Live streaming: Opportunity or Challenge?

Similarly to how we never imagined our phones could answer our questions or help us find nice restaurants 20 years ago, we also never imagined how popular live streaming would become. Live streaming started with a few people using it to kill time and gain attention. However, instead of being used for fun or socializing, live streaming has become a business tool for companies, which is different from traditional marketing method. 

Video game live streaming

The process of video game live streaming is pretty simple: game players will share their screen with the audience and talk about games or anything else audience is interested in. Also, the audience can send digital “gifts” to the game players which can be exchanged for money. Many companies use this as a chance to publicize themselves by running advertisements during the video game live streaming.    

Eat show live streaming

Basically, eat show live streaming is people who are called “big eaters” eating large amounts of various kinds of food while talking to the audience. Also, the audience can send digital "gifts" to them. It may seem to be weird, but actually, it is very popular and they have lots of subscribers on YouTube. Some restaurants will invite the anchor to do live streaming in their restaurants which helps to improve the restaurant’s reputation.

Instagram, Facebook,etc

The director of Instagram, Eva Chen, is doing live streaming on her way to work. 

Vogue is doing live streaming during New York Fashion Week.

Lots of companies have started to follow this trend. Instagram and Facebook have added a live streaming function to their website. This has introduced to many corporations to use live streaming to communicate with their customers.

The best part is that live streaming allows for faster communication between customers and corporations. This creates a close relationship between the customers and the company. This is the most important part in social media. Instead of customers waiting days for an email to answered, their question can be read and answered immediately; Rather than staring at the screen or magazines, the clothes you like can be presented in various perspectives.

When live streaming has become a ubiquitous marketing technique for corporations, the important part is how to keep its competitive edge and to minimize its shortcomings. 

The weakness of live streaming is that it has uncontrollability. Because everything in live streaming is unpredictable, if something suddenly interrupt live streaming, it will be hard for audience to get any useful information. Likewise, live streaming needs lots of audiences to participate and effective communication will not happen without the audience. Moreover, even live streaming helps to communicate, but the problem is that it is difficult to maintain and phenomenon of being homogeneous will be serious.