UPDATED 24TH JULY 2024
One of the most important choices you will need to make when planning your live streamed event is which platform you broadcast to.
This will largely be governed by where your main audience is based and what content you are streaming. There are many available platforms which offer their own restrictions and benefits.
A BESPOKE EVENT WEBPAGE PROS: Fully bespoke. Matches your website with colours, logo, font. Can be updated by our team instantly. Video and audio quality are delivered in the highest quality. Broadcast is bonded using multiple broadband connections providing 100% reliability. You can add interactive elements, custom chat options, specialised multimedia content and downloads via PDF's. This content is often also mixed into the broadcast meaning it's all viewable to the audience.
No limited viewers with no limitations on bandwidth. Detailed viewer analytics. Their location, viewing time and viewing device etc.
CONS: Prices from £450. Requires user to go to a website and not use a platform like zoom or teams.
CAN WE PLAY PUBLISHED MUSIC?: Yes and we have a PRS licence to cover this.
VIDEO DELAY: Variable down to very low latency.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: 10 hours per stream.
GEO RESTRICTIONS: No.
DOWNLOAD BROADCAST AFTERWARDS: Yes and the page can stay live for as long as you like.
You can see examples of these pages here.
The options available from the providers below change fairly often so do keep an eye on them.
FACEBOOK PROS: Free, reach wide audience, has live polling feature, has PPV (Pay per view).
CONS: Cannot stream published music. Does not allow for you to control the area the viewer is watching and add, your branding, other downloads etc. Viewers can get distracted.
From 10th June 2024, your account must be at least 60 days old and must have at least 100 followers. To go live from a Page, you need to have Facebook access or task access to create content.
CAN WE PLAY PUBLISHED MUSIC?: No.
VIDEO DELAY: Variable down to low latency.
CAPTIONS: Has auto generated captions.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: 8 hours if you require stream recorded by Facebook, if not unlimited.
GEO RESTRICTIONS: Yes, you can restrict viewers by area.
DOWNLOAD BROADCAST AFTERWARDS: No.
Many companies have a healthy following on Facebook so streaming here not only reaches them directly on their news feed, it also allows them to share the broadcast directly with all their followers.
Facebook also benefits from a wide range of interest groups and pages and streams can be crossposting to other pages.
YOUTUBE PROS: Free, reach wide audience, monetisation if account is enabled.
CONS: Cannot stream published music, may not be best platform for your subscribers/followers.
Does not allow for you to control the area the viewer is watching and add, your branding, other downloads etc. Viewers can get distracted.
CAN WE PLAY PUBLISHED MUSIC?: No.
VIDEO DELAY: Variable down to low latency.
CAPTIONS: Has auto generated captions.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: Approx 12 hours if you require stream recorded by YouTube, if not unlimited.
DOWNLOAD BROADCAST AFTERWARDS: yes.
GEO RESTRICTIONS: No.
If you've already built an audience on YouTube then it may well be a good place for you to stream to. Building followers here takes time and you may find Facebook has more networking and sharing opportunities for your stream.
YouTube is part of Google, so you will benefit from their excellent analytics. It is thought that videos streamed to YouTube will also massively benefit your SEO on Google.
X (FORMALLY TWITTER)
PROS: Reach huge audience.
CONS: You must have a premium account AND be verified. From £9.60 per month (As of 14/7/24). Cannot stream published music. Does not allow for you to control the area the viewer is watching and add, your branding, other downloads etc. Viewers can get distracted. Videos are only saved for 24 hours unless you add "#save" in the title.
CAN WE PLAY PUBLISHED MUSIC?: No.
VIDEO DELAY: Approx 25 seconds.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: Broadcasts scheduled to start later are restricted to a six hour maximum duration but ad hoc lives have no limit.
GEO RESTRICTIONS: Yes, you can restrict viewers by area.
DOWNLOAD BROADCAST AFTERWARDS: No, it is not possible to download an entire broadcast in Media Studio. If you’re just looking to choose specific parts of broadcast, you can use LiveCut in order to make clips, which are downloadable. You can download all of your broadcasts on X via your data archive. It’s not possible to download individual broadcasts from your account. We’re in the process of making changes to currently stored broadcasts.
INSTAGRAM PROS: Free, reach huge audience.
CONS: You have to ensure you account is 'Pro". Read more here about to stream using pro software.
Does not allow for you to control the area the viewer is watching and add, your branding, other downloads etc. Viewers can get distracted.
VIDEO RATIO: 9x16 so widescreen turned on it's side. This means all your action has to happen in the middle of a normal widescreen image. This also means that we have to stream this as its own broadcast if streaming to multiple platforms in widescreen.
VIDEO DELAY: Approx 10 seconds.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: 1 hour.
DOWNLOAD BROADCAST AFTERWARDS: Yes using live producer.
PROS: Free, reach wide business audience.
CONS: Relies on existing contacts and followers. LinkedIn Live allows eligible members and pages to broadcast live video content to a LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn page, or event. Does not allow for you to control the area the viewer is watching and add, your branding, other downloads etc. Viewers can get distracted. Limited HD quality to 720p up to 3.5mbps so image quality is not ideal.
VIDEO DELAY: Approx 7 seconds.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: 4 hours.
DOWNLOAD BROADCAST AFTERWARDS: Yes.
Read our dedicated article on live streaming to LinkedIn here.
TikTok
PROS: Free, reach wide audience
CONS: Tiktok RTMP broadcast option is only available for those, who have 1000 plus active followers.
Tiktok does not automatically approve your request, once you reach 1000 active users. Your account will go under review and monitored by the team members then they will allow you to have these options.
Read more on our dedicated article here.
VIDEO RATIO: 9x16 so widescreen turned on it's side. This means all your action has to happen in the middle of a normal widescreen image. This also means that we have to stream this as its own broadcast if streaming to multiple platforms in widescreen.
Read more on this on our dedicated article here.
ZOOM PROS: Streams can be monetised, others can join with their webcam. Good audience polls and Q&A.
CONS: Cannot stream published music, can be limited picture quality. Full webinar functionality can be very expensive. On-demand event version is not great quality.
VIDEO DELAY: Zero.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
It offers excellent quality for pro video and zero delay. As a platform it can be over complicated for users and us techies. Read more here.
MICROSOFT TEAMS PROS: Private and direct to your business colleagues, RTMP option.
CONS: Paid for service with limited audience reach.
VIDEO DELAY: Zero.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
VIMEO PROS: Allows us to lock the stream to your website ensuring no one else can view. Allows to password protect a stream. Allows us to re-stream to other destinations for you. Can stream all music. Provides very high quality image and audio quality. Has live chat and polling options.
CONS: Has little opportunity to build subscribers/followers.
CAN WE PLAY PUBLISHED MUSIC?: Yes.
VIDEO RATIO: 16:9 widescreen.
BROADCAST DURATION LIMIT: 10 hours.
We love Vimeo and use it for most of our streams.
TWITCH
Twitch is very much still a gaming streaming platform but due to its specific audience has also seen music, and talk show streams in recent years. It's not a platform we are very familiar with as many of our clients choose to stream in other places.
We can stream to any platform that accepts an RTMP or webcam input. You can always speak to us about the best platform for your event.
Do we need a PRS music licence to broadcast to these platforms? Read our article here.
The latest version of this article was written on 24/7/24 but please check each suppliers offerings yourself before using them.
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