Unlike other types of online interaction, live video streaming allows for more spontaneous video production and interactive content consumption, which make brands appear more honest, real, and likable.

One of YouTube’s newest offerings, YouTube Live, makes this possible. As other big platforms enhance their Live feature, more and more brands are seeing the importance of using live streaming to reach their audience.

Be competitive and stay relevant in your field by using YouTube Live to grow and engage your audience. It’s an effective way to connect with your viewers and now it’s easy with YouTube. Add in a video Views campaign and you’ll be growing your subscribers in no time at all!

One strategy that can produce a phenomenal outcome is buying YouTube Views. Bought YouTube Views can result in higher View velocity coupled with a high number of Views for your videos, which will attract attention from authentic viewers. This will get your videos ranking higher on YouTube and Google.

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How it Works

YouTube Live helps you make more meaningful connections with your viewers because of its real-time chat function. Your viewers can leave comments during your event and you can return chat messages too. It takes “interactive YouTube video” to a whole new level.

Recently, YouTube also launched SuperChat, where creators can earn money from paid pinned comments by their fans. Also, if your channel is enabled for monetization, you can earn money off your live streams.

There are three ways you can go live on YouTube:

• Stream Now
• Events
• Mobile

Stream Now and Events work the same way. Your broadcast will begin once you start sending content and stop only when you stop streaming from your encoder. The only difference is that with Events, you have more control as you can preview everything before you go Live. Mobile, on the other hand, allows you to stream straight from the main YouTube app.

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You can delete or make your live streams private after they aired if you wish. The default setting archives your live streams as a video that will appear on your channel’s video list.

To start streaming, verify your account via phone. Once verified, you can enable Live Streaming if you have no community guideline infringements or copyright issues.

On a desktop, go to Creator Studio Tools and then select Live Streaming from the menu on the left. On mobile, from the YouTube app, go to Create a Live Stream.

How to Create a Live Stream

Before you can Live Stream on YouTube, you need to download an encoding software. An encoder is a program that compresses the audio and video content of your stream, so that it can be delivered to the YouTube platform where it is coded into lower bit rates.

In plain English, it makes the size and video quality of your file compatible with YouTube so it will run smoothly whether it’s viewed on desktop, tablet, or mobile.

It all sounds complicated but really, all you have to do is choose a program from YouTube’s supported encoder software list, download it, and everything will be automatically set-up for you.

Once that’s done, just choose how you want to Live Stream and whether it’s Stream Now or Events, fill out all the required info, and start streaming!

Benefits and Challenges

There are more benefits than challenges in using YouTube Live for your business. Live streaming on YouTube can bring your business a range of benefits, because you can:

• create an intimate experience for your audience while broadening your reach.
• encourage engagement because of its real-time, interactive nature.
• find insights from real-time stats and get feedback on how your messages are being received.
• save on cost and time because there’s no post-editing required.
• connect with and engage your audience in an affordable and effective manner.

In contrast, there are only a few major challenges to broadcasting live. The biggest challenge you have to contend with is your and your viewers’ Internet speed.

Your biggest problems are video stuttering, stalling, and audio-video sync, among some others. While YouTube’s encoder aims to optimize your videos and minimize buffering, it does not always guarantee that your audience will not experience this:

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Since YouTube Live happens “live”, there’s also the problem of drawing in an audience for your stream. This challenge, however, can easily be solved by pre-planning your event and cross-promoting it on all your social media channels.

You don’t have to have an event running before you can use YouTube Live. There are many ways you can include it in your marketing campaigns. Let’s take a look at some of the finest ways brands have used YouTube Live for their business.

Ways to use YouTube Live

Aside from broadcasting live events, you can use YouTube Live for many other purposes. You can do product demonstrations or tutorials for your services, interview industry experts to provide value to your audience, broadcast behind-the-scenes or practice performances if you’re an artist, host a Q&A, and more!

There are no hard and fast rules to what kind of content you can broadcast live, so be creative and take inspiration from these brands that have successfully broadcasted on YouTube live.

Right Side Broadcasting Network

Right Side Broadcasting Network is a startup online news company, born out of the realization of its founder and CEO of the need for online coverage of Donald Trump’s public speeches.

Their streams found millions of eager viewers on YouTube and their channel instantly became popular. The channel now has over 250K subscribers. Not bad for one that launched barely two years ago. Today they sometimes live-stream their office 24/7, in case anybody cares to watch.

Live stream news and current events, if you can find a connection with your brand and if it reflects your brand values.

Red Bull

Red Bull, one of the many innovative brands on YouTube, received even more popularity on the platform when they live-streamed the world’s longest freefall by Felix Baumgartner, which was dubbed Red Bull Stratos.

The mission holds three world records and with over 8 million live-stream Views, it also holds the record for the most live-stream viewers for any event. The video, in total, has over 41 million Views and counting.

On YouTube, you can attract a bigger audience if your videos have a high View count, as people will instinctively pick popular videos over less popular ones. In marketing, they call that social proof. Get that social proof for your videos and become more attractive by buying YouTube Views.

Read our reviews of companies that offer high-retention, high-quality YouTube Views before you buy, so you can augment your organic marketing and kickstart your growth on the platform immediately.

General Electric

GE is one of the very first brands that have fearlessly adopted live video streaming to evolve their marketing strategies. In one of their YouTube Live campaigns, they tapped into the influence of creator Sally Le Page in a behind-the-scenes interview with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and scientist Bill Nye.

You too can try YouTube Live, and feature content that isn’t strictly about your brand but connects well with your brand. Be creative, and you can make almost anything fit.

Live Stream before it’s Too Late!

YouTube Live can be very daunting but you shouldn’t let that stop you from giving it a try and pushing your brand to the forefront of technology. Unless you keep up with the nonstop changes in the digital marketing world, you risk your brand becoming irrelevant.

So live stream now before it’s too late. Surely, the benefits you’ll get in terms of growth of your Followers, Views, and video engagement matters more than any live-streaming challenge you may encounter.