When paired with virtually any HD video camera and microphone, today’s modern video platforms give you everything you need to produce professional quality video streams easily and affordably. Hiring expensive third-party vendors or building complex internal systems to enable live streaming simply isn’t necessary anymore.

So it may be no surprise that now, armed with live streaming software that makes secure broadcasting simple, businesses are finding more and more ways to engage both external and internal audiences through this medium.

Let’s take a deeper look into some of the newest business applications for live streaming. On the following pages, you’ll find 15 ways that communications, training, marketing, and customer advocacy teams in today’s businesses are all finding success using live streaming video.

15 Ways Businesses Are Using Live Streaming

Live Streaming For Corporate Communications

Company all-hands meetings

Business leaders know that holding regular company-wide all-hands meetings can help increase transparency, build unity, and align everyone around ever-changing company goals. But with scheduling conflicts, offices spread across time zones, and a growing number of remote workers, it often isn’t practical to expect that everyone can attend an all-hands meeting in person. As such, a live stream that can be played back on-demand is truly the best way to “get everyone in the same room.”

Executive announcements

An email memo may deliver all the right words (that is, if people actually read it), but it can’t communicate a senior leader’s tone or body language like a live stream can. Information delivered live from an executive is almost always more impactful than an email. This makes live video a particularly useful communications tool when it comes to sharing messages on sensitive topics like acquisitions, compensation changes, or organizational restructuring.

Quarterly earnings & investor relations

Numbers and financial trends delivered over a voice-only conference call are challenging to follow, much less comprehend. That’s why more and more business leaders are leveraging live video streams for these types of communications. Compared to simply talking over a PowerPoint presentation, your executives will be far better able to engage investors and analysts and to tell the story behind the way the company is performing by live streaming video of the speakers alongside their slides and other supporting media.

Employee awards & celebrations

Nearly every company has an employee recognition program that highlights employees making an impact on the business. These awards not only celebrate the employees that go above and beyond but also show other employees what type of work and behavior is valued within the company. For larger companies, however, it can be challenging to make this type of recognition more visible. That’s why many organizations now carve out time to recognize top-performers during live streamed all-hand meetings, while others will live stream a surprise celebration for an individual employee at their desk.

Live Streaming For Learning & Development

Training events

Businesses spend a significant amount of money on travel and facilities for live training events — between 40-70% of the total budget for each event! Multiply that by each location or session and those costs really start to add up.

But there’s no need to cut back on formal instructor-led training — the gold standard as far as employee training goes — because you can live stream and record some or all of your training activities and events instead. It’s an easy way to reach more people and teach more people, without increasing your training budget.

Brown bags or lunch & learns

Brown bag lunches are fun, informal training events in which a company might bring in an outside expert (or nominate one of their own employees) to share information and ideas about everything from life skills to Excel skills.

But there’s no reason to limit the audience for these helpful sessions just to those who can physically attend. By live streaming your brown bag events, you give your teams an opportunity to watch at their desks while they work on other tasks, as well as to watch from a remote location if they aren’t working in the office.

Guest speaker events

Learning and Development teams put a lot of effort into keeping learning interesting, and often that includes inviting guest speakers to share knowledge and inspiration with employees.

The announcement of a well-known guest speaker often sends a wave of excitement throughout the company — that is, until someone realizes they have a schedule conflict and can’t be there in person. Giving your people the ability to watch a live stream of these special events and an on-demand recording later means no one will be left out from these unifying and energizing events.

Live Streaming For Sales & Marketing

Sales enablement

For most organizations, it simply isn’t possible to bring every member of the sales team to the same physical location more than once or twice each year. To keep reps in the loop, many companies rely on a combination of email and video conferencing. But neither is perfect — emails and text documents aren’t engaging and tend to get lost in the inbox, and video conferencing doesn’t enable reps to rewind or replay key points they may need to clarify. Live virtual sales training and knowledge sharing events for reps can help engage and unify the field, accelerate the flow of new product and competitive information, and elevate the collective expertise of the team.

New product releases

Conjure up just the right amount of FOMO with a live stream to heighten the buzz around a new product — or new product features that likely would have gone unnoticed in a standard press release. Whether you’re selling shoes or software, a live stream can give customers, prospective customers, industry pundits, and even investors something new to be excited about.

Live demos

They’re going to be wowed when they see it, but for most companies, sales reps simply don’t have enough time to give a demo to every lead that comes in (especially those that may be great opportunities in the future, but simply aren’t qualified today). Fill the gap by regularly streaming live demo webinars with Q&A. Doing so can be an efficient way to move more people into and through your marketing funnel. And the more people who can see your product or service in action, the more promotion you’ll get via word-of-mouth.

Thought leadership

You’re used to sharing your company’s expertise through webinars, blogs, and social media posts, but you could reach a lot more people by taking your thought leadership efforts live. Social media algorithms often suppress the visibility of any content that isn’t a paid promotion, but when you go live, your video can appear right in your followers’ notifications. Live Q&A also gives your audience an opportunity to participate in the conversation, deepening their connection with your brand and leaders.

Behind the scenes tours

Show the human side of your business by taking viewers behind the scenes, whether that’s a live factory tour or a walk through corporate HQ. You’ll directly impact people’s buying preferences by showing them how your product is made and by introducing the good people with strong values behind your brand.

Social & community impact

Your teams are giving back to their communities and supporting local causes because they care about making the world around them better. By live streaming from a volunteer or charity event and telling the stories of those who need support you can bring more attention to causes and inspire others who may also want to help.

Live Streaming For Customer Advocacy

User conferences

Your user conference gives you an opportunity to build deeper relationships with your customers. But attendance is often limited to those who could get approval for a ticket and travel expenses. Hosting a live stream of your conference sessions is an easy way to include more of your customers in these events. And with any luck, those that couldn’t attend will find some valuable takeaways that help them make the case for attending in-person next year.

Live customer training

Make sure your customers are getting the most out of your products by streaming live training sessions. Regular live customer training events give your users the opportunity to jump online and learn something new about your software. And when you make the training sessions interactive with live Q&A or quizzes, your lessons are more likely to stick than they would through regular videos. You can also make a library of your recorded training broadcasts available to your customers, so they can find a topic they may have missed with a simple search.

 

What’s Behind The Growth In Live Streaming In The Workplace?

Live streaming was once expensive and complicated. Today, anyone with a smartphone can “go live” at the press of a button. And there are quite a few reasons why live streaming is, in fact, good for business.

In our latest white paper, we examine the potential so many businesses see in live streaming. We then dig into how live streaming has changed with the emergence of new technologies and the commoditization of professional recording equipment, reducing the need for organizations to tap expensive third-party production companies. And more.

Download your free copy today.