Have you ever walked into a house, thought people were in, and shouted, “I’m home,” or, “Is anybody here?” only to get no answer? Then, you walk into one of the bedrooms, and there’s your friend listening to something with headphones on. They were in the house but just weren’t responding.
Or, if you’re a parent, maybe you spend some time talking to your children only to realize they were not listening. The same thing can happen if you’re out with friends and they’re on their phone, only half paying attention.
The point is, it doesn’t feel good when it seems like you’re talking to no one. Podcasting can feel like a one-way street a lot of the time. Yes, Spotify is rolling out comments, and yes, if you put your podcast on YouTube, people can comment. But by and large, across most apps, podcasting feels like a one-way street.
What if you could create content for your podcast that felt like you were building a community and interacting with your audience? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Why Live Streaming Your Podcast is Important
Hey, everybody, Joe Casabona here. I am the evangelist for RSS.com, and today, I’m going to talk to you about something very near and dear to my heart, and that is live streaming. Live streaming is one of the best ways to get your content out there, test new ideas, and interact with your audience.
Today, we’re going to be talking about why you should live stream, how you can live stream, and what live streaming has to do with podcasting.
🌊 Let’s dive into it!
But before we get into that, I do want to tell you, if you are interested in getting great, affordable podcasting hosting with a ton of features, head over to RSS.com and get started free. Also, if you are switching from another podcast host, you’ll get six full months for free.
What is Live Streaming?
First of all, what is live streaming?
Live streaming is putting your content out there and doing it live for other people to watch on some platform like YouTube or Twitch, or one of the many other live streaming platforms out there.
You have likely watched a live stream. We’ve done a bunch on the RSS.com YouTube channel.
I think the bigger question here is, why should you live stream?
Well, I have some thoughts about this.
Benefits of Live Streaming a Podcast
1. Create and Test Content:
- Live streaming is a great way to create and test content.
- Maybe you have an idea for a podcast episode, but you’re not fully sold on it yet.
- Live streaming is a great way to test the things you’re thinking about, get feedback in real-time, and then take what you talked about and turn it into more concise content.
- Example: I have been live streaming every Thursday to test ideas for my book.
2. Interact with Your Audience:
- You get to interact with your audience in a way that you don’t get to do when you are releasing podcast episodes.
- You’re releasing your live streams in real-time and interacting in real-time.
- If someone leaves a comment, you can immediately respond to that comment.
- If someone has a question, you can immediately respond to that question.
3. Repurposing Content:
- You can repurpose your live streams, either segments of them or the whole thing.
- Channels like John Boy Media and Alt Shift X do their shows live and then release the live stream on their podcast.
- Opportunity to monetize that content.
- Platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Streamlabs, or Patreon allow your audience to give you money in real-time.
4. Real-Time Feedback:
- Your audience can ask questions and leave comments, and you can ask them questions and comments.
- Example: “Hey, I’m thinking about this. What do you think? I’m going to do an episode about this. What questions do you have about it?”
Getting Started with Live Streaming
Now, if you’re thinking, “Yeah, okay, that sounds good. You’ve convinced me to try live streaming. Is it hard?” Well, there are a lot of great resources for you to try or to use.
Platforms to Try:
- YouTube: A free platform for you to live stream with built-in studio tools. Schedule live streams and they will show up for your subscribers.
- Twitch: Free to use with a built-in studio and a video archive of all your live streams.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok all support live streaming.
Specific Purpose-Built Live Streaming Tools:
- StreamYard: An in-browser studio where you can bring in other people to the stream and set up nice-looking layouts.
- Ecamm Live: Allows for pre-recorded videos or streaming to multiple platforms. It records directly to your computer.
- Riverside: A popular tool among podcasters that also supports live streaming.
Live Streaming and Podcasting
There are a few ways that you can get your live stream onto a podcast:
- Ecamm Live: Take the audio and upload it directly to your feed, or edit it in your favorite editing app and then upload it to your podcast.
- Live Item Tag: A podcasting 2.0 tag to mark an episode as a live episode in supporting podcast hosts.
Apps that support the live item tag will live stream directly into the app. For example, Fountain supports the live tag, so people who use Fountain can watch your live streams right in the app.
Even for apps that don’t support the live tag, it will still be an episode in your feed that you directly streamed. RSS.com now supports the live item tag, so you can create a live episode, stream it into apps that support streaming, and then it will show up as an episode for your listeners after you’re done streaming.
I’m experimenting with this a little bit with my podcast, Workflows Podcast, on my YouTube channel. Very soon, I’m going to experiment with doing a live item in this feed.
If you want to learn more about this, leave a comment in the video posted above, and I will make a video to show you exactly how to do that using RSS.com and some of the tools that I’ve shown you here.
