Synthesizing telephones, television, and radio, live video streaming has caught on fire over the last few years. But while it is often linked to social media, it can also be an irreplaceable business building tool. Web-based companies around the world use live videos to cut costs, spread the word, and reach viewers everywhere. Here are five innovative ways to take advantage of the trend and boost your business.

1. Save Money

With so much available to us on demand, we’ve come to expect lightning-fast service in all aspects of our lives. However, paying for 24-hour customer service can add up, putting a toll on companies and ultimately costing clients. By using live video streaming and saving our media in an accessible archive, we can be available to our customers at all hours of the day, providing them with question-answering content and ensuring that our methods of marketing never sleep.

2. Raise Money

Image via Flickr by ImagineCup

Ever heard of a telethon? Media has been used to fundraise for decades, raising money for worthy causes and great businesses alike. Broadcasting events, films, concerts, and conversations to fundraise via live stream can bring your brand to audiences around the world, promoting awareness of your service or product and increasing donations. You can also partner with other companies to make money during a live stream by promoting like-minded businesses.

3. Go Behind the Scenes

Nowadays, masterfully molded client-facing facades can come across as impersonal, creating distance between a company and its customers. Live video streaming can be used to show clients the other side of your business, introducing them to founders and employees or showing them how a product is made. By welcoming viewers into the human side of our business, we can increase brand engagement.

4. Go Around the World

Another unique way to use live stream is to bring events right to our audience. From product launches to award ceremonies, only so many people can be in attendance. By streaming such events, we increase viewers’ exposure to our brand and inspire interest and engagement. In this way, we build relationships with potential customers across the globe, introducing them to a side of our industry they wouldn’t usually get to see. With live streaming, we can also cater coverage of these events to client requests via comments. By doing so, we increase our accessibility to viewers.

5. Educate

Through live video streaming, educating our audience has become easier than ever. We can now provide teaching services, demonstrate a product, provide instruction for do-it-yourselfers, increase awareness, and even answer questions in real-time, directly interacting with viewers anytime and anywhere. By capitalizing on the convenience of live stream to educate, we overcome the obstacle of distance to reach and teach a global audience, making ourselves, our brand, and our values accessible the world over.

With live video streaming, we can expand our audience into another room or around the world! Take advantage of this trend to reach hearts and minds and improve your business’ accessibility.