Live streaming is one of the most popular forms of online content today and has been growing steadily in recent years. It’s come a long way since its beginnings in the 1990s, shifting from niche webcasts that few people watched to a multi-billion-dollar industry. We wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to get in on live streaming!
Although you see live streaming everywhere and may have some favorite streamers you tune into regularly, the thought of starting to live stream on your own can be daunting. That’s why we’ve created this ultimate guide to live streaming for total beginners. If you have zero knowledge or experience but still want to give live streaming a try, then you’ll learn how to stream here.
There are lots of ways to set up a live stream. You can pull out your phone, open Facebook, and start streaming to Facebook Live on the spot. Alternatively, you can build a multi-million-dollar TV studio with dozens of cameras and hire a full-time staff to run it. Unsurprisingly, most organizations find themselves somewhere in between those two extremes.
To understand where you fit into the picture, we’re going to divide the live streaming process into four different parts:
- Audio + Video Capture — How you capture video and audio to send to your viewers (cameras, camcorders, mobile devices, etc.)
- Production — How you add other elements (like overlays, titles, or switching between cameras) to your live video to increase presentation quality
- Going Live — How you efficiently send your locally recorded video to your viewers around the world
- Video Management — What you do with the video once your live stream is complete to make it an evergreen piece of content.
How to prepare for live streaming
Since it’s “live” streaming, you might think it’s totally impromptu and you can hit that “go live” button without a plan. But all those popular streamers you watch aren’t just improvising — not even the gamers. If you want your live streaming to be a regular hobby or a revenue-generating venture, then you need to prepare.
- Plan: If you want people to watch your stream, you have to go live at the right time. Use this guide to figure out how to schedule your live stream to fit your audience.
- Find your niche: What will your live stream be about? Live streaming has a lot of popular niches already, and you could easily fit your content into one of them. Gaming, music, sports, IRL, and e-commerce are just a few general topics. You can pick a sub-topic to narrow your content down further.
- Define your audience: It might be difficult to know what to stream about if you aren’t sure who your audience is. Maybe you’ve decided you want to live stream yourself watching paint dry. That’s definitely a niche topic, but who would watch it? If you can’t define your audience, you can’t create good content.
- Set goals: It’s hard to measure success if you don’t set goals. Choosing your goals isn’t always intuitive, especially if you’re in unfamiliar territory. One great example for new streamers is aiming to broadcast at the same time every week and eventually increasing your broadcast frequency. Learn how to set goals as a live streamer in 2021 with this guide.
- Promote: Nobody’s going to watch your live stream if you don’t tell them about it! Use these tips to promote your live stream.
Where To Do Your Stream
There are a limitless number of destinations for your live stream, including your own website, Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope (Twitter), and smart TV apps.
Your Own Website
Your own site is the best place you can serve your viewers with your brand and resources.
Facebook Live
Of all of the streaming platforms, Facebook Live is the most popular because of its social power. If you already have a large audience on Facebook, you may find Facebook Live an important destination for your streams because of its potential for high viewership.
YouTube
When you think about video on the internet, YouTube is the biggest name in the industry. With over 1 billion unique viewers each month, the platform is an effective space for sharing your digital video content.
Periscope (Twitter)
Periscope is the platform of choice for Twitter. Periscope is increasingly more natively integrated with Twitter — it’s now essentially Twitter Live, even though it still maintains its own platform separate from the Twitterverse. Many organizations with active Twitter accounts can benefit from streaming live video to this destination.
