Top Tips to getting Facebook Live-streams up and running smoothly to start building your audience:
1. Ethernet Connection
Improving your internet connection can be a crucial step in taking your live stream to the next level. Switching from WiFi to a wired LAN can vastly improve connection speed and therefore the quality and reliability of your live stream.
2. Interact With Your Viewers
Interacting can be one of the best ways to gain viewership. While you have tons to offers your viewers, they will most likely want to offer something back. Having the ability to ask questions, make comments and interact with you, plus the other viewers, can have a profound impact on your live stream.
3. Proximity to WiFi Signal
If you can’t connect with the Ethernet cable then another tip is being as close as possible to the signal.
4. Backup Everything
Backing up your live stream lets you create Video on Demand (VoD) files and playlists afterwards that can be accessed by your viewers at any time. This is a great way to continue to build viewership as now anyone can watch a broadcast they missed or previous ones broadcast before they realiaed that they adore you.
5. Plan Ahead
Live streaming isn’t just something that happens on a whim. There has to be a set goal in mind - so keep thinking ahead and make sure you set up the filming location prior to ensure everything from the conditions/lighting/sound/distractions and plan will work smoothly.
And don’t forget to also check out the internet connection – it isn’t unusual to find that the 5MBps connection you were promised is actually less than 1 MBps and that can ruin your day.
This also goes for promoting your broadcast. Make sure your viewers know when it is scheduled and how they can access the stream. Use appropriate marketing strategies and social media platforms to inform your viewers and update them on any changes. Don’t make extra work for your viewers to find you since that can lead to them missing the broadcast (and possibly not return as a viewer).
There are tons of things that can and will go wrong during a live broadcast, but being prepared for every situation is crucial in producing a successful stream.
This also goes for promoting your broadcast. Make sure your viewers know when it is scheduled and how they can access the stream. Use appropriate marketing strategies and social media platforms to inform your viewers and update them on any changes. Don’t make extra work for your viewers to find you since that can lead to them missing the broadcast (and possibly not return as a viewer).
There are tons of things that can and will go wrong during a live broadcast, but being prepared for every situation is crucial in producing a successful stream.
6. Keep Organized
This may seem like another obvious tip but it can make live streaming a lot easier and more enjoyable. Keep cables from being tangled up to prevent things from becoming unplugged during the broadcast. Having a game plan will also help keep you on schedule and concise when live streaming.
7. Test your broadcast
Live streaming without doing a test run first is like going skydiving without checking your parachute.
Run a full test, preferably at the venue where you are going to stream the real thing, and check for any sound, lighting, or encoder problems. Cameras, microphones, and other equipment will also be crucial to check before you go live. You don’t want to have your viewers not able to hear you because of a faulty microphone.
8. Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) Provider
Using a platform that streams over a real CDN is always very helpful. Content Delivery Networks allow your broadcast to reach more people, depending on the CDN. DaCast is partnered by Akamai, one of the leading CDN’s in the world.
Using DaCast’s platform allows you to live stream around the globe, giving you the opportunity to have many viewers from different places and backgrounds. The CDN prevents the servers from being congested from lots of viewers and gives your stream the reliability and professionalism you want. Consider other platforms? not just facebook? Will this be relevant to the DJ and music industry?
9. Don’t Shoot Your Video Just In HD (High Definition)
Shooting your video only in High Definition will ensure that your video will not be seen by a portion of your viewers. Not everyone will have the capacity to watch your broadcast in HD and it will deter many viewers from watching. Make sure that if you live stream in HD, you also push a stream in Standard Definition so everyone can participate!
10. Closing Programs/Applications
If your stream is running really slow or is choppy, try closing all unused programs on your computer, including anti-virus. Make sure you haven’t just minimized them but clicked on Close, Exit, or Disable.
11. Consistency/Be On Time
This is an important tip for not only regular broadcasters but first time streamers as well. Being on time is a huge aspect of streaming that sometimes goes unnoticed. Being on time doesn’t just mean starting right when the time stated is- getting there 15 minutes early is always recommended. This prevents any viewers who are early from leaving because there is nothing to watch or do.
The other thing you want is to be consistent regarding what day and time you are going to stream. It will be hard to follow your broadcasts when you live stream on a Tuesday at 5 p.m one week but Friday at 2 p.m the next. Keep consistent with the day and time you stream to keep your viewership consistent and informed.
As live-streaming itself is open to everyone I needed to consider more specifically how it is adaptable to DJ live sets and how I can push my content and make it as professional as possible to increase range.
I got in touch with DJ Endor and had an in-depth chat with him after an event regarding live-streaming and his approach. As he does streams on his own page every now and again to promote new releases and content in a fun way where his audience can talk directly with him through the Facebook comments section.
By summarising notes from our discussions and reading various articles online I could put together some key, MUST-FOLLOW TIPS to boost my streams:
- Virality is the key to extending your reach – sharing is caring and in the case of virality it’s essential, make sure you hammer home the message that anybody watching should hit share, and any DJ coming on to play should share it to their individual audience too.
- Join like minded music groups on Facebook and when you go live share the stream with them. I.e. ID of music, Techno Bible, etc.
- Broadcast longer to reach further – virality increases the longer you broadcast as more people have the chance to see your shared stream, the minimum time to aim for is an hour but push for longer if you can.
- Hype your set – make sure that you let everybody on your timeline know you’re getting ready to broadcast by dropping timely reminders leading up to go live. Use Facebook ads to promote your go live time.
- Fail to prepare, prepare to fail – set your studio/broadcast space up properly, make sure the camera angle you choose let’s people see what you’re doing – if possible talk to the camera, your viewers are more likely to interact if you talk to them. When using a mic be professional – if needed get a swing boom arm to avoid the mic getting in the way when you’re mixing.
- Interact with your viewers, when somebody begins to watch the video give them a shout-out, if you have too many viewers for this encourage viewers to drop shout requests in the video comments.
- If your shows have become popular invest in a device that allows you to monitor shout out requests – you don’t want viewers to feel ignored.
- Gain subscribers – encourage your subscribers to “Live Subscribe”. This will notify them whenever you go live and is a good way to ensure you achieve consistent audience sizes, on the subject of consistence – try to keep your broadcast times regular so that people will come to know when you’re going to be live.
- Boost the Facebook posts to more sponsored audiences
- One warning is Facebook’s notification of copyright. There’s a fairly good chance (especially if you are playing more commercial music) that Facebook will take the stream down after it’s ended and serve you with a copyright notice. You are able to accept this and have your live stream republished but of course this comes with it’s own risks as you will have to agree that you own the rights/have permission to the broadcast the offending track.
As we will be representing quite an underground sound, we hope we will not have any problems with this.
However we will ensure we ask DJs to keep music selection to that of which they have purchased/the rights to, to minimise chances of copyright infringement.
We will credit music when we can but also aim to include a Disclaimer to every post to show we are willing to be compliant if there any problems..
"All music played belongs to the rightful owners and artists, we are simply sharing our favourite music but will happily take down if any copyright is infringed."
> Since it launched in August of 2015 there can be no doubt that Facebook Live has brought broadcasting to the masses. If your timeline is anything like mine you’ll be seeing plenty of live streams from DJs keen to share their sets with their friends and beyond – indeed thanks to the power of virality a simple share here and there can quickly place a set in the feed of thousands with some DJs achieving audiences in excess of 250,000 during one mixing session.
Using Facebook Live as a promotional tool -
The biggest problem so far is that in order to broadcast you need to use your phone or tablet and the microphone simply doesn’t perform well when it comes to most forms of music played at loud volume, in addition to this every fader movement and indeed noise the DJ makes is recorded. This combined with some questionable camera angles has led many to question the viability of Facebook Live for effective promotion due to lack of professionalism.
While improving camera positioning is reasonably easy, it won’t help your audio quality, in some cases it’ll potentially worsen the situation, so how do you get the audio and video quality to an acceptable level?
This encouraged me to consider my various options for achieving that professional audio and visual quality for my streams..
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