Communicating with customers has become much simpler today with the immense popularity of digital technology and social media. Live streaming is picking up at the moment and that is why visionary businesses are creating live streaming websites and these brands have every chance to succeed with the right approach.
It’s never been easier for video streamers to create a feed, stream the content they like, and get paid for it. Thousands of streamers are flocking to platforms like Twitch for the same. While these live streaming platforms present lucrative opportunities to grow and make money, not everyone makes it successful on these platforms.
Changing payment structures and less stable incomes make it difficult for live streaming. Well, whatever be your interests, whether you are a business or a live streamer looking to build your personal brand, it’s time to get ahead of the curve and make a live streaming website.
Creating your own live streaming website helps to
- Secure the long term future of businesses
- Build an engaged community
- Keep creative freedom and profits
It also stops your live streaming businesses from being at the mercy of third-party platform guidelines and empowers you to take full control over what you do. In this blog, let’s look into how to create a launch the best live streaming platform in 2020.
Starting a Live Streaming Business
This comprehensive guide covers important areas of how to start a live streaming business. Read on for exclusive insights and valuable resources.
Identify your niche and unique selling propositions (USP’s)
Every successful business starts with thorough market research and concept creation. The important thing you must understand when trying to create a live streaming website that is already existing, for example, Twitch, you need to take extra efforts to make your platform successful. This is because these streaming platforms are already leading the industry. Without integrating USP's that sets your platform apart, there is no point in trying to repeat their success. Come up with USP's that will improve your position in the industry to successfully implement your best online live streaming service.
Besides video streaming solutions you can choose a specialized niche like video game streaming platform, sports streaming site, live streaming of events, skill-sharing live streaming, etc.
When considering how to start a live streaming business, you must understand the options are unlimited.
Thorough market research will help you determine how to launch a live streaming service.
Create a Live Streaming Business Plan
After determining the niche and the type of solution you would offer, it is time to move on to a live streaming business plan. Crafting a smart business plan will help to efficiently identify the challenges and issues that might arise and successfully prepare your business for future upscaling.
If you are planning to launch our live streaming platform on multiple markets, you must plan for multiple language support as well.
When developing a streaming platform for user-generated content, it is important to collaborate with video content creators.
Choose a Monetisation Model for Your Live Streaming Platform
If you are interested in how to create a live stream website that will generate a good amount of revenue, you must implement the best monetization models for your video streaming service.
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view is one of the best opportunities to generate revenue from your live videos. To access the content, viewers can pay for the individual content they want to watch.
Subscription
This revenue model allows viewers to access your live videos by making monthly or yearly payments.
Sponsorships and Advertisements
Sponsorships and advertisements are another great way to get your community involved in your live videos. When you are choosing the live streaming provider, make sure they support the monetization strategies you prefer.
Freemium Model
You can implement a freemium model where some videos are delivered for free, but users have to pay to access exclusive content unlimitedly.
Implement the Features for your Streaming Site
Once you have set a business plan and other things, it is time to decide the features and functionalities of your streaming platform. By this time, you must define the type of live streaming platform you are going to build and whether you need to create features for a few types of users.
These are the 3 types of users any streaming website would have.
Video Creators
These users will have control over creating the live streaming and you need to incorporate the features that allow them to upload the content they have created.
Viewers
Video consumers or viewers are end-users who watch the live content on your streaming platform.
Admin
Administrators of the live streaming solution have the control to moderate content, delete videos, manage monetization, etc.
Here are some of the essential feature lists to implement in your streaming platform.
1. Home page
The home page is the main page of your streaming platform where users land first.
2. User registration and user profiles
Registration via mail id or social media account is a must-have feature for all streaming platforms. Once registered, users will be able to create user profiles and save favorite videos, view their history, etc.
3. Search
A search is another essential feature that will help users filter and find relevant content. Integrate a content recommendation algorithm that will offer recommendations based on user interests and previously viewed videos.
4. Payment Gateways
To allow your users to make payments to access the video library, you can integrate a payment system like PayPal, Stripe, or Braintree.
5. Push Notifications
Push messages can be used to notify your users about the new videos, episodes, TV shows, and other useful information.
6. Reviews and Ratings
Review and ratings are essential features that allow the platform to collect feedback by allowing users to leave reviews and rate videos.
7. Analytics
Analytics is an important feature that must be an integral part of a streaming platform. This helps to analyze the user behavior and the performance of videos based on the data received.
8. Admin Panel
Admin dashboard makes editing videos, moderating and deleting content, banning users, etc. easy.
Build a Customer-Centric UI/UX Design
The future of live streaming video is great, but if you want to create a new streaming site that attracts lots of users, a customer-centric UI/UX is important for your video platform.
The web design process must focus on the following.
User Experience
User interface and user experience are an important part of all streaming platforms. UX must be designed in a way that will smoothly direct users through desired actions. If you are wondering how to make a live streaming website that users will love, incorporate a unique style to your streaming platform. Find a unique style and create a user interface that has a unique style to it.
Responsive on all Devices
The availability of diverse devices calls for the need for your streaming platform to be responsible for all devices of different screen sizes.
Security
Safety and security are some of the important aspects of the streaming platform. A lot of significant factors go into ensuring the security of your platform.
Domain Restrictions
With this feature, it is possible to prevent unauthorized content sharing on your platform by pasting the copied link from the destination.
Network Security
A good content delivery network (CDN) ensures stable global connectivity and offers a smooth and secure delivery of content even in times of server failure.
Referrer Restrictions
Using this feature, you can create both whitelists and blacklists to segregate users. Websites that have the authority to share your content will go to the whitelist and other pirated websites go to the blacklist.
Password Protection
While this is the basic level of protection that allows you to restrict live video access to users who have access to the password.
Payment Security
If you are planning to make money with your live streaming website, you must implement a paywall payment security.
A secure streaming platform must have a paywall to facilitate secure financial transactions.
The security set up must also incorporate SSL encryption and other standard protection for online transactions.
Geo-Restrictions
You must implement Geo-restrictions that refrain certain locations from accessing your platform following specific licensing or copyright terms.
Copyright Control
Integrate copyright control to avoid copying and reproducing your videos illegally.
Selecting the Best Development Approach
When you want to create the best live streaming platform, the most important step is to choose the right development approach. The very first approach is to build your streaming platform from scratch, but it is one of the most expensive ways of development as well. Another best alternative is to use white label solutions that are easily available in the industry to develop your streaming platform.
White label solutions are readymade scripts that help you build a live streaming website in simple steps and less cost. The readymade solutions also allow you to customize the script to add unique features to your platform based on your needs.
Conclusion
Live streaming websites are becoming new social networks where users who share the same interest build a community. Live streaming is spreading its wings in every industry like entertainment, online retail, education, etc. Starting a live streaming business needs a well-planned business vision and a bunch of advanced technology to offer users with a high-quality streaming platform. Hope this blog helped to provide significant insights on building a live streaming platform. Set yourself apart by integrating unique features and functionalities in your website.