1. Introduction to Live Streaming in Singapore
With the wide range of support provided to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the local market and as live streaming increasingly becomes popular, there are increasingly more companies hosting live events in order to generate leads. What worked for them in the past before the digital age, however, may not necessarily work in the current landscape. The new wave of content publishers hitting the market may have saturated the audience, or the design of each live stream may not be compelling enough. These scenarios create a concern among companies that adopting live streaming may lead to expensive one-time hits, with little engagement from the audience.
Live streaming Singapore has made significant inroads in recent years, to such an extent that it is without a doubt a highly engaging form of communication. There are plenty of reasons backing this notion. For starters, live videos give you the raw sense of presence, as if you are there with the observer(s). There are limited to no time costs when it comes to planning and executing live streams, and the exclusivity of the content creates a sense of urgency among the audience to tune in. In turn, brands and creators alike flock to live streams, with audiences also taking advantage of the medium to allow rapid real-time communication with the broadcaster.
2. Understanding the Audience in Singapore
With the increasing numbers of mobile live stream viewers on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and the wider use of mobile phones, it is clear that digital creativity is soaring among Singapore youths. Live stream service is enabling engagement with fans. Young Singaporeans often want to follow trends and new content. When producing live stream sessions, content creators must ensure that the message, theme, and format created are unique and suitable for local pop culture, fashion trends, entertainment news, food and beverage festivals and technology launches, as well as for regional and global trends. Additionally, to receive comments, likes and spread the scope of the activity, live streamers should leverage these digital platforms before the prepared event and online images. As a result, they can engage with their audience and obtain feedback. Data can be successfully integrated into the plan, which can assist in the refining and enhancing the quality of the event. This is a win-win situation.
One way to create engaging live stream content is to target the right audience. As of 2016, one in four individuals in Singapore were above the age of 50, and the median age of Singapore residents was 40.9 years. This means that a significant portion of the Singapore population is part of the baby boomer generation. Due to this, it may not be sufficient for Singaporean live stream creators to only cater to this younger generation. Marketers need to be extremely cautious on which influencer they choose to represent their brand. Singaporeans have a thirst for knowledge, creativity, and innovation. Live streamers who represent these values are often successful. However, given the multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic population of Singapore, live streamers will need to understand the target market for the stream in order to launch a successful campaign. Overall, understanding the demographic growth, social factors, and the economic and political environment is key when developing content that is popular among the Singapore market.
3. Choosing the Right Platform for Live Streaming
Research on mobile live streaming has touched on user behaviors in platforms like Meerkat and Periscope, where it was found that users were likely to proactively livestream when they perceived an event or situation as interesting. Live streaming in Singapore can be done using platforms like Bigo Live, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Twitch, and YouTube, with each platform’s audience and content culture being unique. The audience on Facebook tends to be the user’s friends and family and is used to share personal experiences and family moments. Twitch and YouTube, on the other hand, are platforms where professionally made and entertaining content is provided. It was apparent that for YouTube, some creators wove social activities like eating out, having picnics, and shopping into their live streaming work to appeal to viewers. Instagram also has a special culture and audience of its own, having a strong audience demographic of users aged between 18 to 29. Researchers have also looked into influencers and content strategy, discussing how Instagram influencers craft a content mix and whether viewership influences Snapchat content creation.
4. Content Creation Techniques for Engaging Live Streams
Because of the popularity of live stream media, many have a misperception, thinking that it is an easy job for live streamers, with many asking for free “Ang Bao” – a gift from the audience. In fact, it is not true – rather, it is an umbrella term, covering various genres of content such as eating (exploring delicious foods), unboxing, talk show, interacting with fans, singing, dancing, physical exercise, performances, acting, fashion, beauty and makeup, and showing self-ability and specialties. These various genres of content are referred to as live shows or live classes. In general, we introduced what live stream is and what kind of content is mediated by six ingredients. With this basic information, we can go further – analyzing different content in the next section. The reason for discussing the basic contents in this section is the aim of the current research, to find the different strategies used for any type of content, with an aim to feature the best strategies in video synthesizers in the future.
The purpose of the Strategies for Creating Engaging Live Stream Content in Singapore project was to explore the types of strategies employed by “live” streamers and their managers to create engaging content. To achieve this purpose, a qualitative research methodology called Media Ethnography was employed. Data were sourced from 10 live streamers, 3 live stream managers, 2 producers of a popular live streaming app, and a live stream host from Singapore. It was found that regardless of whether they are performing dance, physical exercise, singing, acting, playing games, or talking about life, gossip, fashion, beauty, gadget, or food, all content is mediated by six ingredients, which are referred to as creating high-quality, low-latency content. The six ingredients are host, fan, companion, resonance, friendship, and community.
4.1. Interactive Elements
Live stream games usually contain plenty of interactive elements. Streamer Kopi Lim, who also reviews comics based on his own stream of youthful gaming, is highly interactive and spends time talking to the audience. Show discussing the game, share insights into gaming, and discuss popular gaming experiences, as he generously provides information on how to improve the gameplay experience. When planning content, do ensure the live stream includes opportunities for audience interaction. Participants need to ensure there are opportunities to gauge audience reaction so as to ensure relevant and appropriate feedback to maintain a high level of engagement throughout the broadcast.
One way to sustain viewer engagement is to build in interactive elements. BeLive’s Seri Koyuki shares, “Because it’s a live stream, often the audience wants to see that the broadcaster is reading some of their chat comments. This interaction makes the audience feel a little bit more connected to the broadcaster.” Streamers might consider working in a Q&A segment based on comments that appear during live broadcasts or incorporating call-to-action elements. Content creators could ask viewers for ideas regarding a recommended tutorial or simply to engage in a giveaway activity. Jazel and Reysiel have been known to ask their audience to help them decide on buttons or design options. Zennie does quick drawing requests based on the first suggestion that she sees.
Segment 4.1. Interactive Elements
4.2. Visual and Audio Quality
It is also predominant for content creators to ensure that visuals are correctly lit and evoke a clear photograph at some stage in the live stream. Poor lighting frequently can provide you grainy or unclear video feed just like low-resolution footage. You could make sure that your iOS and Android cameras record and stream right away through the system motion pictures. Nonetheless, it is better that instead of using Facebook or Instagram for a more formal or semi-professional visual, you should use a camera with a better overall image. Have too much light in the background to make sure that you are well informed and viewed during your live stream. It’s also important to use the camera’s viewfinder to discover the best camera angle and to see that the streaming environment is adequately set. For this, it’s beneficial to use a high-quality tripod. Also, when recording and taking pictures, it’s possible without difficulty to use the “landscape mode” so your shots won’t get clipped and spectators won’t have to watch the live stream on their computers or TV screens by turning those devices into sideways mode. With that, your entire broadcasting is construed through a fully appeared image that can be positively seen as well.
Viewing live stream content with poor visual and audio qualities ranks first as the main reason for stopping watching an online video. In order to increase the duration of the live stream content, viewers, content creators should focus on creating high-quality visuals and audio. First and foremost, content creators should strive to use a high-quality camera for their live streams. There are some live streaming platforms that enable their content creators to live stream their content in high resolutions such as 1080p or even 4K. But at the same time, they should be aware that a high-resolution video will require faster upload and download speeds, which may not be reachable by all of their viewers. Content creators should demonstrate at least 720p for the audience to examine clearly and cannot be made worse due to re-encoding or unhealthy broadcast resolution. Low-quality images could tell viewers that a live broadcast is not first-rate.
4.3. Engaging with Viewers
The present exploration seeks to determine the extent that linguistic components of language use may be valuable. The study delves deeper into the language functions of the user-to-receiver interactions by proposing an analysis using specific language components: fan messages for idols/influencers and the language style in comments during live broadcast. The language features of program anchors (on one end of the interactive exchange) by impressionable bandwagon are likely to attract interest, therefore our hypothesis is twofold. The success (as indicated, typically, by the number of likes) is related to language style if the aim is simply popularity, or fan messages if the intended audience is for fanbases. In summary, this paper seeks to evaluate whether online fan engagement practices are significant.
Many studies have evaluated the importance of viewer interactions within livestreams as a way to engage and retain followers. Viewers are now more accustomed to picking and choosing their video content, with the hive mind principle applied to video on demand. Live chat, or viewer visibility due to live chat, is now a standard characteristic of many channels available on a number of platforms. Tools such as tags or multimodal contributions to chatbox have also been discussed, showing standard viewer interactions such as text-based, audio, and peer bonding functions. However, to some extent, the importance of specific language use as part of promotions has perhaps not been fully evaluated. The perceived importance of viewer interaction also depends on what is being viewed. Since some engagements between viewers, and other viewers or performers themselves, involve linguistic components, let us explore these language functions in a little more detail.
5. Marketing and Promoting Your Live Streams
As easy as it is to make a live stream video from your computer, tablet, or mobile device, creating engaging live streams and keeping the attention of your viewers can be difficult. That is because when folks are watching any live stream, there are many things that are going on around them. They could be watching your video and have multiple tabs open in their web browsers, stop and do a search for something you mentioned, or even pause to get up and go do something else in between the time they have your live stream turned on.
Now that you have your equipment and your space ready, let’s talk about the next part of live streaming, which is “How do I let people know about our live streams?” and attracting leads and customers with it. Your job is to get people who are interested in the types of videos you are creating to come to your channel and watch the live shows as they are happening.
