Live-streaming has rapidly developed into a popular form of entertainment for the masses. Not only is it usually free to view – powered by a cycle of adverts and sponsor breaks – but it’s also a very varied space where people discuss and showcase things that they’re passionate about. So, many people have decided to share their own expertise and experiences through live-streaming.
To inspire your dive into the world of live-streaming and ensure that you have the tools you need to hit the ground running, here are some top tips.
Exploring the Live Streaming Range
Whether you’d like to have a channel for business purposes that can gain traction or you really want to break out as the next top individual live-streaming star, it’s always good to have a look at what’s working out there now. While you may be doing it for fun, adhering to the key process of performing a competitive analysis will help you to make the best possible stream from the get-go. It can even help you to gain inspiration for how to improve on what’s working now.
The key isn’t so much to look at the content or the focus of the would-be competitors, but rather their presentation and setup. You can just wander onto live-streaming platforms and check out the most popular channels. Take note of their tone, how they interact with their audience, what they do to stay topical, and if they have events or special occasions scheduled and promoted. For these individual streamers, a lot of the appeal for audiences is in their authenticity and charisma, which you’ll likely spot during their live streams.
As well as checking out how individual streamers operate, it’d be worth seeing how businesses have tapped into the technology. Boasting extra studio shine, these live products have been refined to make the most entertaining experience possible. As an example of this, you can turn to the online bingo sites with live games available. There are the likes of Quantum Roulette and Sakura Fortune Live with their professional croupiers, but you’ll get a better course for live interactions from the bubbly live bingo rooms. It’s worth seeing how these hosts manage to run the games procedurally and still manage to interact with the audience and keep them engaged between rounds.
Buying the Right Tech is Essential
Something that’s well worth understanding about the live-streaming audience is that a very good portion of viewers are there to listen or to have the stream on in the background. This means that your audio is the priority. Bad audio can quickly kill a live stream, so it’s good to look for one of the new wave releases that’s tailored to streamers. Among the best microphones specialised for live streamers are the Blue Yeti and SteelSeries Alias.
Next, look to lighting. A great camera can be next to pointless without the right lighting, but good lighting can elevate a somewhat subpar camera. The square, almost dentist-style Elgato Key Light Mini has become very popular of late, but many still prefer the circular lights, like the Lume Cube Ring. While your laptop may come with a camera, it’s best to buy a better one, which will likely take you to a Razer of Logitech product.
The other bit of hardware are more subjective to your preferences and what you want to run. You might want a hefty desktop to run games and high-quality video, for example. You’ll want a mixer and a controller for your live-streaming set-up and possibly an external capture card if you wish to dabble in edited video later.
Should you want to get yourself in the live-streaming game, consider looking around at what’s out there in all forms of live-streaming to get some inspiration, and then invest in some decent kit to get going.