Have a WordPress website and considering live streaming? Neil Patel, in a 2018 forecast, “It’s one of the most genuine ways to connect with an audience and allows for levels of personalization that the marketing industry has never seen.” This type of video connection will enhance your websites users experience and boost your ratings.
Live Streaming and Video Marketing
The prospects are enormous if you are looking to create an online community, highlight special events and offer educational options. Video marketing has many advantages and should be considered a part of every online marketing promotion for the future of your brand. So, how about using WordPress to stream video right from your site? It’s easy and we can show you how to connect on a deeper level with your audience.
Your website designer can easily help you get started by implementing either embed codes, plugins, and themes to your WordPress site. This will give you an additional layer of added value to your website, and help keep your visitors engaged.
WordPress Works!
We know WordPress is all about options, and so there are a few here. Most commonly used for adding video streams to WordPress sites is embedding. What this means is that you are adding a code that places the video directly onto the post or page. This video explains how to embed a You Tube live event to stream directly to your website. This same action is available through Facebook live. First copy the URL of Facebook Live video you want. To accomplish this, right-click on the video and choose “Show Video URL”. You want to then paste the URL in the Video Player Configurator. It will ask you to define the width of the video. Once you have the code you can use the Facebook live video to your WordPress blog or site.
There are many live streaming platforms available and the process for embedding videos are different. One of the more popular options, Google Hangouts On Air. This enables you to broadcast your Google Hangout on YouTube. This is a free and public platform and easy to use. To begin, first create a free Google+ account (or sign in with your existing Google account). This link from WordPress will guide you through the process. The information here is current, most recently updated last month.
Add a Plug-in
Plugins enable you to enhance the functionality of your WordPress website. Again, with WordPress there are options to help you implement live streaming. WordPress Live Stream is a good way to get started with no more copying and pasting embed codes.
Video Pro is another powerful option and is a WordPress theme for video-based websites. You can also use EmbedPress a WordPress product that strongly supports Google, Facebook and YouTube, Wistia, Vimeo or Twitch videos.
By installing the Live Streaming / Broadcast Live Video plugin, you can add live video streams and create custom channels for your visitors, restrict content types, and limit viewing options. It’s an easy to use plugin that includes both live and previously played content. This allows you the option to always have video content ready to offer to your visitors.
Food For Thought
Tools are being developed as we speak, to enhance your website experience and provide ways to engage the audience. There is always something that works better for you than others so we at Blue Zenith Design + Strategy can help advise you of how to best serve your brand, your customer, your website. Stay tuned for more fun options your WordPress website offers.