What is Multistreaming?
When it comes to engaging audiences online, livestreaming is king. The only problem with livestreaming is reaching all potential audiences across platforms. If your audience is only on a single platform, it’s as simple as broadcasting to that platform. But if your audience is spread across platforms or you want to maximize your reach, then you need a way to simulcast your livestream to multiple platforms at once. This is known as multistreaming, and luckily there are a few ways you can do it.
Multistreaming is simply the term for multi-platform streaming. For example, let’s say you’d like to do a Facebook stream, but you have a bunch of new audiences that only like YouTube – and you’re getting some great new engagement on Instagram. If you know how to do a multi-stream, you can broadcast your livestream to all platforms at once. This means you’ll reach everyone in all those audiences without asking them to come over to a platform they’re not used to. An added advantage is that you’ll get to take advantage of each platform’s unique benefits – like Facebook’s superior analytics, for example.
Without multistreaming, you would have to broadcast to each platform separately, meaning it would take three times as long to reach the same audience – and if your livestream is particularly unique, you don’t get to give all your audience the same experience. Your other option is to record the livestream and repost it to other platforms, but you miss out on the extra engagement going live provides. Multistreaming is the best solution to get the most reach and engagement from your livestream.
How to Set Up A Multistream
Setting up a multi-platform stream isn’t hard if you’re already familiar with streaming in general. Instead of streaming to a single platform directly, you’ll be setting up hardware or software to connect to several platforms at once, essentially copying your stream to multiple sources. This can be done via a hardware solution or by using a software platform that allows for cloud-based multistreaming.
Multistream Hardware
Using a hardware solution to multistream means purchasing a hardware video encoder that can encode video with the Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), a protocol that allows video to be sent to servers to be distributed to livestream platforms such as Facebook Live, YouTube, or Twitch. Hardware encoders are reliable and take the burden off your computer, but they can be expensive, and they mean extra configuration.
Multistreaming with Software
If you haven’t got the hardware, some software can be configured to stream to multiple platforms. All you need is the proper keys for each platform. If your computer power and internet connection are sufficient, this solution eliminates the need for hardware, but it can be less reliable and does require significant computing resources – and extra configuration.
Cloud-Based Multistreaming
Maybe the best of both worlds, cloud-based multistreaming allows you to forgo expensive hardware and complicated software setups. Instead, you’ll send one stream to cloud-based servers, which are built specifically for streaming to many platforms at once. All the work of configuration and hardware routing is done for you – all you have to worry about is putting your best foot forward on your livestream.
How Zype Can Help You Multistream
If you’re a serious content producer and you’re ready to provide the best possible viewing experience for your audience, complete with seamless monetization, high-quality on-demand streaming, mulistreams to various social platforms, analytics, customer relationship management, and even the opportunity to build your own over-the-top (OTT) streaming apps, Zype has you covered. Contact us today for a free demo of the Zype platform, and take your content to the next level.