Choosing which platform you’re going to use depends on how public or private you want your event to be. Some key question sort through first are:
Do you want people to be able to pause and rewind, or join the video late?
Do you want people to be able to replay the video?
Do you want it embedded on a company webage?
Do you want it available on your social media channels?
Do you want it to be immediately available for download after the event?
Will you be selling tickets for the event?
Would you like a chat function for attendees?
Do you want to do Q&A and/or polls with your attendees?
Do you want your stream to go to multiple platforms (eg. Facebook, YouTube, etc.) simultaneously?
Do you want to create a link ahead of time that you can send out to attendees?
Knowing these things will help you choose which platform will work best for you. Let’s look at some examples:
Most convenient if you want to generate traffic on your FB social media page. Ideally your entire audience is already on Facebook and have already liked and subscribed to your page. This works well to reach FB users and gain more followers. Its greatest strength is its strong chat and “like” functions that encourage users to interact for an engaging digital event.
Disclaimer: Facebook only allows 780p which is not a high quality video standard. It also has strict policies that videos must exclusively be live, so any pre-recorded music (even licensed music) has the potential to flag their algorithms and shut down the stream without warning. There is also no back-up stream for unforeseen technical issues.
YOUTUBE
Also offers a great chat function, allowing the audience to interact with the program. It offers streaming in 1080p with relatively good quality video, and has on-demand functionality, allowing users to join late and start from the beginning, pause, or rewind the program. YouTube saves the event as a video that is immediately available for users to watch after the program has ended. If you have already have a YouTube channel with 1000+ subscribers then you have the option of embedding it directly into your own site (such as your organization’s event webpage). YouTube also offers a backup stream.
The difficulty with YouTube is that it is challenging for people to find the live video unless they already have the link.
If you want your audience to be able to easily share the event video then YouTube makes this very easy. However, if you do not want your event widely shared, remember that YouTube is, conversely, easily shared. This can make selling tickets challenging.
STREAM STUDIO’S VIMEO PLATFORM
This presents the widest amount of options to you. With this platform the video player is completely customizable. This removes any third party branding, any links that take the viewer away from the webpage, hosts a variety of options for playback control (including on demand, pause and rewind, customizable frame size), and a wide variety of embeddable options on your site. It offers the highest quality video of the streaming platforms. It’s also a strong option for ticketed events because it is not shareable. With this platform you can do Q&A, polls, and chat. It also records a high quality copy of the stream, immediately available to download after the event ends. It also has a back-up stream so that technical issues won’t stop your event from broadcasting.
Through this platform you have the option of simultaneously multicasting to multiple platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.
This is just a general overview of these three streaming options. Send us a text or email, or give us a call if you’d like to learn more about how these platforms could work for your event.