Bertha's Blog: 6 Reasons Why Businesses Should Live Stream For Better Income

Businesses with strong social media presence have the capacity to build strong relationships with their followers. They do so by establishing themselves as experts and educators on a specific topic and actively share that expertise with their followers and readers via social media.

They frequently post valuable and entertaining content that is rapidly shared via their followers, on a variety of platforms. Skilled business professionals understand that they must remain in frequent contact with their followers and are constantly looking for new ways to improve that connection.

One of the emerging mediums of connecting with social media users is live streaming. It enables businesses to stream video footage and receive real-time feedback from followers.

There are many excellent live stream applications available, including Periscope, Facebook Live, StreamUp, YouNow and Instagram Live. These apps offer businesses and entrepreneurs an exciting opportunity to increase their viewership and diversify their revenue streams.

For instance, an entrepreneur and influencer Gary Vee has been using Facebook & Instagram live since day one of its introduction and is successfully promoting his personal brand through these mediums till this day.

This article outlines some of the benefits of live streaming for businesses and how they can create new sources of revenue with this great new technology!

live stream for better business income

1. Reaching new audiences

Millennials have embraced live streaming and spend hours consuming live-streamed content each week. This generation is also notorious for their rejection of traditional forms of media — they don’t read newspapers or watch television as much as older people. Business and advertisers are well aware of these trends and are utilizing live streaming to promote their products and services to those outside of their traditional reach. If you can develop a regular live streaming audience, expect your revenue to increase dramatically!

2. A live stream is an excellent way to cultivate trust

Live streaming is surprisingly effective at creating a closer bond with your viewership. Because you will be talking with viewers in a natural and unedited way, viewers feel like they are participating in a more authentic interaction — much more authentic than heavily edited videos that are carefully scripted out. Businesses can increase their perceived trustworthiness by using live streaming, which leads to greater influence across the social sphere and better conversions when promoting a product. You can also expect to see an improvement in customer loyalty and retention.

3. Live streaming is an excellent way to capture truly unique and engaging content

The content that is created during a live stream can be very exciting to watch because viewers don’t always know what is going to happen. A business can take their audience on a journey to an exciting location, attend an event, showcase a new product, or do a tour around the office.

Viewers enjoy the sense of unpredictability, drama, and anticipation they feel when watching a live stream where literally anything can happen. Businesses can use live streaming to reach an audience that does not enjoy watching scripted videos or reading blog posts — creating a new audience and revenue-building opportunity. In fact, 80% of people would rather watch live streamed content than read a blog post.

4. More opportunities for interaction with viewers

Live streaming works best when viewers can immediately interact with the broadcaster. Businesses can encourage their audience to ask questions and use the live stream to reply to them immediately.

This sense of immediate feedback increases intimacy and a feeling of connection between the company and their audience. Businesses can quickly build trust in the eyes of their viewers if they engage with them in an immediate and authentic way. Again, this stronger connection will enable a broadcaster to have a greater impact on the opinions of their followers.

5. It allows businesses to immediately deliver high-quality content

Successful businesses that go hand-in-hand with a modern day react quickly to news stories, product releases, gossip and other events. They rush to share these events with their followers through blog posts, tweets, video, podcasts, and other marketing mediums.

Live streaming allows businesses to bring significant events to the attention of their followers almost instantaneously. For example, if a new product or event has been announced, they can quickly create a live stream to discuss the details. Businesses can also promote their own products or events through live streaming and offer viewers exclusive access for a limited time — a very intelligent way to increase revenue.

The sense of urgency created by running live streams to cover events makes for very compelling viewing, making it perfect for flash sales of products or services.

6. Live streaming has many opportunities for monetization

For businesses that generate income by monetizing their websites and social channels, live streaming unveils some immense opportunities. Some of the strategies for monetizing live streaming include:

Charging viewers for access to exclusive live webinars or boot camps
Performing paid product reviews
Obtaining sponsorship from other businesses
Driving traffic to your existing website or affiliate offer
Inserting advertising throughout the broadcast
Promoting your own products
Syndicating the live stream that you create to other publishers
Selling the completed broadcasts to other publishers

That’s a wrap!

As you can see, there are any opportunities available! Most businesses already have the right set of skills and necessary personnel to succeed with live streaming. The key is to get involved with this technology as soon as possible and build up a large audience of like-minded followers.

Have you started using live stream video in your business? What advice would you have for businesses just getting started with this new communication channel. Share your thoughts in the comments below.