Stream UK’s Webcasting Tips
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
In order to get the most out of webcasting, here are a few helpful tips covering the key benefits, and how to optimise your delivery.
Webcasting tips:-
Choosing the venue
If possible, bear in mind webcasting needs when deciding the venue. If possible, select one with a good uplink speed (ideally over 2mb), and try and run a test stream before the event itself.
Encoding considerations
Encoding refers to the processes involved in repurposing audio and video, and we can help you select the right format for you (Flash, .wmv, Silverlight etc). Remember that although you want the stream to look as good as possible, end-users with poor internet connections will struggle to watch without buffering issues. Consider delivering a ‘high’ and ‘low’ quality version to maximise penetration. Awareness of your audience’s bandwidth, firewall or VPN limitations, will help to plan, produce and deliver the right webcast solution.
Professional production
Audio. Good sound is vital! If the audio is of poor quality, people will tune off quickly. Use your test webcast to ensure you have a decent mix and sound level. If there are questions from the venue audience, make sure you have a hand held microphone and if you’re letting people dial in, test this thoroughly too.
Vision. Video requires a crew, lighting, and equipment. If you need a high quality experience for the viewers, make sure you have decent kit and operators. And if the centrepiece of the broadcast is a presenter, make sure they’re comfortable in front of the camera! Get stage training and direction if necessary.
Know your audience, know your message
Webcasting is intended to make a viewer feel ‘present’ even if they are thousands of miles away, so it is important to maximise the impact of the message you are delivering. If you are using webcasting to promote or sell, make sure the people viewing are a valuable target market – just as you would aim to do with offline. Similarly, consider how to get the key points across succinctly and the tone you need to set. Is a short, punchy webcast the best way to promote your product? Or is a detailed presentation with informative slides required to get key knowledge across? Will the audience want to interact and engage? If so, utilize the interactive options available. And if you want to know who is watching, implement a compulsory registration page. Data capture such as contact details, location, and preferences can be hugely beneficial if your webcast is part of a marketing drive.
Post event optimisation
Once of the most tangible benefits of webcasting is that after the event, you have valuable content. This can be turned into a searchable archive of presentations, or edited and distributed for continued promotion – whether as a viral campaign, or mastered onto a DVD.
Measure ROI & engagement
Cost-effectiveness and ROI
In the current economic climate, webcasting is becoming one of the core methods of communication strategy, not just because it helps overcome the logistical and geographical hurdles of having multiple offices. There is also the pressure to demonstrate to investors that you are tightening belts where possible, as well as an increasing need to ‘go green’.
An event requiring hundreds or thousands of employees to be in one place can be webcast to all for a fraction of the cost. And a marketing presentation can reach unlimited users on the web. But it is still key to demonstrate ROI so make sure you have measures in place.
Effective, interactive, and engaging
In terms of demonstrable benefits, webcasting is ideal for monitoring the effectiveness of the ‘message’ – whether it be one or promotion, training, or news. It is possible to measure exactly who watched, when and where. And with the addition of interactive elements you can promote employee or viewer engagement – with polls, chat, and questions, you can find out what they think, what they want to know, and even if they were paying attention! The company or presenter can either respond ‘live’ during the broadcast, or collate all feedback and questions for future response. Designed sensitively, and delivered effectively, webcasting encourages democratic dialogue within organisations, and provides an engaging and compelling platform when used for ‘selling’.
Live and on-demand webcasts are a fantastic way to communicate essential information. Stream UK can facilitate a complete end to end solution including production, encoding and broadcasting, as well as giving you complete control of webcast administration via Stream Connect 2.0.
Contact us for any of the services below.
- Media training
- Set-up, filming and production (equipment, location, technical support)
- Advice and recommendations in encoding, platforms, bandwidth
- Hosting and delivery
- Professional editing
- Slide synchronisation
- Appropriate corporate branding
- Viewer participation (submitting questions in live webcasts via interface..)
- Restriction and security options
- Post production
- Feedback capture
Tags: Stream Connect, Stream UK, Webcasting
