Markets

Live streaming and social media may have the power to help defend our countries small businesses again tech giants like Amazon and Walmart! I love small businesses and I just finished producing a beautiful, television quality, Facebook Live broadcast for a local retail store. Most small businesses, especially those in the boutique retail space, do not have time to think about producing videos, much less broadcasting live. In fact, the owner of Old Soul Decor, Krystal Reinhard, pictured below, did not even have a YouTube account when I first asked her about doing a free pro-bono broadcast for her company.

The StreamGeeks leverage their membership with the West Chester Chamber of Commerce and West Chester Business Improvement District (BID) for this case study. Both organizations are dedicated to promoting local business success and have expressed interest in live streaming as a viable option to increase business exposure for the West Chester area. With an active downtown area, the Split Rail Tavern decided to live stream to their Facebook page to increase awareness about their unique food and beverage offerings. The West Chester BID has the main goal of increasing business opportunities for the local downtown area with a strategy called Destination Marketing. Live Streaming is an ideal way to get the word out about unique attractions in the downtown area. The BID helped subsidize the costs of advertising the live video once published on Facebook.

In this case study, the StreamGeeks work with the USA Made Fashion Manufacturer Tesoro Leather. Britt Reed the owner explains how Facebook Live and social media is used as a main tool for business growth. Leveraging social media and live giveaway Tesoro was able to increase brand awareness and generate valuable business reviews on Google and Facebook. This live stream accumulated over 1,000 views within 24 hours and remains a key piece of video content for the business.

“This is a great idea that worked out so well… we are helping small businesses get their word out in a quality fashion” says Malcolm Johnstone, the West Chester BID Executive Director, about his work with StreamGeeks. Business Improvement Districts (BID) are organizations that help promote small businesses and economic areas. It didn’t take long for the West Chester BID to realize that live streaming was going to be a useful tool for the community they serve. In this case study, see how small businesses and local government organizations are leveraging the power of live streaming to increase sales and foot traffic using social media advertising.

A Bubble Machine, a Confetti Cannon, and a YouTuber walk into a room… That’s the start of something really special and in this case study we helped an incredible organization that helps Crime Victims in our local area of Chester County, Pennsylvania. We invited, Kathleen Gast the Volunteer Coordinator from the CVC (Crime Victims Center) of Chester County, on our show to demonstrate the use of YouTube Super Chat for live fundraising. This was an incredible experience putting the fun back in fundraising.

Note: Using YouTube Super Chat is a great way to boost user engagement and encourage donations through the YouTube Platform BUT Google takes 30% of all revenues. Generally, we feel like this is fair because the live streaming is hosted for free on the YouTube platform. For non-profits hoping to raise more than $10,000, we suggest using a private system where 100% of funds raised go to the organization.

In episode 12 of StreamGeeks we talk all about how to sell virtual tickets online. Selling virtual tickets is a great way to generate additional revenue for your next event. All you need is a live streaming system and a few tricks that we review in this video. As you can see in the picture above Paul Richards is interviewing Derral Eves on how to sell virtual tickets. Derral runs an event called VidSumit and throughout the video they talk about strategies for selling virtual tickets.