11 Ways to Significantly Increase Live Stream Viewers [2024 Update]

One of the most engaging ways for any business or company to reach its target audience is with live streaming. With professional live streaming software or platform, companies can produce a high-quality live event and increase viewership and brand recognition.

Increasing live stream engagement needs more than a rough plan—it requires strategy. With the right strategy and action, anyone can maximally drive their viewership numbers.

As video streaming experts, we know how to get more people to watch your live streams. This post will help you better share video content and increase audiences on your website or social media platforms. Furthermore, we will discuss how incredibly valuable live-streaming video and increasing your stream viewership can be for your business. Plus, we cover some top tips for taking your streams to the next level. This includes maximizing quality, promoting your stream for greater reach and more.

Table of Contents

• Why Businesses Use Live Streaming to Increase Viewership
• Viewership Streaming Statistics
• The Value of Increasing Live Viewers on Streams
• 11 Ways to Get More Live Stream Viewers
• How to Take Your Streams to the Next Level
• How to Increase YouTube and Facebook Live Viewers
• Conclusion

Why Businesses Use Live Streaming to Increase Viewership

There are several reasons why a business might want to start live-streaming video. Many businesses use live video and on-demand video content to reach out to customers and colleagues.

Live streams are ideal for:

• Live events
• Breaking news
• Sports
• Politics
• Speeches
• Product releases
• Q&As

Many businesses are streaming digital conferences, hosting webinars, and similar events with live streaming. Events designed to bring the community together make great live-streaming content as well.

Examples of Businesses Using Video Content

Numerous businesses, from small entrepreneurs to large corporations, depend on video content to build connections, increase brand awareness, and sell products.

Marketing consultant Kim Garst is one example of how business owners can implement live video content into different aspects of their marketing strategies and business operations.

Kim uses live video as the cornerstone of her content marketing strategy. She does this by first recording a live stream

This content can then be transcribed and re-purposed in numerous ways:

• The content discussed in the live video can be used to create blog posts
• Images can be pulled and used as social media posts
• Short snippets of the live video can be used for social media posts
• Summary slides used within the stream can be shared on SlideShare
• The live stream can be turned into a video-on-demand

As you can see, there are numerous ways that you can repurpose the content created and shared during a live stream.

This entrepreneur is not alone. Small and large businesses alike are using live video content in similar ways.

We’ve all seen business videos that create an incredible amount of emotion in a short time. Check out the famous Dollar Shave Club video as an example. It’s only 93 seconds long, but it communicates pretty effectively. Even better, that video helped to grow their business from start-up to a net worth of more than $600 million.

Review our case studies to learn how other businesses have succeeded by incorporating live video content into their business operations.

As you can see from those use cases, video is extremely flexible. It can be long or short, informal or highly scripted, live or on-demand. The key is to use it in a way that makes sense for both your brand and audience.

Content from a live broadcast can be repurposed and used in numerous ways and can be a powerful way to create community, generate hype, share information, and generate sales for your business.

Viewership Streaming Statistics

Video content is a compelling content type for numerous reasons. It is one of the best ways to connect with your audience. There are multiple streaming statistics to back up the power of live video content for businesses.

• Consumer’s favorite type of content to view on social media are videos
• 82% of all consumer internet traffic is video traffic.
• Consumers rate video as the most helpful form of content when shopping online
• 64% of consumers watch social videos at least once a day
• Visual content is 40x more likely to be shared on social media
• Mobile video viewing has increased by more than 1,000% since 2012
• Streaming entertainment has overtaken live TV and continues to grow.

Live streaming is a highly effective way of reaching and connecting with your viewers. That’s s why it’s s essential to learn how to get people to join your livestream to expand your reach.

The Value of Increasing Live Viewers on Streams

As we’ve established, live streaming can be very valuable to businesses and professional organizations, but why should somebody care how many viewers they have?

Improve Brand Awareness

High viewership is more valuable to some broadcasters than others. For example, more is better if your goal is to monetize a stream. The same will apply if you’re trying to build brand awareness.

Collect Consumer Data

If your goal is to generate leads or collect email addresses for your mailing list, you will want to look at quality over quantity. Depending on what you’re selling, thousands of viewers may or may not be necessary. For example, if you have a service-based business, you only need a few highly qualified leads. More leads may be valuable for a physical or digital product.

Streamline Internal Communication

If your live stream is meant for internal use, amassing a ton of viewers isn’t necessary. You only need your team or employees to tune in. 

Reach Corporate Goals

More viewers are not wrong, but you should identify your business’s goals before fixating on reaching any specific number of viewers. You need to determine how many people you need to watch your live stream for it to be a success.

11 Ways to Get More Live Stream Viewers

By incorporating live streaming into your video content plan, you’re putting yourself in a good position for a decent number of viewers and engagement. Live streams tend to generate urgency and “buzz”. That makes people more likely to sign up and show up.

Marketing professionals confirm that this is true. According to Troy Evans at Moz “a live broadcast will often produce a significant increase in viewership.”

Starting in 2014, for example, the Superbowl achieved a 1000% growth in live video streaming over the previous year. That was just one sign that audiences have been ready for live streaming for some time. 

However, clicking “Start Stream” is just the beginning. Most businesses need additional tools and methods to improve the viewership of their live broadcasts.

Here are a few tips you should apply to your live streaming video content strategy to get more live stream viewers.

1. Research Your Audience

You must be aware of your audience if you want to increase stream viewers. Before developing additional engagement strategies, first, understand their needs.  You could pack a live meeting with activities, but if they’re geared toward a different audience or industry, your audience won’t find them interesting.

How do you determine your audience’s needs?

To better understand your live stream audience, follow these steps:

Identify Your Goal: 

What kind of live stream or webinar are you offering?  Is it instructive, entertaining, or commercial?

Establish your goals for your live stream and purpose. The remaining steps will be more straightforward when you are aware of the goal of your webinar.

Analyze the Demographics: 

Discover your audience’s age, income, occupation, level of education, and location.

Determine Difficulties: 

You can ascertain your audience’s pain points once you’re you are familiar with their demographics. Create your webinar so that it addresses these issues or even offers a solution.

You can use the following strategies to learn more about your webinar audience:

Ask Your Audience

Why not go directly to the source? Create your surveys and polls, or look for existing studies related to your audience.

Social Media

Monitor discussions about your industry by following industry influencers and pertinent hashtags.

Forums

To better understand the needs of your target audience, use the questions they pose in online forums.

2. Promote the Broadcast

Before your live streams start, there are a few ways to generate some excitement. That is the best way to get more people to watch your stream. Spread the word to your audience using the following strategies so they can expect a fantastic live stream from you:

Create a Hype

That includes posting on your blog, social media, and other live streaming platforms. Email sequences are a great tool here. The more you share information about and promote your stream, the more people are likely to show up.

Here are a few different ways and places to promote your content: 

Social Media Channels

Social media is one of the top places to promote your live stream. You should post graphics, text information, and the occasional short teaser video on all your social media sites, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and your YouTube channel. 

Create YouTube Shorts to promote your live stream, make watch time interesting and add variety to your YouTube videos. Share on Facebook and Instagram Stories. Be sure to use a visually appealing thumbnail and engaging copy to increase interest in your live stream. 

Podcasts

Have a podcast? Be sure to mention your live stream! Share the date and time of the live stream, the platforms you will be streaming on, and what the live stream will be about. 

Keep the mention short enough to hold the listener’s attention and juicy enough to entice them to want to watch the live stream. 

Online Communities

Does your business have an online forum? Do you run social media groups or a Discord channel or Reddit page dedicated to your business? Are there online communities related to your business? 

Promote your live streams in your online communities and other online communities interested in your content. 

If you are promoting your live stream within online communities you don’t have ownership of, be sure that your brand contributes to the community regularly and offers value to the community. When you actively participate in a community, the members are likelier to show up for you. 

Banners and Cover Images

Try to produce graphics, such as banners and cover images, to promote your live stream as effectively as possible. It will improve your credibility, assist you in branding your live event, and is an excellent addition if you’re looking to get people to join you live. You can upload a photo publicizing your live stream in place of the cover on your social media platforms.

They will remember your live session each time they visit your Facebook page, and this is also a great step if you’re searching for how to get more viewers on Facebook live.

To increase broadcast exposure, you can include popup banners on your webpage and a banner at the bottom of your current web pages. Additionally, you can add this banner to your email signature. Information about the live video is available to anyone who receives an email from you.

Streamers can continue to advertise the broadcast in this way without annoying the audience, which encourages more people to watch live streams.

Provide all the necessary details without looking overly busy. To let viewers countdown the days until your live stream, you can either run a countdown or place a simple banner with your live video schedule.

Email Newsletters

Put that email list to good use! Send out email announcements about all of your upcoming live streams. Be sure to include an engaging video thumbnail, and if you have created any trailers to promote your live stream, add them to the email. 

Send follow-up emails before your broadcast starts to ensure people show up!

3. Get People to Pre-Register

Encourage people to pre-register for your stream to capture leads and get a virtual “headcount.” This strategy will likely encourage people to show up rather than just thinking of showing up. 

You can send reminders before you go live or use a live countdown. Sending reminders is a great way to get people to watch your stream.

4. Collaborate With Others

One of the best ways to increase viewership is through collaboration. Invite industry experts and influencers to your live stream. Using experts and influencers can add credibility to your brand. 

Also, collaborating is a great way to promote your live stream. Whoever you collaborate with can promote the live stream on their social media platforms, email newsletter, podcast, or whatever means of communicating with their followers they use. 

Guests can help increase interest in your live stream and allows for cross-promotion of your live stream to a bigger audience. 

Get Inspiration From Other Live Streams

When you focus excessively on your live stream engagement metrics, it becomes harder to stay innovative and fresh.

Undoubtedly, measurement is important (we’ll discuss it in the following tip). However, inspiration and great video ideas are also necessary for engagement!

Search for streaming programs and episodes with similar viewers in an ideal world. If you can’t find any streams like that, think about how streamers who focus on entertainment maintain a large viewership throughout their videos.

Consider the frequency with which live stream content producers engage with their viewers in the live chat during their stream. Observe how streamers engaged their audience with sponsored messages and content as well.

One of the best ways to accelerate your learning is to set aside time to observe those who have mastered the art of live stream engagement. By successfully doing this, you can crack the code on how to get more viewers on your stream.

5. Pin The Scheduled Live Stream

On most social media platforms, you can pin your most important content to the top of your profile. Social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all allow you to pin content to the top of your profile.

Promote your live stream by pinning it to the top of your social media page. That ensures that anyone visiting your page will see the information about your upcoming live session right at the top. It is a great way to drive more direct traffic to your live stream.

6. Use Compelling Titles and Descriptions to Promote Your Live Stream

Titles and descriptions can make or break your video. They’ll either entice people to click “Play” or drive them away.

When choosing a title, you want to iterate what viewers can expect. Choose 10 to 15 ideas, and then choose your five favorites. Select your favorite words or phrases. Then rinse and repeat until you’ve fine-tuned your thoughts and have the perfect name.

You should test it to determine which phrasing generates more viewer clicks. Consider using a segment of your email list for these tests. Remember, only about 50 to 60 characters of your title will appear in search results. That means you need to get to the point quickly.

Your description is where you can go into a little more detail. It should be detailed and include keywords and phrases related to your stream.

Remember, search engines can’t parse videos. People can’t either: they need to watch them. Every video description should include a 200-500 word content summary. That lets search engines index what your OTT video is about – and drive more viewers to your content.

You may also want to include:

• A call to action (such as “Sign Up for Our Email List”)
• A link to your website
• Links to your social media channels.

This information will help the search engines index your content and ultimately help you get more people to watch your streams.

7. Tease Content

One of the best ways to get more viewers is to tease your content. Think about the teasers for TV shows and movies. Usually, this takes the form of pre-releasing snippets of information from behind-the-scenes or video. These could be images, GIFs, short clips, Tweets, or even blog posts.

Look for “Tweetable” content opportunities. It is content that’s valuable, interesting, and bite-sized. Content like that has a higher chance of inspiring shares. Remember to include the time and date of your broadcast in these teasers. You should also have a registration link or a way to sign up for email reminders.

Try to use fun live, streaming events and hashtags to get people to engage with your content.

8. Reward Your Viewers

Incentivize your live stream by providing a reward for viewers. The goal of this strategy is to provide something of value to your audience. It can take many forms. For example, one social celebrity in Nepal offered to make a phone call to a few randomly chosen fans who commented on his livestream. Ultimately, this incentive generated more than 1500 comments.

Other ways to reward viewers include holding giveaways and raffles. Alternatively, you can offer coupons and discounts. Rewards can also be social. Being the first to learn essential or exciting news can reward itself. In short, sharing secrets and tips is a great way to generate buzz and get more viewers.

Good content is the best way to reward your viewers. So, make sure your content is valuable, actionable, problem-solving, or dynamic.

9. Lengthen Your Broadcast

Regarding on-demand videos, shortness is vital. Live streams, on the other hand, can’t be short. Partially, that’s because “views” are counted differently for live streams.

Typically, a view counts every time someone logs on to a live stream, given that the broadcast could end at any time. Even a fleeting viewer could watch a significant portion of the broadcast.

This points toward the value of taking things slow when doing a live stream for events. Of course, you don’t want to bore your audience. At the same time, you don’t want to run through all your valuable content in the first 15 minutes.

Generally speaking, the longer you’re streaming live, the more chances people have to join you. Viewers will increase with time. More viewers typically equate to more comments, engagement, information, and conversions.

Measure and Optimize Your Live Stream

If you are looking to get people to watch your stream, YouTube video, YouTube live stream, or bring your audience to your YouTube channel,  then you need to start measuring and optimizing your live stream. It’s normal for at least a few viewers to drop out after some time during each live session. Make a note of when this happens and how you can decrease this number to generate more YouTube views. Measure each live-streaming engagement event to raise your live-streaming engagement and conversion rates continuously.

Start by tracking simple metrics like the number of viewers, live vs on-demand viewership,  activity levels in your live chat, watch time, unique visitors, engagement (likes, shares, comments, etc.), viewers’ location, rebuffering data, and website traffic.

Measure those aspects if your live-streamed event features coupons or other trackable calls to action. Taking 15 to 30 minutes after each live stream to assess what worked and didn’t will help. Use this information to guide your upcoming live stream, as that’s how you can gradually increase your engagement rates over time.

Success in creating live streams doesn’t stop with gaining more viewers. You must monitor various live-streaming hashtags and other metrics to eliminate guesswork and transform predictions into valuable insights.

10. Cross-Promote on All Platforms

Simply put, you want to use all of your channels to promote your upcoming live streams instead of just focusing on your YouTube channel. During the lead-up to the stream, post a behind-the-scenes or teaser video and share the URL to the stream on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms with an existing following. That’s one of the best ways to get viewers on your YouTube channel, YouTube videos, and Facebook Live.

Include the compelling description you have written. Once the event begins, you can share more teasers or excerpts. Be sure to use your hashtag in all of these materials.

11. Live Video SEO

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” Simply put, it describes higher rankings on the search engine and web search results.

As you might expect, live video SEO can significantly increase views. Companies using video are likely to have 41% more web traffic from searches than non-users. Optimizing video SEO involves writing good keywords and titles (more on this later). You can also improve SEO by hosting content on your site rather than on Facebook or other social media sites. 

Dacast, for example, allows broadcasters to stream live video on your website.

How to Take Your Streams to the Next Level

Having a ton of viewers will likely equate to more engagement and conversions. However, if the quality of your content is lacking, the quantity of viewers becomes less critical.

As you increase your viewers on your upcoming live stream, you should also take the appropriate steps to enhance your videos and make them even more easily accessible.

Here are a few tips to help you take your live streams to the next level.

1. Use a Professional Live Streaming Platform

Free live streaming apps are everywhere, but these different platforms have many downsides. There are ads everywhere. Content links back to the social media host (not your website), poor or nonexistent SEO, and limited security controls.

Instead, we suggest opting for a professional live streaming platform like Dacast. Unlike free services, pro online video platforms will provide white-label custom branding, a range of security features, and more.

2. Multi-Bitrate Streaming

Transcode your stream to create multiple renditions of the same video at different quality levels. Multi-bitrate streaming allows viewers to watch the best possible quality, given their internet speeds. Pair it with an adaptive bitrate video player. SP-viewers get the best quality stream that their internet connection can handle.

The effect is minimal bounce rates, higher completion rates, and happier viewers.

Dacast and other OVPs, have built-in cloud transcoding functionality. This feature allows you first to upload a video. Then, you can transcode it into multiple quality levels with just a few clicks.

3. Record Live Streams

Another way to maximize your video performance is to record all your live streams so that you can repurpose the content, or viewers can catch a replay at a more convenient time. Sometimes, broadcasters are so focused on the live video they forget about VOD.

By recording your virtual events as live streams, you can continue to accrue views and boost the performance of that content. Plus, you can reach viewers who missed your live-streaming event as it was happening.

As with video transcoding, cloud live stream recording is available for all Dacast accounts. With just a few clicks, you can activate this setting to ensure all your live streams are recorded in the best quality.

4. Enable Rewind for Live Streams

We’re all late sometimes. That’s why rewind is such a great functionality to include with your live streams.

For example, Dacast includes a 30-minute rewind feature on all live streams. It allows late arrivals to catch up and makes it easy for viewers to re-watch their favorite parts.

5. Use a Low Latency Video Streaming Provider

Latency refers to the delay between filming action and when that content appears on your viewer’s screen.

In live streaming, latency between 30 and 60 seconds is typical. However, this degree of latency can introduce problems. This is especially true when it comes to “second screen” use.

For example, 80 percent of sports fans use a “multi-screen” approach while watching sports. In other words, they look up stats or chat with friends while watching the live game. Of course, it ruins the live viewing experience when Twitter updates you about a game-winning shot before your live stream updates.

To fix this issue, look for a low-latency live streaming provider. Low-latency solutions typically have latency in the 10-second or less range. For example, Dacast now offers a Direct HLS low-latency streaming solution

6. Invest in Reliable Equipment

These days, you can record a decent video with a cell phone, but even though you can, that doesn’t mean you should. Professional-grade equipment is more reliable and consistent.

In addition, you wouldn’t want a vital broadcast ruined by bad audio quality or fuzzy video. For that reason, most professional broadcasters choose a single or multi-camera live streaming setup, in concert with dedicated professional cameras and a hardware or software encoder

Don’t forget about audio, either. Audio is a lot more critical than you think when it comes to your live-streaming setup. Dacast has found that audio is as important as video quality. Therefore, investing in high-quality audio is a must.

7. Use a Fast Internet Connection

Without a fast internet connection, you can’t stream live content in high HD quality. We recommend using at least double the upload bandwidth necessary for all your stream bitrates combined.

8. Test Everything

When it comes to live streaming, even the pros can have problems. Fortunately, avoiding most of these is simple: test, then retest.

That should be a mantra for live streamers. The system has moving parts, including your camera, audio, internet, encoding software script, and graphics. If any of these systems fail, the whole stream can fall flat.

The solution is to test thoroughly before going live with a video stream. Make sure to discover, isolate, and correct issues before they become problems.

How to Increase YouTube and Facebook Live Viewers

Although we recommend using a professional video hosting platform over a free platform like Facebook, Twitch, or your own YouTube channel, some may still start streaming with these different platforms as they learn the ropes. That’s why it’s essential to learn how to get more viewers on Facebook Live and how to get viewers on YouTube Live.

We wanted to give you a quick rundown on how to get more views on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch live streaming in case this is the direction you’d like to go.

The tips we’ve provided are for how to increase stream viewership in general, but you’ll want a better understanding of the specific video player platform you’ll be using.

How to Get More Views on YouTube Live Streams and Twitch

Twitch and YouTube both use a social structure that allows you to follow or subscribe to a channel. Since this is the case, your content will automatically pop up on your followers’ timelines whenever you stream.

This social media structure alone is very convenient and beneficial because it also means built-in tools for commenting and other engaging content. YouTube’s algorithm loves engagement, so it will bring each new live video, and upcoming live stream YouTube video to viewers with similar interests and those interacting with your content.

SEO is something that we mentioned as a general approach, but you’ll want to dive into the specifics of SEO for Twitch and SEO for YouTube. That’ll help link your existing and upcoming live streams to the suggestions on similar videos and bring viewers to your channel.

Explore options for running ads for your YouTube or Twitch stream. YouTube allows you to promote your channel with Google Ads. You could also run paid ads that link to your stream or YouTube video on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Paid advertisements are a great way to learn how to get more viewers on YouTube Live and Facebook Live, as well as your existing video library.

How to Get More Viewers on Facebook Live

Streaming on Facebook Live is another outlet to consider. Like Twitch and YouTube, Facebook is a social platform. However, Facebook is not specifically for live videos, like the others, so it comes with limitations and live streaming tools that are less than perfect.

However, one benefit of streaming with Facebook is that it’s easy for your existing followers, fans, and friends to watch your streams and share your content with their friends, which extends your reach.

Users can host a live stream on their pages, business pages, or groups. Building a loyal community is the best way to increase stream viewership. Nurture your audience by interacting with them regularly.

Boost your audience engagement to increase exposure by hosting Q&As and other interactive virtual events that will encourage participation from the audience. Another way to continue to increase engagement with a large audience is to reply to comments on the live feed.

If you don’t address them during the video, come back after the stream has ended and leave answers. It will also bump your posts on your friends’ and followers’ timelines.

You can also reach people beyond your following or friends list by running paid ads through Facebook or by sharing your upcoming live stream in other popular groups.

You can share your post with people outside your circle on Facebook if you set up ads. However, you can’t promote an event per Facebook’s policies. You can screenshot it and boost it. That’s strongly advised if you want to expand the audience for your live stream.

Conclusion

As we’ve outlined, to increase livestream viewership, you must promote ahead of time. You must also create valuable and engaging content and use SEO to your advantage. Furthermore, everything needs to be high-quality. To aid you in this, it’s highly beneficial to use a professional online video platform.

Using a sound strategy with implementation, you’ll garner more live viewers than you ever imagined and hit your goals.

If using a professional streaming platform to optimize your production quality and maximize your viewership, try Dacast. With Dacast, you get a plethora of useful video and live-streaming tools. With years of experience helping businesses broadcast high-quality video content, Dacast’s streaming solution will help you, too.

Try Dacast free for 14 days. Sign up today and get started.

Started Streaming For Free

Thanks for reading, broadcasters, and good luck with your live streaming video. And if you want regular tips on live streaming, you’re invited to join our LinkedIn group.