Livestreaming

WHICH PLATFORMS SHOULD I USE FOR MY LIVESTREAM?

There are a lot of platforms out there to put up a live video, with the most popular being Facebook Live, Youtube Live, Instagram Live, Zoom. MS Teams and Tik Tok Live. As choosing the right platform is essential for a successful livestream, it is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of each. Hence there are a number of factors to consider when choosing your channel: Target audience, costs, as well as technical possibilities and limitations.

Webcast

Broadcasting annual figures, public announcements or a monthly update around the world – we advise about the technical set-up, host and content for an optimal impact.

Digital Events

From a large-scale digital event to an intimate talk show at the client’s office, we take care of the entire digital event production.

Hybrid Events

Combine the best of both worlds with a hybrid event and give both the live and online audience the feeling as if they are in the middle of the event!

Live Formats

The sky is the limit! Interactive talkshows, breaking a world record or Q&A’s with celebrities. Our focus on innovation means we’re always a step ahead in developing new and exciting live formats for social media.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The most important consideration when choosing a platform is your target audience; their location will differ per campaign, event or live show. The audiences on each platform are huge, with Facebook still the biggest. Therefore it is important to properly research where your target audience hangs out and in what ways they use social media.

ACTIVE USERS:

Facebook 2.3 billion (source)
YouTube 1.9 billion (source)

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TECHNICAL POSSIBILITIES

The biggest differences between the platform (besides the target audience and users) is the underlying technical aspects like image quality, interactivity and length. Check out the table below to get an overview of the most popular streaming services:

	Facebook Live	YouTube Live	Instagram Live	Vimeo Live
Source	All sources, including professional and smartphones	All sources, including professional and smartphones	Only smartphones / tablets^*1	All sources, including professional and smartphones
Time limit	4 hours ^*2	36 hours ^*2	1 hour ^*2	12 hours
Resolution	Up to 1280×720 (720p)	Up to 3840 x 2160 (4K UHD)	Up to 1080×1920 (1080p vertical)	Up to 1920×1080 (1080p)
Image quality (bit rate)	High (up to 4 Mb / second)	Extremely high (up to 51 Mb / second)	Low (up to 1 Mb / second)	Extremely high (up to 26Mb / second)
Image speed (frame rate)	Up to 30 frames per second	Up to 60 frames per second	Up to 30 frames per second	Up to 60 frames per second
Latency	Can’t be adjusted, approximately 15-30 seconds	adjustable: ^*3 <5 seconds, <15 seconds, <30 seconds	Can’t be adjusted, approximately 5-10 seconds	Can’t be adjusted 15-30 seconds
Interactivity	– Livechat – Reactions (Likes, etc.)	– Livechat – Like/dislike	– Livechat – Reactions (Likes, etc.)	– Livechat

1 It is possible to use external software which simulates a smartphone, but this workaround isn’t as dependable as the alternatives.
2 Both Facebook and YouTube offer a “continuous livestream” option, where the stream can continue indefinitely. There are a number of limitations, however. For example, analytics will be limited and there won’t be a “DVR” (on-demand viewing or skipping to certain parts).
*3 The lower the latency, the less time there is for optimizing the different bandwidths. This means that users with slower internet speeds will be ‘buffering’ or loading the videos more often.