably increase engagement and brand visibility. But for brands with limited time and resources, being selective about opportunities is imperative.
For many modern brands, social media marketing may be viewed as a stable source of engagement and growth. Recent data shows that 84 percent of adults aged 18-29 are active on at least one social media site, and the average social media user said to spend as long as 2.5 hours a day browsing their favorite sites, so social media marketing can be extremely effective.
However, as the popularity of this marketing avenue increases, once effective tactics can become expected and stale. So, how do smart businesses overcome this? The answer may lie in live streaming. To find out why, here’s how to use live streaming to grow your business.
Why focus on live streaming?
Live streaming describes the act of transmitting live video footage over the internet to an audience who can respond in real-time. Many marketing experts believe creating video content to be among the most effective ways to deliver a message that will be remembered by an audience, with viewers retaining 95 percent of the information delivered in a typical video post.
In comparison, information retention rates for text-based content is only at around 10 percent. But live streamed video brings additional benefits—not only are your messages more likely to be remembered, audiences can actively engage with your content and influence the direction of each stream. This enables brands to form strong and meaningful connections with their fans.
How live stream marketing benefits brands
Recently published data reveals 92 percent of internet users watch digital videos every week, with 37 percent of social media users finding live video streams to be the most engaging form of in-feed content. With a receptive and deeply engaged audience, these significant benefits can be enjoyed:
Build trust and loyalty
Live streaming enables a brand’s representatives to engage in real two-way conversations with customers. Presenters can approach streams with personality and answer real queries posed by audience members. This provides genuine personalized value to audiences, while demonstrating a clear commitment to the community can help to build trust and respect.
Generate excitement
Curating a sense of urgency and exclusivity around your brand can be an incredibly effective way to increase engagement. Offering exclusive ideas, information and incentives only made available to live stream audiences can help businesses generate excitement around future streams. This will often lead to increased engagement with wider content across social sites.
Create multi-use content
An additional benefit to live streamed content is that the footage can be reused for marketing material long after the initial stream has ended. As live streams tend to be a few hours long, smaller sections of the footage can be turned into short-form clips and posted across various social media sites, allowing brands to amplify this content to keep pages active on a daily basis.
Increase conversions
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, live stream marketing has been shown to boost sales for brands who use the format consistently. One study found that live stream marketing may boost sales intent among audiences by up to 97 percent, providing clear value to growing brands.
Popular platforms for live stream marketing
For live stream marketing to be truly effective, businesses must understand which platforms are frequented by their target audience. At present, there are a number of social media sites and dedicated apps that support live stream marketing. Below are some popular examples.
Discord
About two-thirds (65 percent) of Discord users are male, with 44 percent of the platform’s user base aged between 18-24. The website is a little different from other platforms as brands are able to create entire servers for their audiences rather than simple pages. Brands can create bespoke sub-pages dedicated entirely to live streaming, with multiple separate pages dedicated to different content types.
With 800 million monthly visitors, the site can be great for generating engagement with an active audience. However, Discord marketing is a little complicated as the site doesn’t host traditional paid ads. Instead, brands are advised to use the platform as a space to generate brand awareness through community building to influence engagement with marketing elsewhere.
Instagram is equally popular among male and female audiences, and 75 percent of US internet users aged 18-24 are active on the site, as are 57 percent of 25-30 year olds. With 2 billion monthly active users, the platform can be a great source of engagement for growing brands. The site also has a wide range of features specifically designed to support live streaming content.
Instagram Live enables brands to collaborate with different accounts to share audiences with related content creators. The platform also supports live shopping, meaning viewers can buy products featured in live streams directly through the app. Additionally, previously recorded live streams can be added to your homepage, enabling users to rewatch content at any time.
TikTok
TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms, with the site’s largest active user base in the US aged between 25-34. As TikTok is built around video content, the platform has numerous features designed to support engagement with live streams and video shorts.
TikTok Live enables brands to collaborate with other accounts, utilize live shopping features, receive gifts from users and host live discussions. However, only accounts with more than 1,000 active followers will be permitted to use the platform’s built-in live streaming features.
LinkedIn is more geared towards professionals, with almost 60 percent of the site’s users holding higher education qualifications. As such, the platform is best suited for brands targeting a more mature audience, as well as those looking to form business to business relationships.
Live streaming is a fairly new addition to the platform, though engagement with this feature is high among users. One study found live streams on LinkedIn receive 24X more comments than regular videos. However, to set up a live stream, brands must make sure their accounts meet the site’s streaming criteria. Only then will live stream features be added to their pages.
Summary
Modern brands and businesses have a multitude of options to choose from when it comes to growing their audiences. While traditional advertising tactics can still be effective, harnessing the power of social media often proves fruitful. In terms of social media content, live streams have been shown to promote repeat engagement, build brand awareness and even increase conversion rates. For brands looking to scale, exploring live streaming could be a great idea.
