Livestreaming is an incredibly powerful tool for helping brands and businesses to build a stronger connection with audiences but it’s vital to measure the impact of your live video to make sure you’re reaching your overall goals. Monitoring the performance of your live video in real time can also help to make your livestreams more effective, allowing you to adapt and refine content, depending on viewer engagement.
While the number of viewers tuning in to watch your livestream is a key indicator of success, there are many other important factors to consider when evaluating your live video. The data provided by livestreaming platforms and Google Analytics can offer valuable insights on everything from how viewers engage with your live content to which device they are watching on and where in the world they are located.
If you’re looking for tips on how to evaluate your next livestream, here’s our step by step guide on how to measure success:
- Evaluate the Outcomes Against your Goals
To measure the success of your livestream, it’s a good idea to start by outlining exactly what you’re aiming to achieve through your live video. If you’re a brand or a retailer looking to drive sales through live shopping, the number of purchases made during your livestream will be a key consideration in your evaluation.
However, if you’re a large organisation which needs to convey important information to employees, making sure your message has been well received and clearly understood is likely to be a major factor. Always set out your key goals in advance and determine which metrics are most important to you for demonstrating success.
- Monitor Engagement
Measuring audience engagement is essential when it comes to livestreaming. The more engaged viewers are in your live video content, the longer they are likely to stay so it’s vital to hold their attention with compelling content and high quality technical delivery.
Watch time is a good indicator of success and monitoring analytics in real time enables you to adapt your livestream to give the audience more of the content they like and less of what’s not so popular with your viewers. If you notice audience figures are starting to drop off at a particular point during your livestream, it could be time to tweak your content or pick up the pace.
Keeping an eye on the comments and reactions during your livestream is also a great way to establish how well your content is being received by your audience. Referencing comments and answering questions in real time also helps your viewers to stay engaged.
Don’t be afraid to ask viewers for feedback on your livestream by encouraging them to comment or inviting them to complete a post-livestream survey.
- Check the Quality of Technical Delivery
It almost goes without saying that any technical glitches during your livestream are highly likely to cost you viewers. Once your audience is tuned in, don’t risk losing them through poor quality broadcasting. It’s essential to make a few vital technical checks before going live such as making sure your microphone and camera are working properly, checking your lighting and testing your broadband speed.
If you’re planning an important livestream, which requires a high-end look and feel, partnering with a professional livestreaming company is a good way of making sure any technical mishaps are easily avoided. A professional livestreaming company can also arrange a live broadcast studio, or even a pop-up studio at your company headquarters, to elevate the overall quality of your livestream.
- VOD and Post Livestream Evaluation
Turning your livestream into VOD (Video On Demand) is a great way to help your content to reach a wider audience, boosting the number of views once your live video has ended. Editing your content to create VOD can often encourage those who missed your livestream to tune into your next live video.
It’s also a good idea to re-purpose your livestream content by creating short edits / highlights to share across your digital platforms. This keeps your brand front of mind with your audience, whilst reminding them to look out for your future livestreams. Be sure to include any additional VOD views in your evaluation.
Measuring livestream success is one of the specialist services we provide for our wide portfolio of clients, which ranges from global manufacturers and international law firms to Premier League football clubs.
The experienced team at Virtuopo has been livestreaming professionally for over 10 years so whether you’re an influencer looking to elevate your next livestream, a retailer planning to move into the live shopping space or a business embracing corporate livestreaming, we can help you to achieve success.
Find out more on how Virtuopo can help your business with live streaming events by contacting us on 0151 662 0275 or email info@virtuopo.com.