Southport looks to be rapidly developing its business scene, particularly when it comes to the tech sector. In the week beginning 14 November, a full planning application was submitted to create the Southport Enterprise Arcade, which will cost some £1.5 million. It’ll transform the 15,000 sqft plot on Eastbank Street, and over on Corporation Street, Techedia opened its £1 million headquarters, opening another 75 jobs in tech.
With such advancements being made and businesses being increasingly expected to show progress and the use of any mainstream available tech, existing firms are looking to explore more tech-driven options. Right now, the primary tool that businesses should be looking into is live streaming. It’s woefully underutilised in UK business circles right now, from major companies to small businesses, so getting in now will help to stand out.
It’s the perfect time to start using the tech, get a feel for what audiences expect, find out what products and programs work well, and eventually, have a refined experience by the time others start playing catch up. Here’s a look at live streaming as mainstream tech, how to leverage it through popular platforms, and how to take it under your own brand as a fully-fledged part of your business.
Rise and expanse of live streaming
The most commonplace form of live streaming for a long time was watching live sports online. While this is still the case, with the likes of Fightstream TV offering a way to watch boxing matches that aren’t televised by major broadcasters, its applications and adoption have skyrocketed beyond sports. Twitch, the largest live streaming platform in the world, sees over nine billion hours of its content watched each year, with it being a big part of the market becoming worth nearly $250 million by 2027.
Key to this rise is the increased influence of live-streaming services and platforms in everyday life. Not just for streamers on Twitch, the necessity of live video calls has helped to make live streaming far more usable. Zoom and Twitch have been used in conjunction for work, social, and events that require live tech, including the 24-hour RPG charity event live-streamed in 2021. In April 2020, Zoom was seeing around 300 million people participate in calls each day, and in the UK, Twitch’s mobile monthly active user count eclipsed 1.3 million in July 2021.
Some businesses are already leveraging this newfound adoption of live streaming technology, utilising it to enhance products and services to make the live element the unique selling point. This is what’s happened at the online casino, with the live games section exploding in popularity in recent years. It began with live-streamed games of blackjack and roulette, expanding to newly created live game shows. Played in real-time from the studio via the stream, the likes of Live Boom City and Live Football Card Showdown have transformed the scene.
Making use of the live streaming options available
Social media platforms are the go-to websites and apps to reach customers purely for their massive audiences and the scope for reach. All of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok have live streaming options that will reach followers and those browsing the feeds. Live streams take precedence in the algorithms, so just as you’ll want to attack hashtags, using live streams will also help your standing and reach. Of them all, Facebook Live is usually the top choice for a business because of how popular the platform is for social and shopping.
When planning and using live streaming, it’s not good enough to simply switch the camera on and see who watches: you’ll need a plan. Before you go live, promote it as a big event and even tease or directly offer bonuses or the chance of getting a discount a good week or two beforehand. You’ll also want to make sure that you perform the live stream at the opportune time, which you can leverage live analytics to home in on. During the event, people will expect you to be engaging and helpful, as that’s one of the perks of viewing live.
You don’t necessarily have to do your live events via one of these social media platforms, however. There are more live shopping sites popping up, especially following the success of Taobao Live in China. It made $7.5 billion in transaction value within 30 minutes of a special event in 2020. Live auction marketplace Whatnot and beauty master class platform Ulta Beauty are also fine examples of leveraging going live to promote sales and customer engagement without social media platforms.
You could go even further: hosting live streams on your website. Online video platforms like Dacast have been created to allow you to host your own customised live streams on your website. What’s important is that you come up with the list of features that you want a live stream to have, as well as how you’ll be able to monetise the live streams. A traditional approach would be to advertise, but as a professional business, you’ll want to think about live purchase options and direct links that appear during the stream.
Live streaming technology looks to be the next big thing in eCommerce, and even small businesses that work out ways to leverage it to promote and sell products and services now will benefit greatly in the years to come.
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