Corporate Uses for Webcasting

Web broadcasting is simply broadcasting over the internet. Webcasts can consist of either pre-recorded video or Lime Crane’s signature service – an interactive live stream of projects currently in progress, or time sensitive announcements.

Here are some of the many corporate uses for webcasting:

Internal communications, announcements, and training

For big companies, gathering everyone together can be a logistical headache and a drain on the budget. And productivity comes to a standstill for a while, waiting for planes to land and parking spots to be found. Live streaming and webcasting can be used to communicate with everyone in your organization in one fell swoop. Announcements, trainings, and reports can be issued… all without having to pull employees away from their desks. This is critical in geographically distributed companies with an increasingly remote workforce.

Live events, fundraisers, and seminars

Live events bring with them a certain amount of excitement! If you’re putting together an important event, you want it to be experienced by as many people as possible. Think of that 5K race your department will run for charity, or the ground-breaking ceremony on your new factory location. By webcasting these events, you’re able to draw in both employees and clients who would not otherwise be able to experience them. And you’ll get to add video of the event to newsletters and your website, making it available to people months and years from now. By having a unified employee experience that remote and central office employees can share, your message have the most impact.

Reach a larger audience and improve engagement

Webcasting opens the door to a far larger audience than you could otherwise expect to reach. And these benefits don’t end when the event ends. Video created during the webcast can be archived and reviewed again and again, creating a selection of content that may someday be useful to either employees or customers.

Reduce costs and simplify planning for large events

Every additional guest at a live event is another expense. Through live streaming and webcasting, you can downsize your corporate events and restrict it to only those who are absolutely necessary. Others will be able to tune into the event live and will still be able to get the same amount of value from it, without having to increase the size of the venue and amenities. Big ticket items like plane tickets, hotels, and per diems can be avoided by hosting a webcast.

Let the Pros Handle It

Many people shy away from webcasting because it is complex. Not only do you need to manage audio, video, and the Internet feed, but you also need to know how to shoot the broadcast itself. If you want to try using in-house crews, or that friend of your cousin who works in the church sound booth… you are a brave soul.

You want to make sure your live stream is technically sound and visually appealing. A bad webcast will leave a bad impression on your employees, and it will not make upper management inclined to grant you the budget to do another one. The investment of time, resources and talent required to pull off a successful webcast are usually large enough to justify hiring a professional company. Just like your internal hiring practices, generalists are useful but non-ubiquitous skills require true specialists.

4 key takeaways for hiring a professional crew:

1. Video quality is controlled by two things when it comes to live streaming: a professional camera & video system, and the right video streaming software. Your choice of software and streaming hardware will impact both the video quality and the reach of your video.

2. Audio problems often crop up when live streaming, especially when it hasn’t been tested. Audio is the most neglected, most complicated aspect, and when sound is bad, your meeting is un-watchable.

3. Streaming rate – If the local internet service isn’t up to the task, the stream itself may be slow. There are few things as frustrating to a user as a slow, intermittent stream, and fewer things that will cause your audience to tune right out, and that your bandwidth is used wisely, be it high or low. Professional crews will ensure that the necessary internet bandwidth is available for the webcast.

4. Technical difficulties – On occasion, things can fail to work altogether. Presentation slides, teleprompters, microphones, to name a few. Even with pre-event testing, technical problems can happen. Experience and a cool head are needed to adjust to these problems on the fly, and a highly skilled team will bring that to the table, and lower your blood pressure on meeting day.