Streaming Badly

Streaming Badly

I’ve spent the past 10 years helping churches navigate through the “Live Streaming” maze.

There are a few pitfalls that churches fall into as they try to Stream “Live” their services on Sunday or Saturday and most of them end up being budget driven.

As Churches struggle with becoming relevant in todays social media landscape, many make the decision to stream out of desperation rather than a well thought out plan on social marketing. Most churches for into the trap of “ so-and-so church down the street is streaming their service “live” so we have to”.  While streaming “Live” is important in even the smallest church setting today, doing it badly can have a adverse effect on how your church is viewed.

Here are a few steps to help your church make a smart streaming decision.

Identify Your Target Demographic

Who are you trying to reach and when are they watching.

Many of the people watching your service are doing it out of necessity. They may be on vacation, working from home, have a different work schedule that does not allow them to attend services, or physically can not make it to church. That’s ok!

Identify Your Resources

Have you budgeted for streaming, equipment, personnel and training?

Streaming takes time money and training to do properly. You may not be in a position financially to institute “Live” streaming today but you can budget over time for your needs in the future. Not planning financially is the reason most church streaming fails!

Train your people. You don’t just wake up one morning and become an expert on streaming technologies. You must invest in research and training to become proficient on a consistent basis.

Make sure you have the right people on the bus. It’s very rare that a 65 year old church secretary or volunteer will have the knowledge or on hand expertise to video, record, upload and manage content for your streaming service.

Find people in your organization that are up-to-date in computer language and working on the Internet.

The gear. This is where most churches fail. Remember most of the people watching your service are also watching TV shows and movies in HD (High Definition) with surround sound audio on a 55” screen. That’s your competition. Not the church down the street, its “You Tube” and “Facebook”.

Watching an hour long service on a single camera with no motion in SD (Standard Definition) using room audio from 30’away is like watching paint dry on tile when its 25 degrees outside. It’s not fun at all.

Utilizing at least two cameras with different angles and good quality audio in HD will determine if your streaming is turned off in 1 minute or engaging to your audience. Don’t skimp on the gear.

To archive or not to archive? If you plan on making your stream available to the public after the days services you need to plan on storage. The most popular and inexpensive way to archive is through Vimeo. If you are archiving to a specific location at your church say a sever, you must have sufficient storage and band width to handle the stream. Remember you may have a several hundred people accessing the archive at one time.

Final Thought

If you’re going to stream, stream well.

I could go on for hours on techniques, solutions and training for you “Live” stream but the bottom line is planning.