5 Benefits of Live Streaming for Brands in 2024

Are you struggling to connect with your target audience and drive sales through your content? With improvements in artificial intelligence and rise in the popularity of video-based social media platforms such as TikTok, it’s no longer enough for businesses to create static, one-dimensional content.

As a business, you should be striving to create engaging, captivating content that demonstrates your expertise, tells your brand’s story and actively encourages your audience to invest in your services. Whether you’re trying to win a sales pitch to a new client or present your brand professionally to potential buyers, live streaming is a fantastic digital solution that all brands should be leveraging.

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, when brands were forced to adapt instantly to a new, virtual world, live streaming has become a popular form of content and a way of connecting with new audiences. It’s no wonder that interest in live streaming services has continued to increase rapidly since then, with online searches for ‘event streaming company’ rising by 200% compared to the same time year (as of February 2024), and ‘live streaming company’ increasing by 44% in that same time.

With many brands across a range of industries already embracing the power of live content, you might be thinking about the benefits of hosting your own live streams and how they can support your business to cut through the noise of competitors.

From making your brand more accessible to building a deeper connection with your audience, take a look at the benefits of live streaming for your brand and how it can elevate your audience engagement.

1: Live streams make your brand more accessible

Whether you’re hosting an event, webinar, product launch or simply looking to interact with customers, you want to reach as large an audience as possible to be able to increase brand awareness and see a rise in sales.

Although in-person events can be fantastic as they’re immersive, engaging and give you the unique opportunity to meet your target audience, they do have limitations, such as:

• • They can only hold a certain number of attendees
  • The costs can be high if you consider the venue, catering, guest speakers etc…
  • People are restricted from attending if they don’t live locally or are unable to travel
  • There’s a higher chance of something going wrong on the day e.g. train strikes or adverse weather

While we still think hosting an in-person event is worthwhile, we believe complimenting it with a live stream is the way forward. Why?

• • Anyone from around the world can attend
  • There isn’t a maximum number of people who can attend
  • Live streams can be recorded and circulated to people who wanted to attend but couldn’t

By hosting both in-person and live streamed events, you’re able to connect with the largest possible audience, ensuring they can engage with you in the way that’s most convenient for them.

As well as being convenient, live streams are genuinely more accessible than in-person events because they remove physical barriers. Also, you can add live captions and transcripts and increase audience interaction through polls. According to research, companies that prioritise digital inclusion have 28% higher revenue than those who don’t.

2: Live streaming enhances audience engagement

No matter what type of content you’re creating, from live streams to social videos and blog posts, you want your audience to be engaged and invested so they are more likely to both remember and invest in your brand.

Recently, there has been a move towards interactive content over static content, which is no surprise as the latest stats show that interactive content sees 52.6% more engagement than static content.

This makes live streaming a brilliant format for boosting engagement and building meaningful connections with your audience. Why?

• • As the event is live, your audience may feel like they are part of it. They’re not passively watching a video, they’re actively engaging in an event, receiving the same insights as they would if they were at an in-person event.
  • As live streams aren’t pre-recorded, you can take questions or invite comments from attendees.
  • Some live streams also provide an opportunity for attendees to engage with each other, through chat boxes or during break out discussions.

What are our top tips for creating interactive live streams?

1. Acknowledge your audience – Your audience is as much a part of your live stream as you are. Acknowledge attendees, ask questions (even if they’re rhetorical) and remind them that they’re part of your brand too. This will form deeper connections to your business, and build brand loyalty.

2. Choose your live stream topic carefully – Don’t run a live stream for the sake of it. Ensure it has a purpose, such as a product launch or thought leadership event. If your audience can’t take something actionable away with them, they’re not likely to remain invested.

3. Check your internet connection – If your connection isn’t strong enough, you may suffer from technical difficulties and lose the interest of attendees, who no longer feel that they can engage with the live stream.

3: Live streams provide instant audience insights

One of the best things about running live streams is that you can get audience insights almost instantly, as opposed to other forms of content where you may need to wait days, even weeks to gather audience data.

Of course, not all the data will be available immediately, however, there are some valuable insights you can take, such as:

• • As it’s a live event, you can ask your audience directly for feedback during the event.
  • You can ask questions throughout the live stream. Perhaps you ask the same question at the start and end of the session to understand how much of an impact your live stream has had.
  • You can see how many people signed up, how many people actually attended and how many were still online at the end of the event. You can also see if people have dropped off from the live stream at a specific point, similar to how you can measure the bounce rate on a website.
  • If you’re running a small-scale live stream where there’s a chat box, or even opportunity to interact directly with attendees, you may be able to learn more about your target audience.

By gaining this data, you can personalise follow-up content (e.g. emails, blogs and social posts) and make improvements for the next live stream you run.

Do you need support with creating live content that truly captures the essence of your brand and, ultimately, drives sales? Whether it’s a product launch to a global audience, a state-of-the-art AV installation or an internal webinar, we create experiences that leave an impact.

4: Live streaming demonstrates your brand’s authenticity

Our next benefit of hosting live streams as a brand is one of the most important…demonstrating brand authenticity!

According to research, 88% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding which brands to like and support. With that in mind, we believe that one of the best ways to highlight your brand’s authenticity to potential and existing customers is through live content.

Why? Hosting a live event as opposed to a pre-recorded session indicates that you’re not hiding behind editing or focusing on creating the ‘perfect’ video. Things can and do sometimes go wrong during live events. From technical issues to fire alarms and sneezes, things don’t always run as smoothly as you want them to. We ensure that, by streaming through a bespoke branded platform we build and manage, your audience will have no doubt of the professionalism you exert despite any visual technical challenges.

However, these faults also demonstrate to your audience that you’re humans just like them. They get to see the people behind the brand in a much more raw, organic way which can make them trust you more in the long run.

Are you hosting a live stream or preparing to be interviewed and worried about it? We’re here to support you! 

5: Live streaming can help you batch create content

Do you want to make your content production process more efficient, saving both time and money? You’ll love this final benefit!

Live streaming can help you create batch content that can be posted on different channels across a period of time (or until the next live stream). If you record your live stream, it essentially gives you 1 hour’s worth (or however long it was) of content that you can turn into various formats.

How?

• • Screenshots and images from the live event can be repurposed for social media
  • You can do a post-event write up with key takeaways
  • Snippets of the live stream can be added to social media platforms such as LinkedIn
  • Key quotes such as tips, industry insights and expert opinions can be turned into snappy tweets and captions
  • Post-event feedback can be used for case studies and testimonials
  • It can be used as promotional content for your next live event

From a single live stream, you have videos, images, social posts, expert comments, case studies, promotional content and more. The best part? You may even be able to integrate AI into the content production process to make batch-creating the content after the live stream even more streamlined.

Want to learn more about how your brand can harness the power of AI in your content marketing? Our Research and Development Team, Bareska Labs, is working on ways to integrate AI into businesses and improve the way we work and deliver change. We also offer 60-minute AI seminars for Sales and Marketing Teams where you will gain a valuable insight into striking the right balance between utilising AI and human expertise whilst managing associated risks.

Bareska offers innovative live streaming solutions for brands

So there you have it, from ensuring your brand is more accessible to providing instant audience insights, there are countless benefits to live streaming for brands.

Do you want to start hosting sleek, professional, high-quality live streams that capture your audience and win new business? We offer comprehensive content solutions by creating and delivering persuasive deal and solution narratives that compel your audience to act.

Get in touch with us today to find out more about how we can support your brand with bespoke live content solutions.