Video conferences are a widespread means of communication today. Two types of conferences are distinguished. Thanks to modern video conferencing solutions, people can benefit from webinars and webcasts.
Many people know about webinars as it is quite common to join these educational live streams when you are interested in a specific topic. But what is a webcast? This is also a live stream available to people online.
What makes it unique and beneficial? Special streaming platforms like Digital Samba (https://www.digitalsamba.com/api) offer convenient solutions for creating webcasts because this format of broadcasting has many advantages. Read along to find out everything about webcasts.
About Webcasts
As the name suggests, a webcast is a web broadcast. It is a live broadcast of a presentation or event streamed to many people at once over the Internet. Here are the basic characteristics of webcasts:
- Webcasts are broadcast to much larger audiences than webinars. Hundreds of thousands of viewers can join a webcast without making the stream lag or malfunction.
- There is almost no interactive component in a webcast. Viewers can usually only watch the stream without interacting with presenters or other members of the audience.
- As this is a type of broadcast, a single live video is delivered to viewers.
- Webcasts are usually created on popular social media platforms with broadcasting features or added to the company website.
- There are often no such features as a live chat to communicate with other viewers in the meantime.
As you can see, a webcast is a great solution for engaging big audiences, although it lacks interactivity. This is not necessarily a bad thing as there are specific occasions when using a webcast is preferable to arranging a webinar.
Advantages of Webcasts
Webcasts are actually incredibly versatile and have numerous benefits for your business. Whether you want to stream a live event to viewers online or you need to host a launching party for your product, everything can be done with the help of convenient webcasting software. Here are the main advantages of hosting webcasts:
- High accessibility – as webcasts are not tied to a certain location, everyone can view them online. This is the same professional presentation or event but in a digital format. Business people are often running on a tight schedule, which makes an online webcast a great option.
- Creating a webcast library – all webcasts can be recorded and saved for further rewatching. It is very convenient to create a library of all your webcasts so your clients can watch educational streams and various events at any time.
- Growing audience – providing an online option for your viewers increases the reach greatly as many people are unable to join a live event. But offering content to watch it even after the recording increases the reach even further, allowing many viewers to join in.
- Convenient solutions – even those events that require joining a series of lectures can be very flexible by offering an opportunity to watch them from anywhere and at any time. In case you are missing out on a live stream, you can always get to the recording and continue with your education.
- Offering variety – while it is convenient to watch video streams on the Internet for some viewers, there are still people who like attending events live. You can always host a live event and involve special equipment and a filming crew to record and stream it simultaneously.
- Inviting speakers – hosting a webcast is a great opportunity to invite a speaker to your stream. This can be a specialist in the field or a blogger who will engage the audience and make your webcast more interesting and informative.
- Reusing videos – as soon as your webcast is over and you have its recording, you can use this material to create even more content. A whole video can be uploaded as it is for everyone to see the full picture, but you can also crop certain clips with the most interesting moments and create a shorter and more engaging video with highlights. This is also a great way to create content for different social media platforms with their own preferred formats, such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and more.
- Benefitting from social media – many online platforms, such as Facebook and others, have their streaming solutions as well as the chance to use your software for webcasting. Streaming on social media sites is usually free, which is a great solution for any business.
Although there are no opportunities for interactivity when creating webcasts, these streams are incredible in many ways.
Creating high-quality webcast streams is a perfect way to engage your existing audience, enlarge the client base, and gain the recognition and support of your viewers.
Using Webcasts in Your Business
While webcasts offer the chance to have a live event and stream it online at the same time, the main target audience for this type of broadcast is online viewers.
When you want to engage a client base on the Internet, hosting a webcast is a perfect solution.
In addition, one of the most important factors is the number of people you want to reach.
Webinars are usually limited to a certain number of viewers so moderators can deal with all of them.
Webcasts do not have this type of issue as they work one way and viewers can only watch the stream.
There is no need for moderators to keep track of the chat or the people joining your stream to ask questions or express opinions. Thousands of people can watch webcasts simultaneously.
Another point is that webinars often require some kind of subscription, while webcasts can be enjoyed without registering by simply joining a stream.
This is only one of the points that contribute to the accessibility of webcasts. They are free for viewers, cheap to make for businesses, and highly accessible to people all around the world. This is a great way of saying that you care about your clients.
