YouTube is an incredible platform for creating a loyal and engaged audience that feels personally connected to you. If you want to take personal interaction with your audience to the next level, you should consider adding live streaming to your YouTube strategy.

When you stream on YouTube, you can interact with your audience in real time, answer their questions and comments directly and let them interact with you without censor. What is more, it is a great way to expand your audience on YouTube and gain the trust of your subscribers.

Step 1: Go Live on YouTube

You probably want to start your live broadcasts, but before you click “Go Live” you need to make sure that your channel meets YouTube’s requirements for live streaming.

First, you need to validate your channel via phone number (this can take up to 24 hours) and make sure it doesn’t violate any live streaming restrictions. You also need to make sure that your live stream content complies with community guidelines.

Step 2: Plan and prepare for the live broadcast

Plan the format of your live broadcast, which usually comes in several types:

• Presentation/Demonstration
• Lessons and learning (interactive)
• Q&A discussion
• Interview with a guest
• Live game broadcast

How are you going to provide value to your channel and audience? To solve this problem, answer the following questions:

• What is the purpose of your live stream?
• What will your audience get from watching it?
• Will viewers who missed the live broadcast enjoy watching the video later?

Plan key points, writing down specific topics you want to cover during your live broadcast.

Call to Action; What do you want your viewers to do after watching your broadcast?

SEO; Just like any regular YouTube video, don’t forget to optimize your video for SEO. This means you need to do some research and plan the title, description, and tags.

Choose the best time to go live. To determine the best time to start, you should check your YouTube Analytics to see when most of your subscribers are online. If possible, you can even survey your audience to find out what time they prefer (which is also a good way to find out what topics they want to cover).

Step 3: Promote your live broadcast before it begins

Now you’ve planned your live broadcast. The next step is to promote it ahead of time to get people interested. Here are a few tactics for doing this.

Buy YouTube views for your stream in advance. Yes, yes, that’s important too! Extra viewers will never be superfluous, especially if they’re real people. If your topic or your channel attracts them, they will gladly become subscribers.

Schedule a live broadcast ahead of time; this allows people to set reminders and free up time to watch.

Make a trailer; you can make a quick trailer for your live stream and put that video in the “welcome video” slot on your YouTube channel.

Encourage your subscribers to turn on notifications; this means that every time you go on YouTube they’ll get a notification.

Promote the broadcast to other channels; Be sure to spread the word to other social channels and through your mailing list to interest. You can easily create posts and stories for your social profiles with a tool like Placeit, Crello, or Canva.

Step 4: Checklist before the live broadcast

No matter what platform you use for your streaming, whether it’s a mobile device, computer, or live streaming software, you should always check the following before you click “go live”:

• Frame space

Make sure there is nothing distracting or confidential in the background.

• Lighting

Set the lighting properly to be seen well.

• Distractions

Make sure you don’t interrupt the live stream, e.g. put your cell phone on silent mode and don’t forget to charge the battery.

• Accessibility

Is your live stream accessible? If you have more than 10 thousand subscribers you can enable automatic live captioning.

• Monetization

If you want to make money on YouTube you need to make sure your live stream has monetization enabled (e.g. ads).

Step 5: Engage the audience

The success of any live broadcast will be due to a combination of factors including preparation and topic, but most importantly the way you engage the audience during and after the live broadcast.

Here are a few ways to keep your audience on the streaming:

• Summarize

Give a brief summary from time to time for viewers who join your live broadcast at different times.

• Motivate

Give viewers a reason to stay, such as being rewarded with some important insights at the end of the broadcast, or the chance to get a direct answer to their questions.

• Say hello

Show your audience that you appreciate their support by occasionally saying hello to certain members of the audience.

• Communicate

Be sure to include a chat room and participate in discussions. You can even use what’s going on in the chat room to discuss topics live for more engagement.

• Promote

Promote your live stream on YouTube as you would any other video to attract new viewers (and potential subscribers).

Step 6. Analyze

The last step is to analyze the performance of your live broadcast to see if it was successful. To understand this, you should look at your YouTube analytics and answer the following questions:

• Did the topic of the live stream attract viewers?
• How long did people stay? (What was the average viewing time?)
• Which parts of the live broadcast received the most response? (questions, comments, etc.)
• Did the live broadcast attract new subscribers?
• What was the demographic of your viewers?

If you’re looking for ways to strengthen your connection with your audience, expand your audience on YouTube, or position yourself as an expert in your industry, live streaming on YouTube could be a great option for you. 

By following the steps outlined in this article, you’ll be well on your way to creating engaging live streams and gaining loyal subscribers for your channel.