Scheduling and hosting the events on the internet has become quite popular, as most of the people are engaged on the internet. It is not only an easy process but also ensures higher engagement. Although there are various platforms available for you to host the events online, the best advice for you is to either broadcast live streaming or host webinars.
Suppose you are running an educational institution, then you can also provide education and learning services to your students by hosting various seminars and convocation programs, meetings, online classes, etc. Also, the major benefit you could get from hosting these webinars is that you could connect with a large number of people without any limitations.
Apart from this, you can also promote your brand through social media by way of live streaming.
With that said, in this article, we will discuss some of the best webinars and live streaming tools for your online events.
Ways to stream live video
There are mainly two ways in which you could initiate live video streaming either by conducting a webinar or a webcast.
- Webinar
A webinar is an online seminar in which you will have to include the presentations, video workshops, or lectures that are hosted on the internet. Some features of webinars include:
- The type of cases you can use includes: motivational speech, training, collaborative events, conference, online courses, leadership sessions, and break-out sessions, etc
- They are mostly live, which means that you can not pre-record them
- There can be more than one presenter or host
- Questions from the audience and live text chat are allowed
- Being an administrator, you can also show multiple feeds
- Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation that is hosted on the internet with the help of streaming media technology. Some features of the webcast include:
- You can only use cases like PR, corporate events, launch, news, entertainment, roadshow, and education, etc
- You are also allowed to pre-record the webcast
- It does not require any login and can be viewed by anyone
- Allows one-way audio and video streaming from the host
- Appropriate for live events
- Geared towards a large number of customers
Top 3 Ways to schedule and host online events
For video streaming, you might require some tools. As the features and limitations of every platform differ from each other, therefore, you must decide to stream your video as per the number of audiences you are willing to host on the webcast or webinar. Mentioned below are the top 3 ways in which you could schedule and host online events.
Facebook Live (Webcast)
If your main motive is to gather a large audience, then you must decide to go for live streaming on Facebook. In this, you can broadcast a video to a particular group of people. Facebook live is highly superior and can bring you multiple users.
The major reason you should host your events on Facebook is that it schedules an announcement post along with a live broadcast post specifying all the necessary details regarding the date and time of the event.
Some of the features of Facebook Live includes:
- Live streams are free for the public to watch
- It requires you to have a Facebook account and be a part of the group where the live streaming will be published to receive the notification in advance
- 4 hours maximum length for live streaming from a mobile device and 8 hours from a computer
- It supports a single live feed and no multiple hosts from distant locations
YouTube Live
As most of the people are engaged on YouTube, it becomes a plus point to broadcast live videos on this platform. However, if you are hosting the live stream with your mobile, then you must have at least 1000 subscribers.
Although, you can initiate live streaming to youtube in three ways by webcam, encoder, and mobile. Some features of YouTube Live includes:
- You are required to make a watch page with a sharable link to schedule a YouTube live
- There are no viewer limit in the YouTube live
- It does not support screen sharing without an encoder
- There can not be more than one host as it only supports a single video feed
Google Meet
Google meet, which is also known as Hangouts Meet is a video chat tool that could be a very suitable platform for you to host the meetings by gathering a large audience. You are supposed to generate a meeting code and then share it with your audience so that they could join it. The other features of google meet include:
- You can send unlimited messages
- Meeting recordings could be saved in Google Drive (with a paid plan)
- You are free to share your screen
- Can be joined either from app or browser
- Live closed English captions
The Bottom Line
Live streaming could have been an important part of your life, especially if you have to connect with a greater audience conveniently.
Although there are various platforms to schedule and host events, you could consider the above-mentioned platforms for more effective and better outcomes.