At this point, I’m sure you already know how to properly create a YouTube Live stream. You’ve also probably memorized the things that you can do to tweak your live video airings. Optimizing your campaigns might also be something that you’ve already learned by now.
You might have even tried this a few times just to get it right. Now – Imagine losing all the time and energy that you’ve invested in your YouTube Live stream!
How can that happen? Simple – If you don’t know the biggest problems that you can encounter in your YouTube Live campaigns, then how can you possibly avoid these issues? How can you prepare to fix them just in case you run into these potential show stoppers?
What Are the Most Serious YouTube Live Campaign Issues?
Since there’s a significant possibility that you could stumble into some of the biggest problems in using YouTube Live to promote your business – In this video, I’ll point out and explain each of these issues to you. You’ll also learn little known preventive measures and troubleshooting tips in this video!
So let’s start – Here are the most serious problems that might happen with your YouTube Live campaigns:
1. Poor Content Quality – This issue is mainly caused by low quality data about your ideal customers and prospects. The main effect of this problem is low viewer turnout. If they do find their way to your YouTube Live campaigns, then another effect of this problem is poor viewer engagement. Of course, these can result to ridiculously low conversions for you!
So how do you avoid this problem early on? Simple – Get to really know your target audience. You gotta learn about the gender, age, location and interests of your ideal prospects. You should find out where they regularly go on the Web to get the content that they want. You should have a good idea on their expectations from a YouTube Live stream. You must also know how they react and engage with live video content.
2. Ineffective YouTube Live Stream Titles, Descriptions & Thumbnails – Why are you still getting poor turnouts, very low engagement and little to no conversions from your liv video streams even if you already know a great deal about your target audience? Well, boring titles, descriptions that don’t make sense and poor quality thumbnails might just be the root cause of your problem!
To avoid this issue, you should use the details of your ideal customer profile to create captivating titles, interesting thumbnails and compelling descriptions for your YouTube Live streams. Your competitor analytics data and prospect partner profile can also help you find the most viewed YouTube Live streams and traditional YouTube videos. You can then study how the titles, thumbnails and descriptions of these videos are crafted, so you can use the same fundamental principles for your own live streams!
3. Little to No Exposure – Are you still getting very low views and poor engagement from your viewers? Despite making sure that your content is exactly what your target audience wants? Even if you’ve already tweaked your titles, thumbnails and descriptions? Well, one of the most important things that you should do with your YouTube Live streams is to cost-effectively promote it across the online and offline places where your ideal prospects hang out!
You can prevent this from happening by using the details of your direct competitor and prospect partner profiles. Find out what they’re doing to drive significant amounts of traffic to their Web properties and YouTube channels. Learn the advertising platforms, sites and social networks that they’re using to promote their content. Identify the sites that are driving significant referral traffic to their Web properties. Use what you learn from them to promote your YouTube Live stream airings!
You should also find the tags that your direct competitors and prospect partners are using for their top viewed videos. You can use the same tags for your videos, aside from others that may be relevant to your target audience. This can help your live video streams in being listed as recommended videos by YouTube. This means your ideal customers and prospects will be able to see your YouTube Live stream airings while they’re watching other relevant videos in YouTube!
4. Low Engagement – One of the most important objectives of a YouTube Live stream is for your viewers to participate in your videos. If they won’t do that, then you’d most likely get poor conversions from your campaigns!
To avoid this issue, always use the live chat feature in the YouTube Live platform. Communicate with your viewers while doing your live video stream. Entice them to participate by setting up a question and answer portion in your event. Post meaningful messages that can grab their attention and compel them to participate in the discussions. Within your YouTube Live stream, you can also tell them from time to time to feel free to post their questions and comments through the live chat thread.
5. Poor Conversions – This can be a direct result of low turnout and engagement. Another cause might be the way you handle your YouTube Live stream itself and how you inject your offers into your live stream. Remember, many viewers are turned off by hard-sell pitches. You must entice them to subscribe to your irresistible offers so you can build a mutually beneficial relationship with them for the long term.
What you can do to avoid this problem is to inject captivating subscription offers into your YouTube Live stream. Give them a compelling reason to subscribe to your YouTube channel, your Facebook page and to your mailing list. Also remind them from time to time during your live stream to do this.
You should also place remarketing and retargeting code in your landing pages for your YouTube live stream airing ads. And, don’t forget to announce your next scheduled live stream airing before the end of your YouTube Live stream. You can also use this as a reason for viewers to sign up to your mailing list – You can tell them that they can sign up to be reminded of your next airings and be notified of new live streams in the future.
Now that you know the biggest problems that can significantly affect the results of your YouTube Live stream campaigns, let’s move on to the technical problems that you might encounter before, during and after hosting your live video streams:
How Can I Avoid YouTube Live Technical Problems?
1. Encoder Specifications – Choose a reliable encoder to convert your YouTube Live streams into HLS or iOS formats that are supported by YouTube. Test it out with some trial streams before you decide to go with an encoder. This can also allow you to familiarize yourself on the things that you should do to set up your encoder.
2. Stream Options – Make sure to choose the right quality setting for your YouTube Live stream. Remember, selecting the Low Latency option can allow viewers with slow Internet connections and devices with minimal processing power to view your content without issues. On the other hand, viewers with fast Internet connectivity and the latest devices are most likely expecting high quality streams, so the Highest Quality option would be right for them. When you really know your target audience, you’d be able to select the right option for your YouTube Live streams.
3. Redundant Backup Streams – You should set this up, which is an option that’s available under the Events option of YouTube Live. This can allow you to continue with your live stream in case there are some problems with the YouTube Live server.
4. Constant Monitoring – While your YouTube Live stream is ongoing, you should closely monitor the Stream Health tab. This can allow you to spot potential issues in your YouTube Live stream, which might result to more serious problems if you aren’t able to fix them early on.
5. Live Stream Archive – Don’t forget to create a backup copy of your live video stream and store it locally. YouTube only keeps a copy of your live streams for 12 hours. If you intend to use the YouTube Video Editor to create a backup copy, then remember that you have 3 hours from the time that your live stream was archived to do this.
To wrap up – Remember these things, and you’ll be on your way to a problem-free YouTube Live experience! You’ll also be able to increase your chances of getting successful results from your live stream campaigns when you do this. So, keep in mind to avoid the biggest issues that you might encounter in your YouTube Live feeds!