When live videos came to the internet with an app called You Now, the feature became massively popular, and encouraged most of the social media platforms to integrate something like that.
As a result, the era of 2015-2016 saw Twitter introducing Periscope, Facebook adding ‘Live’ features, and ‘YouTube Live’ coming into existence.
By 2018, every other social media platform is equipped with live streaming capabilities in one or another form.
Facebook, YouTube live streaming, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram; all know that Live streaming is the next big thing and spending a great deal of time and money in promoting their live streaming spaces.
Live Streaming trends – 2017 vs 2018
As the end of year draws closer, by narrowing the possibilities, we got a breakthrough with the stats that were favouring live streaming to be the next big thing on social media.
In 2018, the video creation and consumption whopped to nearly three times the rate that was recorded in 2017.
Netflix is the most noticeable example; it recorded a revenue generation of almost 11.7 billion U.S.D in 2017.
In all these, YouTube stayed on top by appealing over 164 million unique viewers per month.
You can guess the popularity of social media streaming by a report that says, “80% of customers on social media choose to watch live videos rather than other content types”.
Also, Twitch, which is an extremely new platform, has secured over 10 million daily active users, making more than 2 million broadcast each month.
Live streaming is growing bigger
An argument could be made that how can we be so sure about its performance in 2019.
Live streaming has dominated the past few years, thanks to the part that social media played in bringing businesses and prospects on the same platform.
Now that social media streaming has grown more into a marketing tool for brands, 2019 is going to be much bigger.
By looking at these stats, one can easily say that live streaming is a popular trend and it is going to be far more popular than it was in the previous years.
- The video streaming will grow its market value from $30.29 Billion in 2016 to $70.05 Billion by 2021.
- The popularity of Facebook live streaming feature has grown by 330 % since its launch, making it the most used platform for social media live streaming.
- 78 % of Facebook’s users are very much interested in watching live stream videos.
- Users spend 3x more time when they are watching live videos and 10x more time when they are engaged on commenting during the live streams.
- 50% of marketing professionals said they have experienced the better ROI after streaming live on the social media platforms.
- The users have started adopting paid TV and OTT solutions for watching videos. 45 % of live video audiences are interested in paying for live, exclusive and on-demand videos of their interest.
- 86% of educational institutions are present on YouTube, according to the University of Dartmouth.
- According to YouTube, its mobile video consumptions rise by 100% every year.
- 52 % of marketers and brands are using videos and live streaming for creating brand awareness.
- Average time spent for watching live stream videos on tablets is 7.1 minutes, whereas Video-On-Demand engages for only 4.1 minutes on an average.
- With live video facilitating the growth of other types of streaming, there was a 113% growth in embedded Ads last year.
- By 2019, online video will be responsible for four-fifth of global Internet traffic and out of these, live videos would share a major proportion.
- 96 % of B2B organizations are using videos in some form (live or Video-on-demand) as part of their online marketing strategies.
Social media streaming – Expected growth and developments by 2019
Considering the facts, it is quite clear that live streaming and social media are growing rapidly.
This rapid growth will lead to various developments in the niche and would serve as a multi-dimensional asset for content consumers, streamers, and the businesses.
Social media streaming is growing as a career
Platforms like YouTube and Twitch are providing great opportunities to the content creators for making a livelihood through their creations.
Be it comedy, documentary, travel vlogs, tutorials, or gaming, people who are good at these are utilising the platform to earn some handsome amounts.
Live streaming games alone have revolutionised the concept of gaming as a real-life career by making it possible to earn over $300,000 a year.
Though the exact earnings are kept secret, it is safe to make a calculated guess about the earnings of some popular figures.
Shroud, for instance, one of the biggest Twitch streamers makes more than $100,000 a month from subscribers alone.
We think, social media streaming as a career will see a massive explosion, and encourage numerous other streamers to try out this new career opportunity.
Social media streaming is growing as a business option
With the growing popularity of live streaming as a career and more creators joining the squad, it is highly possible that Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and others would not remain in monopoly forever.
Entrepreneurs from across the globe are coming out with ideas to create something more interesting than the existing platforms.
With companies providing turnkey solutions to start similar live streaming platform like YouTube, Netflix, and Twitch, launching a streaming business is no more a hard-core luxury.
It would not be a surprise to see some new live streaming platforms coming out from specialised niches like gaming, cooking, travel, and many more.
For instance, UStream is the fastest growing competitor of Twitch.
The IBM owned company hosts live streams for sports events, chat shows, private streams, and gaming streams like Twitch.
Social media streaming has evolved as a marketing tool
Growth of social media streaming as a marketing tool was the most looked forward evolution.
With social media already a popular marketing platform, social media live streaming has also joined the squad for assisting brands in their audience base expansion.
To reinforce brand value, marketers are spending millions on YouTube and Twitch marketing through collaboration with popular live streamers.
In lieu of promotion for their products, streamers get free products or paid sponsorship from the brands.
Moreover, brands conduct direct streaming of live Q&A, webinars, behind the scenes, product launches, and sponsored events, which help them in boosting the brand and product awareness.
For instance, when Intel powered the PCs in PUBG global invitational tournament, it conveyed that its chips are capable of handling even the biggest games and their live streaming.
It gave a positive publicity to the company.
We expect to see some more and extended form of marketing applications by the brands in upcoming years.
Hopefully, this analysis on social media and live streaming gave a clearer picture of a trending topic on social media.
Social media is all about connection, relationships, and engagement; live streaming is efficiently providing the same.
Audiences and marketers are getting more and more inclined to live content.
Live streaming and social media are growing in a parallel space for the past few years and in a very short duration, the two have become inseparable.
A marketing professional with expertise in strategies to engage customers and improve business opportunities. Interested in marketing communications and like to keep abreast of new trends and developments.