To name a few - marketers and consumers alike are spoiled for choice when it comes to shooting live video from their own scenes. So the race is on between tech companies to establish their dominance, as well as between brands to experiment to see which platform resonates most with their audience and therefore provides the most value. For now, video marketing experts agree that Facebook Live is the favorite, but, unsurprisingly, they acknowledge that Twitter, YouTube and are also viable contenders. And, of course, the odds could change if, for example, an Apple, an Amazon or a Microsoft decided to play with one of the aforementioned start-ups. Here's a look at how Facebook is asserting its dominance in live streaming, as well as how other players are fighting back - and what that means for brands and marketers.
Why Facebook is the 800-pound fax list gorilla of live streaming | SEJ Advertising Continue reading below 'Everyone and their mum is literally on Facebook' Arguably Facebook's biggest advantage is its nearly 1.7 billion monthly active users. Or, as Luke Watson, platform expert at live-streaming network Roker Media, put it, Facebook is in the and literally everyone and their mothers are on Facebook. Additionally, Brian Shin, CEO of video performance analytics company Visible Measures, said satisfying conceit is a big part of live content, implying the need for large audiences what if you don't don't have a great distro, your platform will eventually fail. Advertising Continue reading below But if Facebook doesn't need to recruit users, it needs to solicit content, which is why it would pay $50 million to brands and celebrities like CNN, Vox Media, Mashable and Gordon Ramsay to create said content.
So it's not about Facebook looking for people to create the best content, it's more about volume and reach, Watson said. That's their approach. And I think it works. Let's give $1 million to someone who seems to know what they're doing. Greg Jarboe, president of content marketing agency SEO-PR, however, compared this to YouTube's original channel initiative in 2011, in which the platform gave $100 million to partners like Madonna, Jay-Z and Ashton Kutcher to create content on new channels. The net-net was, they dropped the program two years later because this model of 'let's give $1 million to someone who seems to know what they're doing' wasn't producing the kind of results that paid off.