×
Live streaming is the hot new feature in social media. But it wasn’t long ago that your only live streaming choices were paid or free with commercials or audience and duration limitations. The free choices were all based on the “freemium” model where they’d interrupt your stream with ads, at random times, or they’d restrict your stream based on duration or number of viewers to entice you to pay for what actually made them money, the paid service.
This all changed when YouTube entered the live streaming market. Owned by Google, they make money when more people watch, so they were motivated to get as many people to watch as possible. Sure, YouTube is funded by ads, but not ads that interrupt your live stream.
There us often a cost, though. Because YouTube has been top of mind for large copyright holders, like the movie, music, and television industries, they err on the side of caution when it comes to copyrighted content. Most of the time, this makes sense, but for churches that have the appropriate licenses, this can prove annoying, at least and can result in having their accounts suspended at worst. This could be solved with better customer service, but for now, tech support is not YouTube’s strong point .
Likewise, FaceBook live streaming can give you a vast audience and free live streaming, but with the cost of having to deal with the occasional unwarranted take down. Like YouTube, finding a person at FaceBook to talk to and show your live streaming license to, is almost impossible.
While these two are the leaders in the free live streaming market, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are coming on strong.
What’s different about these three is two-fold, the temporary nature of their live streaming offerings and the method of live streaming. ‘
Hovering between the two types of live streaming, the YouTube/FaceBook type and the Instagram/Snapchat type is Twitter. While it’s possible to find a link to past live streaming events on Twitter, that’s not really how people use it. Certain media outlets and content partners are able to live stream well-produced video, but not regular Joes (or churches), like us; we’re relegated to live streaming from mobile only. So, Twitter is both temporary and permanent, both well-produced and mobile only.
On the other end of the spectrum, Instagram and Snapchat know that in a day or a week, etc. no one is going to care about the puppy you thought was cute or the ironic sign that you saw on your way to somewhere else. They’re unabashedly temporary. For such temporary streams, why would you want to create a big production? So, they’re not only “mobile-first”, but “mobile-only.”
If you’re trying to live stream your church service, in its entirety, this presents a problem. Some copyrighted songs will get your stream pulled from YouTube or FaceBook. See link to a Church Production story on the subject: You don’t want to put a lot of work into a live stream to have it disappear almost immediately or have someone hold up their phone in the middle of church for an hour to get video onto Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat. So, what do you do?
Make a live streaming strategy that takes the strengths and weaknesses of each platform into account.
YouTube is great for archived content. Perhaps you won’t get 100,000 views of your live stream, but you will get more than you would by putting an embedded stream on your website alone. YouTube is better for the “long-tail.” People will come and watch your church’s videos for years after you produce them, so a live stream that gets 10 views now, may eventually get 1000 times that…or more.
While the list is constantly changing, you could even view the YouTube Copyright policies page as an aid in planning your worship services. Knowing which songs will cause problems and which won’t might illuminate your planning. You don’t want to quench the Spirit, making the will of God subservient to YouTube, but it’s good information to know, especially in light of the apostle Paul’s admonition to obey governing authorities in Romans 13.
Since YouTube visitors discover videos, not only from those channels they subscribe to, but through search and recommendations, using YouTube can also be a good way to increase your influence.
In contrast, right now, FaceBook live streaming isn't the best way to get new people to discover your church. FaceBook does like to promote live video, though. With so many people on FaceBook, the vast majority of your friends and people within their spheres of influence are reachable in one way or another.
You may think your live videos are accessible to the public, but live, they’re not. You can’t even, right now, at least, boost them with ads.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a way to expand your reach on FaceBook and therefore expand your live reach. You just need to think about it from a long-term perspective, not just “go live and expect people to come.”
This can be done in a few different ways.
Start with the people who already go to your church. Get them to like and share things from your page as much as possible to get their friends to engage with your church. Anything that generates buzz from your church and gets people to like posts from your page and share them with others can potentially add those who engage with the posts to the list of people you can reach.
Traditionally, churches have been hesitant to engage in marketing and advertising, but start by getting a FaceBook advertising pixel on your website today. This is a little piece of code that keeps track of everyone who visits your website. For up to 180 days after they visit, they’re on your list and you can advertise to them.
Doing some advanced audience segmentation, you could try and get page likes from people who've visited your website, live in the area, and aren’t a part of your membership list (assuming you have their emails) or email newsletter. Once they like the page, they’re much more likely to see the live stream, so this is worth doing.
For Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, plan to live stream different content.
Sure, they’re not great for long-form or archived streaming, but they can be great for little snippets.
Encourage people who use these platforms to share exceptional moments from church life. Do you have fun outings with the men’s ministry? Mention to your people that they might want to show that on Twitter. Do the teens serve in your community? Remind them to show that on Snapchat. Do the college students have a funny program they do from time to time? Encourage them to put funny bits from it on Instagram.
To get the word out with these three, don’t think about live streaming just one production that your church does, but a thousand little clips that people in your congregation share. You can train and encourage them, but think of this as more like evangelism, individual and reaching each of their friends, than a worship service, corporate and happening at a set time and place.
Don’t forget, either, that each of these services tend to be frequented by a sub population in your community. Instagram and Snapchat tend to skew younger than Twitter. So you might not want to encourage the senior adults to show their outings there as much as you encourage the high school seniors to. Twitter has a great urban population, so your Bluegrass music fellowship might be less well-received there.
That’s not to say that you should assume that any one group is the only one on a given platform. Just keep it in mind and put resources (even attention is a resource) primarily where they can be most effective and have the most success (which you should always experiment with because the people using these platforms is constantly changing).
Sometimes, though, none of these solutions are right for your situation. If you want an online campus that you control, if you want a place where you know that your congregation and their friends can always find your live stream, or if you want to know that when there’s a problem, you can call a person, a paid service might be a better way to go than any already mentioned in this article. Sure, there are free choices, but they all come with limitations that a paid service doesn’t have.
You’re not going to get the long-tail reach of YouTube or the immediate surge of engagement of FaceBook, but you will get a reliable link that you can hand out and help when you need it most. That, in and of itself is worth something.
So, who should you use to live stream? It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and the resources you have. Don’t try and fit a square peg in a round hole. Use each service with its strengths and limitations in mind.
This all changed when YouTube entered the live streaming market. Owned by Google, they make money when more people watch, so they were motivated to get as many people to watch as possible. Sure, YouTube is funded by ads, but not ads that interrupt your live stream.
There us often a cost, though. Because YouTube has been top of mind for large copyright holders, like the movie, music, and television industries, they err on the side of caution when it comes to copyrighted content. Most of the time, this makes sense, but for churches that have the appropriate licenses, this can prove annoying, at least and can result in having their accounts suspended at worst. This could be solved with better customer service, but for now, tech support is not YouTube’s strong point .
Likewise, FaceBook live streaming can give you a vast audience and free live streaming, but with the cost of having to deal with the occasional unwarranted take down. Like YouTube, finding a person at FaceBook to talk to and show your live streaming license to, is almost impossible.
While these two are the leaders in the free live streaming market, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are coming on strong.
What’s different about these three is two-fold, the temporary nature of their live streaming offerings and the method of live streaming. ‘
Hovering between the two types of live streaming, the YouTube/FaceBook type and the Instagram/Snapchat type is Twitter. While it’s possible to find a link to past live streaming events on Twitter, that’s not really how people use it. Certain media outlets and content partners are able to live stream well-produced video, but not regular Joes (or churches), like us; we’re relegated to live streaming from mobile only. So, Twitter is both temporary and permanent, both well-produced and mobile only.
On the other end of the spectrum, Instagram and Snapchat know that in a day or a week, etc. no one is going to care about the puppy you thought was cute or the ironic sign that you saw on your way to somewhere else. They’re unabashedly temporary. For such temporary streams, why would you want to create a big production? So, they’re not only “mobile-first”, but “mobile-only.”
If you’re trying to live stream your church service, in its entirety, this presents a problem. Some copyrighted songs will get your stream pulled from YouTube or FaceBook. See link to a Church Production story on the subject: You don’t want to put a lot of work into a live stream to have it disappear almost immediately or have someone hold up their phone in the middle of church for an hour to get video onto Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat. So, what do you do?
Make a live streaming strategy that takes the strengths and weaknesses of each platform into account.
YouTube is great for archived content. Perhaps you won’t get 100,000 views of your live stream, but you will get more than you would by putting an embedded stream on your website alone. YouTube is better for the “long-tail.” People will come and watch your church’s videos for years after you produce them, so a live stream that gets 10 views now, may eventually get 1000 times that…or more.
While the list is constantly changing, you could even view the YouTube Copyright policies page as an aid in planning your worship services. Knowing which songs will cause problems and which won’t might illuminate your planning. You don’t want to quench the Spirit, making the will of God subservient to YouTube, but it’s good information to know, especially in light of the apostle Paul’s admonition to obey governing authorities in Romans 13.
Since YouTube visitors discover videos, not only from those channels they subscribe to, but through search and recommendations, using YouTube can also be a good way to increase your influence.
In contrast, right now, FaceBook live streaming isn't the best way to get new people to discover your church. FaceBook does like to promote live video, though. With so many people on FaceBook, the vast majority of your friends and people within their spheres of influence are reachable in one way or another.
You may think your live videos are accessible to the public, but live, they’re not. You can’t even, right now, at least, boost them with ads.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a way to expand your reach on FaceBook and therefore expand your live reach. You just need to think about it from a long-term perspective, not just “go live and expect people to come.”
This can be done in a few different ways.
Start with the people who already go to your church. Get them to like and share things from your page as much as possible to get their friends to engage with your church. Anything that generates buzz from your church and gets people to like posts from your page and share them with others can potentially add those who engage with the posts to the list of people you can reach.
Traditionally, churches have been hesitant to engage in marketing and advertising, but start by getting a FaceBook advertising pixel on your website today. This is a little piece of code that keeps track of everyone who visits your website. For up to 180 days after they visit, they’re on your list and you can advertise to them.
Doing some advanced audience segmentation, you could try and get page likes from people who've visited your website, live in the area, and aren’t a part of your membership list (assuming you have their emails) or email newsletter. Once they like the page, they’re much more likely to see the live stream, so this is worth doing.
For Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, plan to live stream different content.
Sure, they’re not great for long-form or archived streaming, but they can be great for little snippets.
Encourage people who use these platforms to share exceptional moments from church life. Do you have fun outings with the men’s ministry? Mention to your people that they might want to show that on Twitter. Do the teens serve in your community? Remind them to show that on Snapchat. Do the college students have a funny program they do from time to time? Encourage them to put funny bits from it on Instagram.
To get the word out with these three, don’t think about live streaming just one production that your church does, but a thousand little clips that people in your congregation share. You can train and encourage them, but think of this as more like evangelism, individual and reaching each of their friends, than a worship service, corporate and happening at a set time and place.
Don’t forget, either, that each of these services tend to be frequented by a sub population in your community. Instagram and Snapchat tend to skew younger than Twitter. So you might not want to encourage the senior adults to show their outings there as much as you encourage the high school seniors to. Twitter has a great urban population, so your Bluegrass music fellowship might be less well-received there.
That’s not to say that you should assume that any one group is the only one on a given platform. Just keep it in mind and put resources (even attention is a resource) primarily where they can be most effective and have the most success (which you should always experiment with because the people using these platforms is constantly changing).
Sometimes, though, none of these solutions are right for your situation. If you want an online campus that you control, if you want a place where you know that your congregation and their friends can always find your live stream, or if you want to know that when there’s a problem, you can call a person, a paid service might be a better way to go than any already mentioned in this article. Sure, there are free choices, but they all come with limitations that a paid service doesn’t have.
You’re not going to get the long-tail reach of YouTube or the immediate surge of engagement of FaceBook, but you will get a reliable link that you can hand out and help when you need it most. That, in and of itself is worth something.
So, who should you use to live stream? It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and the resources you have. Don’t try and fit a square peg in a round hole. Use each service with its strengths and limitations in mind.
