In my last post I talked about why using a live stream is becoming a very important way to keep engaged with your audience. This time, I want to talk about knowing when to live stream in Kelowna, and when to simply record a video for future uploading.
If you’re broadcasting something that you’re looking to get live engagement with, then a live stream is definitely the right answer. Being able to pose questions to your audience and get replies in the comments, or conduct and tally polls live is a huge benefit you’ll get from a live stream that you won’t with a prerecorded video.
Obviously if the message you’re trying to convey is time sensitive like a press conference, a live stream is the only way to get that information out in real time. The downside to live streams is they’re often times less polished, you only get one chance to get your message across and there are no do overs. If the dog starts barking or the cat jumps onto your laptop – well, that’s the nature of live video and you need to be prepared for that.
Most live streams from home won’t have any graphics with information on them, background music, or anything else like that – it’s just the presenter and their camera. People love to be part of something that’s happening in real time. Experiencing something with other people around the world at the same time, and it’s one of the reasons we’re seeing a surge in live-streaming popularity.
But, what if you could have the production value of an edited video – with on screen graphics, multiple takes, no mistakes – with the experience of broadcasting to your audience live? Well, the folks at YouTube & Facebook have just the thing. They each have a feature called Premiere that’s available when you upload a video. This feature allows you to premiere your video live on their platform at a specified time so your audience gets to watch the video at the exact same time – as they would with a true ‘live-stream’.
We did this recently with a concert I filmed. I took all my camera angles, edited them together and made a really great video of their show. Then the band took that video file and set it to premiere at 2pm and then shared the link to the premiere to their social media. When it was time for the video to premiere, everyone got to watch it at the exact same time. Another really neat feature was the text based chatroom at the side of the Youtube video player while the premiere happened, which allowed everyone who was watching the video to comment on what we were watching and the band was able to respond to those questions and comments as they came in. After the video was done playing to it’s live audience, it immediately was added to the YouTube channel of the band and people could view and comment on it just like any other video on Youtube.
So, if you don’t need to be broadcasting live, why not consider filming your video, throwing it into a free editing software like iMovie or Davinci Resolve, make some edits, remove any mistakes, and then export your video for uploading to YouTube or Facebook as a premiere. How have you been using a live stream in Kelowna lately? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below and if you have any questions – feel free to ask – I love helping people discover the wonderful world of video production.
