How many times a day does your phone ding to notify you someone is “live?” As I sat down to write this article, I found myself struggling to resist the siren of six #livestream notifications.
Data science. Goat farming. Cybersecurity trends. Parenting girls. Fast-growth companies. Creating better PowerPoint slides. There’s a #livestream for everything that interests me (and probably everything that interests you, too).
#Livestreaming isn’t a new technique, but it’s experiencing a surge in popularity.
What’s behind the surge?
It’s easy to understand why the streaming of live video is now like a flood. #Livestreams are relatively inexpensive and easy to produce. The tap of a button on a mobile device is all it takes to go live on multiple platforms at once.
Among its biggest benefits are the human connections enabled, requiring relatively few new skills required. As we all participated in or led more video calls during the pandemic, our comfort level in front of a camera has risen.
The pandemic changed #livestreams’ course
Before the COVID-19 pandemic drove many people to work from home, #livestreaming often occurred as an add-on to in-person events. And it often came with a high production value.
A Louis Vuitton livestream presentation of a collection at the Louvre attracted thousands of viewers. A LinkedIn Live with Marketers talk show on the expo hall floor of Content Marketing World gave those who couldn’t enjoy the content in person a peek at what they were missing.
But during the pandemic, #livestreaming became the source of personal connection and interaction with audiences – without all the high-production fuss.
Standing out takes strategic thinking
The downstream effect of all this creative #livestreaming activity: The competition for attention is fierce. But marketers still can stand out in the stream with the right strategy.
Dorie Clark, strategy consultant and executive coach who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, hosts a popular show called Better for Newsweek on LinkedIn Live.
Dorie’s professorial experience helped her set an effortlessly educational yet conversational tone for the interviews with business leaders on topics that help entrepreneurs and other professionals boost their skills.

Let it flow on more than one platform
Christoph Trappe, author of Going Live: Livestream Your Podcast to Reach More People, turned his Business Storytelling Podcast into a livestream and goes live several times per week on multiple channels.
He believes # livestreaming is “way more authentic” than scripted video and advises streamers to keep things candid and conversational. “If you’re going to read a script on the #livestream, just email it to me,” he jokes.
Initially, Twitter performed best for Christoph, leading to hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of views per episode. But when he added Amazon Live to the mix he started routinely seeing 1,000 to 4,000 viewers per #livestream episode.


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