Live Video in 2020: Hottest Trends and Tips from Stephanie Liu

Live video has been a big trend for a while now, and it doesn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. According to studies, 80% of consumers would rather watch live videos than read a blog and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts.

Live streams are so popular for a reason: they feel more authentic and “real” than prerecorded content. On top of that, live viewers have an opportunity to contribute to the conversation and get their questions answered by an expert in real-time.

As the demand for live streaming increases, more and more online platforms introduce live video features. To get on top of the latest live video marketing trends, we talked to Stephanie Liu, a digital strategist, live streaming expert, and the host of “Lights, Camera, Live“ show. 

Live Video Best Practices

According to Stephanie, some of the live video best practices for the upcoming year are:

• Developing a pre-event promotion plan
• Setting a content distribution plan

Pre-event promotion plan

A well-thought-out promotion plan is needed to get people buzzing before you actually hit the
“go live” button.

If people don’t know, they won’t go.

As you’re planning the live, it’s important to let your audience know what kind of information you’re going to deliver. Make sure that pre-event promotion activities make the following questions clear for your potential viewers: Why is the topic you’re covering important? What are you teaching? How is this going to impact your viewers and what is going to happen if they don’t follow your advice?

Here are the most effective pre-event promotion tactics:

• Engage with your audience before the event. One of the sure-fire ways to do that is creating a Facebook event page where you’ll be able to communicate with the viewers before the live event.
• Prepare a lead magnet exclusive for the viewers of your live event. Spread the word about it to provide additional motivation for tuning in.
• Create teaser videos announcing the upcoming live event. Use a tool like Wave.video to do that easily! You can make a video from scratch or use one of the Event Promotion templates – it’s up to you. Here’s an example:

Edit this template

Content distribution plan

Even if the streaming is over, your job is not done yet. The recording of your live video has great potential – if you distribute it wisely.

Stephanie Liu suggests leveraging the following content distribution tactics:

• Share the recording through multiple channels of communication with your audience: on social media, your blog, via newsletter, etc.
• Create GIFs out of the funniest parts of your video and share them on social media to attract attention.
• Repurpose your video into other pieces of content: blog posts, images, short videos, etc. Pay special attention to the engagement graph – big spikes indicate sections of the video that viewers found the most compelling. These sections will make great material for other pieces of content.
• Make sure to answer all the questions in the comment section and check back for the new ones.
• Check if the description of your video is relevant and informative, especially when multistreaming to several platforms simultaneously. The description needs to be customized for every other platform.

Live Video Trends to Watch in 2020

Stephanie Liu advised paying special attention to these three live video trends:

1. Chatbots. Leveraging chatbots is a new “trendy” way to get more views and shares on your live video content.
2. Stories. Stories continue to be a monumental tool for promoting live videos before and after the actual streaming.
3. TikTok. One can’t argue that this platform became a real breakthrough for the video industry in the past few years. And keeping up with the latest trends is essential for life streamers!

Bonus: Best Platforms and Tools for Live Streaming

With so many live video platforms and tools out there, how do you know which to use? To make your choice easier, Stephanie shared her favorite platforms and tools for live streaming:

• Ecamm Live – an all-in-one live streaming production platform for Mac. 
• StreamYard – a powerful browser-based live streaming platform. 

When it comes to choosing the best social media platforms for live streaming, Stephanie suggests focusing on your particular audience and where it “lives”.

So, are you planning to make use of live videos in 2020? Which tip is the most relevant to your business? Feel free to share in the comments below!