I Did My First Youtube Live Stream | My Impressions of Live Streaming
So video has been the leading type of content for a while, and more recently it seems like live streaming is the hot new twist on video. I've been wanting to do a live stream for a while but was kind of overwhelmed by the idea of doing it. Thinking I'd run out of things to say and a bit overwhelmed by having to run OBS and run a screencast while also talking to an audience and responding to comments. It's almost like public speaking so made me a bit more nervous than just making a video and posting it.
Anyhow, yesterday night I had a little bit of time to kill before I went to see the movie IT with my girlfriend and some friends so decided to go live on Youtube.
I had tried to go live the day before but didn't realize I had to have OBS or some type of broadcasting software setup so wasn't able to so Friday night I finally went live.
Now previously I had kind of joked about how going live seems like an easy/lazy way to create content. It seems like the first 5-10 minutes of a live stream is saying hey and what's up to everyone in the room. "Hey Jim, thanks for tuning in" , "hey bonnie awesome so see you in here." etc, you get the point. Then just responding to peoples questions and interacting with the audience, but I thought hmm, that seems pretty easy you don't really have to create content just go live.
Anyhow, after initially getting on I sort of realized I had no discussion planned, no topics to talk about, etc...YIKES!!! I got really nervous for a minute that I was just going to wind up sitting there with nothing to talk about. Maybe that's not that wierd as I literally just saw a 2 hour live stream where Martin Schreli the Pharma Bro dude had about 30 minutes of him not in the frame with the audience just looking at his chair and then about another 30 minutes of him playing with his cat so maybe the bar is set kind of low for live streams but being my first one I wanted to put on a good show for lack of a better word.
It took me a couple minutes to catch my stride but then got comfortable. It was nice interacting and chatting with a lot of people I often interact with through comments but have never really had a more in depth chat with. A fellow Steemian @itsmee.bosslady stopped into the room and helped to stir up conversation and keep the conversation going so very appreciative of that.
Overall it went pretty smoothly. I'm still getting the hang of live streaming and how to do it but was a big fan of my first experience with it. I forgot to check the box to keep the video as unlisted so unfortunately once it ended it was over there was no record of it and it doesn't stay on my channel but learned a lesson for next time.
If any of you guys are considering doing Youtube or getting into live streaming or maybe your already a Youtuber but like myself had never live streamed and maybe was a little gunshy to do it so I'd definitely recommend it. It's fun, it's a great way to connect with your audience and also they tend to rank really well in Youtubes search algorithm.
I'm kind of blown away these days how many people can end up tuning into a live stream. People are on their phones and it pops up which is pretty freaking cool. One guy I subscribe to was initially live streaming the Mayweather fight and it gained him over 10,000 subscribers. YouTube shut his live stream off before the fight began but it got a lot of people tuning in.
What a person could do is the next time there is a big event you could say your a live streaming it but then like 5 minutes before hand drop off and then later make a quick video apologizing and saying how the live stream got shut down. LOL..... HHEHEHHEHEHEHE
haha, funny you bring up mayweather fight, i was actually trying to find it online without paying and saw a bunch of youtubers streaming claiming to have the mayweather fight. most who actually were would get shutdown within a few minutes but many were playing a loop of nothing or redirecting you to another site. one guy in particular was just laughing at everyone as they came on thinking they were going to see the fight and in reality they were just watching him.
long before the mayweather fight even aired i was always joking someone should do a "reaction video" to the mayweather fight. i know there was a big controversey a while back regarding reaction videos. many reaction video channels were becoming some of hte most popular channels on youtube and many people argued its not really fair people get to use others content make faces and profit.
i havnt followed that issue super closely but i still see plenty of them so I'm guessing Youtube still allows them. If I was a creator making good content and was getting views siphoned off by others "watching" my content and reacting I would be pretty annoyed. I knew Youtube would never stand by and let someone air a reaction to a big companies big money event like that but thought it would be funny to watch them shut everyone down and kind of show the hypocrisy in their stance on the issue.
I just arrived at the end of it. Ill keep an eye out for the next one.
Hi, thanks for sharing your experience, in fact, streaming is a very useful thing. At first, I also hesitated to broadcast the stream and kept thinking about what people would think of me, but over time it became a way of communicating with the audience and friends. I start my travel blog and streaming is a great way to share information with others, you can also use it to make money. Before streaming, I found a site livestream studio where I read all about streaming, thought about it, and decided to choose a platform, then software. Now I have many YouTube subscribers and several partner subscriptions from which I can receive money.