5 ways live streaming can transform businesses with real-time engagement and growth

By 2027, the global live streaming market is expected to reach $247 billion (Market Research Future). Live streaming is an increasingly popular and valuable tool that allows for businesses to connect with audiences in new and exciting ways. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch make it incredibly easy to broadcast and engage with people in real time. Here are five ways live streaming can be helpful for businesses:

Increased audience reach: Live streaming allows businesses to reach a larger audience by broadcasting their content in real-time to people around the world. Popular social media networks such as Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn often integrate live streaming into their platforms. This integration allows businesses to leverage their existing social media presence and followers. These live streams can then be shared, promoted, and discovered through social media channels, amplifying the reach and exposure to a wider audience.

Enhanced engagement and interaction: Live streaming offers an interactive experience, enabling businesses to engage with their audience in real time. Viewers can ask questions, leave comments, and participate in polls or surveys, providing immediate feedback. This fosters a sense of community and strengthens the relationship between the business and its customers. This heightened level of engagement attracts a larger audience and keeps them actively involved throughout the broadcast.

Product demonstrations and launches: Live streaming provides an excellent platform for showcasing and demonstrating products or services. Businesses can use live streams to unveil new products, offer exclusive sneak peeks, or provide in-depth tutorials and demonstrations. This real-time visual engagement can generate excitement, boost product awareness, and ultimately drive sales.

Thought leadership and expertise: Live streaming allows businesses to position themselves as thought leaders in their industry. By hosting live webinars, panel discussions, or Q&A sessions, companies can share valuable insights, industry knowledge, and expertise. This not only builds trust and credibility among the audience but also helps establish the business as a go-to resource for information.

Behind-the-scenes access: Live streaming offers a unique opportunity to provide behind-the-scenes glimpses into the business. By showcasing the people, processes, and day-to-day operations, companies can create a sense of transparency and authenticity. This humanizes the brand and fosters a deeper connection with the audience, leading to increased loyalty and customer advocacy.

These are just a few examples of how live streaming can benefit businesses. The key is to tailor livestream content to align with the company’s goals and target audience and to consistently deliver high-quality, engaging broadcasts.

Current Trends in Live Streaming

Live streaming is an ever changing platform that creators use to communicate with their audiences. These streams are constantly developing new standards, audiences constantly expect new unique content, and creators are constantly looking for the best new technology to help them generate their maximum revenue. Since live streaming seems to always be changing, it can be difficult to follow. That is why we are laying out the current active trends in the live streaming community, to help you stay in the loop.

Firstly, it is important to understand the growth of the streaming industry. Between 2019 and 2020, the industry grew by 99%. The following year, the industry experienced  21% growth. This trend in overall growth and development, and consistent increases in revenue is not expected to stop any time soon.

Getting into more specific trends, current audiences are moving away from long stories in live streaming. Enormous numbers of consumers reported to prefer short video content. Platforms like Instagram stories, and TikTok have fully taken advantage of this trend and heavily capitalize on it, dominating the short video content market.

Whether you are interested in learning more about live streaming or not, everyone should be aware of this next trend. Live streamed music is slowly phasing out traditional radio. Whether its creators showing off their playlists, artists releasing new music on live streams, or DJ’s giving a live audience a show, radio stations can not compete with the innovation and versatility of live streaming music. In the next several years, keep an eye out for your favorite radio stations shifting over to live streaming platforms to reach a wider audience.

Radio isn’t the only traditional platform on the decrease. Live television is rapidly losing popularity as well. Many experts believe that live sports will be the first to completely shift over to live streaming platforms. We see it now with many sporting events on ESPN+ and Hulu such as MMA, college sports, and even nationally televised basketball and football games. For many people, this rapid introduction of sports into live streaming platforms has gone unnoticed, so be sure to look out for your favorite programs, and sports to be taken off the air, and added to streaming services.

The last trend I will cover is creator collaboration. Studies definitively show that when creators collaborate in their content, and share the stage, numbers sky rocket. Their combined viewerships and sponsors respond very well to multiple creators working together in their content. This is a trend in live streaming that will be around for a long time as there is a direct correlation from creator content collaboration, and total number of streams and profit.