Your live stream starts on time. The picture is sharp, the sound is clear, and people join. For a while, the viewer count goes up. Then it starts to go down, one viewer at a time, and nobody tells you why.
They can’t tell you. In most live streams, the viewer has one thing to do, and that is watch. They can’t say hello. They can’t answer a question, because nobody asked one. They can’t show that they are there. So when their attention drops, the only thing left to do is close the page.
This is a loss you already have, and you can’t see it. You don’t see the viewer who got bored in the second half. You don’t see the parent who had a question about the lesson and never asked it. And when your viewers do want to talk about the game or the sermon, they talk in a group chat or on another app. You can’t read those messages, and you can’t answer them.
Give the viewer a small job during the stream. It can be a question to answer, a name on a list, or a guess about the final score.
Churches, gyms, teachers and football fans have done this for years. What they do is easy to copy, and most of it has nothing to do with the video.
At church, a person answers
The Church Online Platform from Life.Church is built around this problem. It has public chat, private chat and prayer requests. But the main part is people. Volunteers host the online service. With the live prayer request feature, volunteers pray for viewers during the service. The platform also shows calls to action, so the viewer has a next step.
The pastor preaches, and somebody else reads the messages. A viewer who writes “please pray for my father” gets an answer from a real person before the service ends.
This works for any stream. A chat box that nobody reads tells the viewer that nobody is listening. I think that is worse than no chat at all. The fix costs one volunteer for one hour.
In a class, the quiet people take part
Peloton shows a Leaderboard during its live fitness classes. It lists the people who are taking the same class, with their position in real time. A rider can tap another rider’s picture to send a high five, and the high five appears on that person’s screen during the class. Members also form Teams, and one team can have up to 50,000 people.
The workout is the same, but you are alone at home and other people can see that you showed up.
Teachers have the same problem with the student who never speaks. Purdue University’s online teaching hub has a guide to Slido, a tool for live polls, quizzes and questions. Students join with a QR code or a link, and they don’t install anything. They can ask a question without their name on it, and the results can show in real time. The polls are there for the students who normally stay silent and don’t take part.
For a fitness studio or an online course, this is easy to copy. Say the names of the people who joined. Ask one question with a short answer before you start, and read some of the answers out loud.
In sport and radio, the fan goes on the screen
Football fan channels are independent shows that stream live during their club’s matches. Hammers Chat, for example, streams a show before every West Ham United match and a live show during it. Stream Builder makes live graphics for channels like Hammers Chat, Anfield Agenda and One Leeds. The graphics show the lineups, the score and the match statistics. They also show the paid messages that viewers send (YouTube calls them Super Chats) on the screen, live.
Bally Sports Live streams free live sport, such as Minor League Baseball. The title of its home page is “Free Sports, Live Chat, Games & Rewards”, and each channel has its own public chat.
Radio stations tried a version of this ten years ago. In 2016, Alpha Media built a “Skype Live Studio” for its radio stations in Portland, Oregon. Bands played live in the studio, and listeners connected by video call to ask them questions during the webcast.
In all three, the viewer sees their own words, or hears their own voice, inside the stream.
What to try at your next stream
You don’t need all of this. Pick one job for the viewer and do it well. The viewer also needs a place to answer. That can be a comment box under the video, a phone number or messaging group that you show on the screen, or a reply to your email.
- Before you start, post one question with a short answer. “Where are you watching from?” works for a church, a club or a class.
- Give one person the job of reading and answering messages. The Church Online Platform gives this job to volunteers.
- Read out names and answers during the stream. It is the Peloton high five, done by a person with a microphone.
- Ask the same kind of question at every stream, so it becomes a habit. For a match, ask for the final score before the start, and say who was right at the end.
None of this will save a boring stream. But a viewer who has typed their name, or who is waiting to hear if their guess was right, has a reason to stay until the end.
Also this week
Local news is moving onto free channels
When the season ends, the pass gets cancelled
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Studio members ask for flexible plans and online options
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