Why Creators Should Consider Live Streaming
As the internet grows and shifts, influencers are finding new ways to connect with their audiences and build their following. Live streaming has recently become very popular among creators. Here are some reasons why you should consider live streaming as a creator.
Build Strong Relationships With Your Fans
By doing a live stream, creators can interact with their audience in real time. They can answer questions, give shout outs, and even “duet,” or invite other creators or followers to be featured in the stream with the main creator. Followers can also chat with each other in the live comments section.
These features allow more of a personal connection with the creator. By live streaming, influencers can be more authentic and tangible to their following. Through showing their authenticity, trust is created between the audience and creator, which is vital to lasting success.
Quick and Easy
Unlike the prep a pre-planned video takes, live streaming is easier to plan. With smart phones, many creators can hop onto a live stream and start entertaining instantly. Creators can also choose to stream for as long as they want, meaning it is easy to fit into your schedule. The apps used to live stream are free to us, require a minimal setup and also automatically notify your fans when you start streaming live.
Live Streams get Promoted
Whether you’re on TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram, your lives will be promoted to your followers, and even those who don’t follow you. On Instagram, active live streams will appear at the top of followers’ home pages. On TikTok, live streams will be placed into the endless scrolling feed, or the “For You Page.” Platforms promote live streaming and place them right in the audience’s lap.
This visibility is crucial. A creator’s audience will recognize that they are doing a live stream and tune in. New viewers might get recommended to watch a live stream and find that they like the featured creator. More views can lead to more likes, follows, and interaction.
More Platforms
Influencers don’t have to choose just one platform to live stream on. By streaming on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch, creators can make their reach even broader. Streaming on a variety of different platforms can increase your visibility everywhere and gain more followers when you promote your other accounts.
Opportunities to Partner with Brands
Sometimes, brands will go live with a creator to promote their products and services. By doing this, it provides a low stress environment to answer questions, talk about the brand, and get to know consumers and fans alike. This unedited and mostly unscripted view is another way that viewers can see the authenticity on both the creator and the brand side.
Live streams where creators promote brands can take the form of Q & A sessions, tutorials using the products, interviews, and unboxings. These sponsored live streams can be just in collaboration with a brand or it can even feature the creator of the brand, similar to this collaboration with BirchBox and Benefit Cosmetics on Facebook Live.
Birchbox, a monthly beauty subscription box, teamed with a makeup artist at Benefit Cosmetics to demonstrate a product that would be in the subscription box. They gave viewers a chance to ask questions and even did a giveaway of a product sample. While the production was simple, it was an effective way to get viewers to engage with the content and show them how to use the product.
Overall, live streaming can either strengthen the audience base a creator presently has or bring new followers who are excited about their content. By live streaming, creators can show their audience a raw, authentic version of themselves, while showing brands that they can do a variety of different types of content. Brands can also choose to do a collaborative live stream with a creator which benefits both parties simultaneously.
