How to Make Your Live Streaming More Professional

When a video is streamed directly on the internet in real-time without it being recorded and edited first, that is known as Live Streaming. Now things such as social media videos, video game streams, TV broadcasts, etc. are often live-streamed.

In regular streaming, the content is created, recorded, and edited first before uploading it on the internet, whereas in live streaming, the content is presented to the audience at the same moment it is being created.

Videoconferencing technologies such as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts work on live communication (RTC) protocols rather than protocols that use one or more live stream broadcasts.

Improving Your Live Streams

A lot of businesses are getting into live streaming nowadays, and it is generating a lot of revenue. Live streaming is the best way to promote your brand at the moment, it has the highest rate of engagement among all other content types. Live streaming is important for brands and individuals because of the level of interaction it offers. You would struggle to get this kind of interaction with other marketing strategies.

Live streaming needs to be polished and professional to keep your audience engaged and impress them. No one wants their live streaming quality below expectations. Here are some tips on how to make your live streaming more professional.

Select A Professional Video Hosting Service

Professionalism has many meanings. The most important is branding. Most big brands do not use social media platforms for their live streaming, and if they do, it is only a small strategy of collecting an audience.

Instead, you should use proper video streaming platforms. Using such a platform allows you to host video content on your websites. Your content has no labels, including YouTube or any other corporation. These are sometimes called white label services. You can add your corporate branding‌ and achieve overall local integration for maximum professionalism.

It has some other effects. When it comes to social media platforms, it is possible to embed them on your website. Although, when someone clicks on a live streaming video or link, they are sent to a social media website. This increases their page visits, views and they get the revenue out of it.

When you embed with a white label service, it will be rotated. Clicks can lead to your website. You can add your money-making options. There are several other benefits to streaming live video, including professional platforms:

• Strong and safe security
• 24/7 customer service
• Money making features
• No one can steal your broadcasted content, you can maintain exclusive rights to your content.

Create Excellent Content

Make sure to create good and engaging content to remain professional. You could be broadcasting any sport, meetings, product launches, training videos, video games, or any other form of video, but your content needs to be excellent and engaging, so it does not bore or disinterest the audience.

Any business that wants to stream live videos needs to create good quality content. If your content is not engaging and of good quality, the audience won’t watch it, it will be of no use then. Invest in your content creation to make it excellent and worth watching. Remember, if your content is excellent and the audience loves it, the rest of the things get much easier.

Improve Your Set Design

Always use an improved set to make your streaming look professional. Consider investing in a personal studio to do your live streams there, but if you don’t have enough resources for setting up a personal studio, here is what you can do:

• Make sure you have a great background. Check your background and frame for your shoot, remove any distracting, noisy things and make your space visible and clean. You can add a few interesting but simple items, so it doesn’t look too bland.
• Add some space between you and the background and between you and the camera, not a lot of space but enough to look clean and professional.
• Create a good lighting source. Good lighting will improve the whole stream, it will add depth and dimension to your video. Try the standard three-point lighting for the best results, this includes the Key light, backlight, and fill light. Invest in natural daylight tone for your lights to avoid bluish skin tone. Also, refrain from relying on natural light as it cannot be controlled and might create a bad impression.

Use Professional Equipment

Increase the quality of your stream by using high-quality equipment. These include cameras, audio recorders, microphones, and encoders.

Even though low-quality cameras can produce decent-looking videos in good light, but they produce blurry and poor colour quality videos in low light. If you are on a restricted budget then to look professional and to maximize your video quality, consider using High Definition (HD) web cam like the Logitech Brio.

Your audio needs to be the best quality as this is the most important thing in your live stream, even more important than the videos. Invest properly in audio equipment, it can be a bit expensive, but it is worth investing in these. The built-in microphones of your computers and laptops are of bad quality, and using them will only create miscommunication between you and your audience. Use a good quality microphone like the ones used by professionals. Keep your microphone close to your mouth, so the audio is loud and clear.

Internet connection is also a very important element for live streaming, it is the first thing you need to look at. You need to have a great internet connection, make sure you have a fast internet broadband service, so your video quality remains good. Find the spot with the strongest signals and create your live stream setup there. The faster the speed of your broadband is, the better quality stream you will produce.

Setup Your Encoder Accurately

Use the correct encoder settings. An encoder converts your video into a live stream format. Proper instructions are required to make this claim:

• First, you need to connect to your live video host servers. Next, you need to select the resolution, frame rate, and bit-rate for your stream. These dimensions may vary depending on how much internet bandwidth you have.
• Additionally, you can stream at multiple bit rates at once. It allows you to reach people with different internet speeds and give everyone as much quality as possible.

Set your camera

On your camera, you need to change settings such as resolution and frame rate. Look at the menu settings for your camera. In general, the resolution should be as high as possible, as high as your internet connection supports.

As for the frame rate, the recommended setting is 30 fps (frames per second) for most subjects. If you shoot sports, 60 fps is recommended. Higher frames capture faster plays completely.

Fix your audio

When it comes to your audio gear, you can also change the settings. Usually, you can choose the recording pattern frequency to find out the quality. The most common frequency is 44.1 kHz. If you want the best quality, then record at 96 kHz.

Bit depth is also important. 16-bit is common and captures a lot of data. If you plan to edit the audio from your recording in the future, you can record it in 24-bit.

Video On Demand

When you stream live videos, it’s easier to focus on the live event. For professionals, events do not end as soon as your live stream is over, you should continue to engage with the audience.

The video-on-demand (VOD) version of your live event should be available as soon as possible. This way, those who want to watch the broadcast again can do so. Also, some websites might want to stream your VOD version of your stream on their channels and webpage, this will promote your business more.

Test Before Going Live

Your live stream should not face any technical problems, there should be no lagging, no connectivity, or quality issues. If this happens, then there is nothing less professional than having these technical problems. The stream should work without problems.

When doing tests, you want to be comprehensive. Get the test broadcast online and ask a few dozen co-workers to tune in. Then, try to find any bugs. Broadcast with high quality. Change other settings. Try out the tools you will use in your actual live stream. Check any backup devices you have.

You need to do this a few times. The more important the stream, the more dedicatedly you should try it.

You just need to be focused and put in a bit more effort when trying to make your stream professional, it is not that hard and confusing to understand this and apply it. The tips mentioned above are enough for your stream to look professional and for your audience to appreciate your work.