Karen asks: I have hundreds of customers following my business on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. How can I reach all of them at the same time with one live stream without going on each platform separately? Scheduling gets confusing and streaming the same content live to each channel is getting old. Is there a way that I can stream a live video across multiple social sites all at once so each channel can view at one time?
Streaming to multiple platforms is challenging, because each destination needs its own output, and some ask for specific resolution or cap the bitrate, scheduling can be confusing, blah, blah, blah, tech this, tech that..why put yourself through the hassle?
The solution is to use a cloud service that takes your best high quality video signal, and re-distributes the video to multiple target sites at the same time.
Once and done out to everyone!
Simulcasting or multistreaming is the name for live streaming to multiple platforms simultaneously like your website, social platforms, mobile apps, etc, etc. In context, if you live stream video to your website and YouTube at the same time, we would say you are, simulcasting your broadcast to two destinations.
To go live to multiple platforms at once, here are some solutions:
Restream
Overview: Restream is a complete professional live streaming suite for anyone who wants to boost their visibility online. Easily broadcast professional live streams from your browser to 30+ social platforms. Customize your live streams, engage with your audience in real-time, and drive action during your live streams. We have a community of over 2M streamers, using Restream to go live on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and 30+ other platforms at the same time.
Pros: Works as advertised 99% of time with extremely helpful 24/7 support.
Cons: It can take a while for new platforms to be fully integrated, especially chat features. There are occasional hiccups with individual platforms, but they’re typically due to a change on the platform in question that hasn’t been fully rolled out or documented. Even then, Restream is quick to address these issues!
Price: Starts at $19.00 per month, per user. There is a free version – no free trial.
Castr
Overview: an all-in-one live video streaming platform for businesses, broadcasters, content creators, educational and religious organizations, and non-profits. With Castr you can stream buffer free and lag free to every platform at once, even your own website or app. You also get IP camera streaming, Akamai CDN, cloud storage, combined chat overlay, timeshifting and more.
Pros: Ease of use. Very simple to add social media destinations and get up and multi-stream your broadcast in a matter of minutes.
Very large range of services to stream to. Excellent stream quality. Relatively low latency.
Tech support is top notch. The company responds within minutes to inquiries.
Cons: Castr needs to have more data information. During and post streaming we need to see broadcast stats!
Price: Starts at $9.99 per month, per user. They do not have a free version but a free trial is offered.
Switchboard
Overview: The Switchboard Cloud platform makes it easy to simultaneously live stream to various social media sites and other streaming destinations. Distributing live video to Facebook, Periscope, Twitch AND YouTube takes a technical heavy lift that many brands are unwilling or unable to do – so they are forced to pick one channel. Whether it’s sending live video to dozens of Facebook pages, or across platforms, we have a seamless, intuitive solution to amplify the reach of your live streams!
Price: Switchboard Cloud pricing starts at $35.00 per month.They do not have a free version.
Videolinq
Overview: A live video distribution service to social media. Send 1 stream in and configure up to 25 target destinations! Features include closed captioning insertion on live streams, HTML5 Player Wizard, network camera management, delayed time-zone live stream scheduling, ads insertion using 3rd party platforms, and a powerful API for developers.
Pros: They are the only one supporting real time closed captioning.
Cons: No in depth stream analytics while streaming live.
Price: Videolinq pricing starts at $15.00 per month.There is a free version and a free trial.
OneStream Live
Overview: Simplifies live streaming for you. You can schedule pre-recorded videos to broadcast on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope (Twitter), Twitch, Mixer, Smashcast and more than 40 social media & gaming platforms, all at the same time.
Pros: An end-to-end cloud-based, which means no installations or downloads needed.
Cons: Only pre-recorded videos that you schedule are broadcasted as live streams on your desired social media platforms.
Price: OneStream Live pricing starts at $10.00 per month.There is a free version and a free trial.
