5 Ways Live Streaming Helps Your Personal Brand
As someone who has been live streaming for over 5 years, I am well aware of the benefits of doing so. I'm also sure there are nearly countless benefits, but I thought I'd outline a couple of the major ones I've seen over the years.
Live streaming is a rapidly expanding market.
If you're reading this article you likely already know of the huge growth that the live streaming realm has seen in recent years. New kids on the block of this emerging market, such as Twitch, have pathed the way for social media juggernauts like YouTube and Facebook to take notice of the potential and invest heavily. Even Microsoft's Mixer platform, which has since been disbanded, was a potential titan. The ship is far from set sail when it comes to staking your claim in this medium, but now is definitely the time to start investing while the demand is still growing.
Learn a completely unique set of skills.
There are two different fields that you'll need to learn in order to be a live streamer, both being highly transferable experiences for later projects. The first is the technical side, the second is the performance side. For the technical side, you will have to learn the ins and outs of producing a live show. This includes all of the hardware needed (cameras, computers, capture cards, lighting, microphones, headphones, mixers, etc.) as well as all the software you may need (broadcasting software, broadcast monitoring software, graphic design software, etc.). As you can see, there are many aspects to the technical side of putting on a live stream. In order to do so successfully, you'll be forced to learn about all aspects of this new technical field.
The second field would be the performance side of the live stream. If you aren't used to being on camera this can very much take you out of your comfort zone and, in turn, out of your shell a bit. Personally, it has helped me become more sociable and better at public speaking. Even if you're used to being on camera, live performances is vastly different than pre-recorded videos. There's no second take, there's no editing, there's no cuts. You have to be able to fill the allotted length of your live stream with constant entertainment, a very valuable skill in and of itself.
Direct interaction with your audience.
One of the obvious differentiation’s between live streaming and pre-recorded media is just that, it's LIVE. This means that, with the addition of chat boxes that are displayed to you in real time on most streaming platforms, you can interact with your audience instantly. You can get feedback on your work instantly, take questions and give answers instantly, and entertain instantly. Working on a project while live streaming the process? Does your live streaming audience have ideas for how to better your project? Interact with them in real time, as opposed to after you put that project out. Get tips on video or photo editing instantly. Drive sales to your site for a new launch in real time via your live stream audience. If nothing else, connect on a more human level by talking with people in a more direct and conversational way via live stream, as opposed to maybe responding to comments on your different social media.
Chance for a new organic traffic source.
In today’s digital content landscape diversification is key. Social media platforms are always changing, and if you want to have longevity you have to adapt with the times. Having a large following on one or two platforms may be successful for a few years, but chances are you'll eventually reach a plateau or the platform itself will lose popularity. It's best to diversify your social media presence on as many sites as possible. If you happen to strike it big on one, perhaps you can leverage that audience to grow your other profiles. Live streaming brings with it yet another opportunity to diversify and, hopefully, reach a point of organic growth. This organic growth on the live streaming platform of your choice can then be leveraged to help grow your brand on other platforms. The larger your audience, in theory, the larger number of potential customers, regardless of what your business model is.
Non-Linear monetization
What do I mean by non-linear monetization? This applies mainly to smaller brands. Basically, the size of your audience on your live streaming platform doesn't necessarily always correlate to how much money your live streams generate. In general, there are pretty predictable figures for how much ad revenue can be made on YouTube based on the amount of views you get on a video. Obviously it does fluctuate a bit and there are certain criteria that change the outcome, but in general it can be relatively predictable. With live streaming and the multitude of audience driven "donation" or "tipping" options, all it takes is one eager viewer with deep pockets to generate an otherwise impossible amount of income off of a small audience. It's not unheard of for viewers to give their favorite live streamers hundreds of dollars every month, if not more, just for the content that they produce. Obviously this isn't guaranteed, and shouldn't necessarily be expected of your audience, but the potential is there. Building an audience and video catalog on YouTube or Instagram to generate, lets say, $1000/mo can take quite some time. Doing the same while live streaming can be done rather quickly if you're found by the right audience. The potential for this instant revenue stream should make it very appealing to small personal brands.
Hope this gives you some insight as to how live streaming can help build your personal brand, and why NOW is the time to get in on the action! So, do you think it's worth it?