Top 14 Live Streaming Trends to Know for 2024

In 2022, eCommerce live streaming is expected to be a major trend. There is a $51.2 billion market in the US for social commerce, which involves selling things directly on social media.

A new era of in-stream shopping will begin in 2022 when consumers will be able to integrate shopping with live streaming content on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Consumers’ shopping habits are already being changed by live video shopping. One-on-one interactions between brands and social media influencers are becoming increasingly commonplace.

2022 will also be the year for connecting live with your private site members. Some very large YouTube creators have moved their memberships off the platform in order to host their own communities and it is proving quite lucrative.

Why give YouTube 30% of all your income when you can keep 97% of it and have direct contact with your supporters? With YouTube memberships, you never get access to your supporters’ email addresses.

When you run your own site, you are building a qualified customer email list that doesn’t automatically cut the connection if you get some type of suspension on the platform.

Live streaming is about connection, and that is now easier than ever. As business owners, we want to connect to our customers. Our customers want a real connection with those they choose to do business with. Live streaming is the perfect way to do that.

As live streamers, the value that you provide is two-fold: advice and recommendations.

Your audience sees you as a resource that can help them provide answers to their questions.

They also look up to you and trust your recommendations for products and services. With that being said, there’s a simple way that every live streamer can monetize their live streams in 2022.

Affiliate marketing. Every product or service (including the platforms and software you use to go live) have affiliate programs that you can participate in, to earn affiliate commissions.

While it’s true that people’s attention spans are getting shorter and many do prefer shorter content, they are also getting more sophisticated with the way they consume content.

People want both variety and a level of consistency. Some days, short form videos are great for quick scrolling and rapid learning – but other days are better for longer form content such as live streams and interviews.

I believe that it’s important for a creator or a business to stretch themselves, to be curious and dare to own both types of content – short and long form.

The true fans or super fans wouldn’t mind seeing both short videos and live streams, while a newcomer may only be interested in short videos at first before they decide to explore longer content, since it requires them to invest more of their time.

From a brand’s perspective, it’s crucial to understand who they serve and decide how to best deliver the right content to that audience, regardless of the format and length. The demand is always going to be there if it’s valuable.

Short-form content has increased the preference for short, quick-to-the-point information or entertainment. It’s the main reason you see a fluctuation of video viewers in live streams.

Short-form content is an excellent opportunity for live video streams. Creators can leverage short-form to increase the views and engagement in their live stream.

Simply by acknowledging the areas in their live streams that provide the most value to viewers, clipping that part, and sharing in a short-form format.

What this does is that it allows the viewer to consume the best part of your live stream and entices them to want more, requiring them to seek your longer-form content, and the circle goes round and round.

What shifts I see as a streamer is more and more focus on community. This is pretty big already, but for new streamers coming onto the online streaming space, focusing on building their community of fans is paramount to their short term and long term success.

In order to build this, they have to work on their consistency – being there week in, week out for their audience.

They also need to be entertaining, or if you’re in the “How To” space, you need to deliver “Infotainment” – information and entertainment.

Just delivering data switches off the audience and you become a resource, so when they get the info they need, they disappear.

When you entertain and captivate your audience, then they keep coming back for more, again and again and again.

The most important thing you can do is focus on adding value to your viewers. In a saturated market, if your viewers aren’t finding value in your content, they will leave. There are lots of different ways you can add value to your stream.

You might decide to answer questions from viewers, discuss your products/services, offer in-depth training, or introduce your audience to other people of interest by bringing in guests, customers or clients that can share their experiences and knowledge.

Sometimes the easiest place to start is just by going live and answering your frequently asked questions.

Not only will these help and bring value to your audience but they’re great conversation starters. This can encourage more questions and topics that you can cover in that, or future live streams.

The real commodity at play is “Trust”. Trust is something not built in a single moment or a single live stream, it’s something carefully cultivated over time. Building this non-verbal trust-transaction all begins with value. Value in the creator economy is more easily defined as the creator’s ability to consistently provide for the viewer’s needs without specifically asking anything in return.

Value has the power to make a viewer want to show up not just today, but tomorrow and the next week. Fertilize that value with a sense of inclusion, and a creator can make the viewer feel that they are part of something bigger than a single conversation.

Creators who consistently provide that kind of value are the ones audiences will show up for when they go live. Most importantly, those viewers are also the ones who aren’t afraid to open their wallets when they believe the right opportunities are presented to them. If you want to dominate your own live streaming market in 2022, make sure that you’re building that trust first but, along the way, make sure that you’re developing those revenue opportunities as well.

Viewers want more than just fitness and yoga content, they want to feel like they’re a part of the community. Viewers want to feel like they’re getting something special, so be sure to give them a unique perspective to help differentiate your fitness and yoga content.

Additionally, it’s important to be interactive with your audience. Respond to comments and questions, and let viewers know that they’re important to you.

If you know what people are looking for, you can create videos and tutorials that meet their expectations. This can be done through social media platforms, surveys, or by hosting live chats.

The best way to stay ahead of the curve in the fitness and yoga live streaming industry is by constantly innovating and trying new things. This means that you need to be willing to experiment and take risks.

If something doesn’t work, learn from your mistakes and move on. The key is to always be moving forward. By engaging with viewers directly and updating your content regularly, you’ll be able to meet the needs of your audience and stay ahead of the competition!

Online teaching is very different from in-studio teaching, a bit like theater-acting is entirely different from acting for movies. The base is the same, but they require different skills.

Instructors need to adjust by putting themselves in the shoes of a viewer, alone at home, who might want to give up during a particular exercise.

Instead of being general and impersonal, videos need to feel more like in-studio classes.

In my videos for instance, I address my viewers the exact same way I address people in IRL classes. I laugh, I know when they want to give up and what to tell them then. I am struggling with them and laughing about it.

I want them to feel as if we were together in one room.

The biggest live streaming trend we foresee for 2022 is most certainly hybrid events. The marrying of qualitative, in-person experiences and “tv-like” live broadcasts is a trend where we see continued growth.

No event is complete without offering some form of virtual, live stream add-on. The very best events are, of course, those that manage the in-person and virtual live streams as individual experiences rather than simply pointing a camera at a stage for people to log in.

An addition to this is the growth of platform-specific event experiences, capturing diverse audiences. Your TikTok event is unlikely to be talking to the same audience as your Facebook Live audience. So managing these outputs and providing multiple streams rather than just one is going to be big this year.

As for the most important thing for creators and businesses to focus on, I am not sure that this ever changes: identify your audience. Far too often brands attempt a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to their live streaming events.

If you are expecting to attract viewers from multiple demographics, your content production should effectively address each of them. Acknowledge the diversity of your audience.

Live music performances and DJ sets are gradually displacing traditional radio stations.

Music live streaming didn’t really take off until the pandemic caused concerts to move virtual, and it’s set to grow much more in 2022.

Fans can get up close and personal with their favorite musicians, as well as listen to high-quality radio shows. As a result of the increased demand for music live streams, live streaming behemoth Twitch created a dedicated category for Music channels.

If you’re a musician or work in the music industry, live streaming video should be high on your priority list for 2022.

Live streaming in 4K quality isn’t common today since it consumes a huge amount of internet bandwidth.

With the global rollout of 5G, many internet users will have access to the additional bandwidth required to produce 4K videos of high quality.

As of now, YouTube is the only big streaming platform that supports 4K streaming. However, when internet connections improve around the world, we will see greater support for it on other platforms.

I predict that 2024’s biggest live streaming trend will be the use of 360-degree live streaming on YouTube to allow viewers to explore content in high-definition and surround sound.

This will allow for custom experiences unlike any other live experience, whether it’s gaming, sports, or more.

The 360-degree feature is also expected to increase consumer engagement with video and will be critical in integrating live streaming into every platform.