Live-streaming is a relatively new form of content creation. It offers a real time connection to your audience, which is highly lucative for upping engagement rates. YouTube Live is a free tool offered to all Google and YouTube users that allows up to ten broadcasters to participate in a livestream simultaneously. Once you go live, anyone with the link can view your livestream. As well, YouTube will promote the livestream by making it one of the first things to pop up when someone searches your channel. Other features include viewing invitations, a live chat room where streamers can engage directly with their audience , and event scheduling. YouTube's platform is perfect for livestreaming events, and offers a simple setup with a massive audience potential. While other social media platforms (such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) have already introduced livestreaming, YouTube is rather late to the party. Thus, they are looking to promote live-streaming, which can be beneficial to channels who choose to use it.
Sherrill Mane,
"It's time for planners to stop thinking of smartpones, and more like personalized TVs.
More than 90% of viewers tell us they watch YouTube on a mobile device at home - sometimes in the living room, often in the bedroom and the most popular time to watch YouTube on the TV and a mobile device is primetime".
From IPSOS US
According to the article "3 behavioural and cultural shifts we’ve seen on YouTube — and what they mean for your marketing", written by Google Thinking, marketers need to pay attention on these 3 emerging trends:
1) Viewers are watching global cultural moments in real time
2) Local content is going global with the rise of social media
3)The line between traditional celebrities and new media stars is blurring
To the right is a chart of leading video platforms which internet users in the United States have watched and actively engage with live streaming video.
Channels can also utilize YouTube Premiere - a live-streaming 'event' where the audience can watch a video as it is released together in ‘real time’. The premiere comes with promotable webpage link.
Current live streams we analyzed saw:
High engagement / Average VidIQ score / Average SEO / Low # of viewers. This may be due to the difficulty of paying attention for extended period of time, and engaging with the strea during it's entire length. To combat this, we suggest streamers be prepared for viewers to jump ‘in and out’ of live stream, and to decrease lag-times (periods where nothing is going on during a stream) as much as possible.
1) Google search campaigns - SEO set up to match with popular search queries related to comedic videos
2) Searching keywords that led to CC YouTube videos
3) TrueView and Lightbox ads to extend the reach of the content
4) Cross-promotion of content on different channels and platforms
63% of people aged 18-34 watch live streaming content regularly.
By 2020, live streaming is expected to account for 82% of all internet traffic. Using a live video to promote a product brings a human touch to digital marketing, according to 63% of people.
To reinvigorate the Comedy Central channel and engage more with the target audience, we propose Comedy Central launch a weekly live-stream show featuring guests battling against each other via comedic improv. The guests (which can incorporate traditioal celebrities as well as new media stars) will be presented with a scenario in which they are to improv act out as best they can. Using the YouTube live-stream chat room, live viewers can vote to determine a winner. This will increase engagement, as live-streams have been shown to have high engagement rates. Furthermore, since YouTube is looking to promote live-strea,s and Comedy Central has not utilized this feature yet, we believe this will draw more viewers back to the channel. Additionally, the live-stream will be saved as a video on CC's channel, which will allow for rewatchability and potential monetization via ads.