The Top Live Streaming Services vs Facebook

Facebook Live is a relatively new platform that offers some amazing and incredibly exciting opportunities for marketers.
But while Facebook Live is a new player, live streaming itself is not so new. In fact, several other live streaming services have been around for a while now and have been making big waves in the last year. Let’s take a look at what those platforms are and how they compare with Facebook.

Specifically: if you could only invest time and effort into one of these platforms, which one would it be?

Let’s take a look.

Introducing the Contenders
Other than Facebook Live, the two biggest live streaming platforms are:
* Periscope
* Meerkat

These are two dedicated platforms that work very much like Facebook Live but with a few differences in terms of features. Periscope is owned by Twitter and is the larger of the two platforms, while Meerkat is a little way behind.

Both these platforms have very similar feature sets but with a few key differences. Videos stick around on Periscope for 24 hours after you create them for instance, while they disappear instantly from Meerkat. Periscope also has a very handy map-view that makes it easy to find new content. In its favour, Meerkat allows you to use images as slides during your live feeds.

While these are the two biggest platforms, there are some other options. YouTube has a live streaming service for instance but this is isn’t yet a major focus of the service. Twitch is a huge service that focusses on streams of computer games, while Blab is an interesting program currently in beta that allows you to have conferences and invite multiple viewers to take part.

Why Facebook Comes Out on Top

Facebook comes out on top when compared to these platforms in almost every respect though.

For example, Facebook actually allows you to keep your videos indefinitely once you’ve streamed them; and even do some light editing.

Most important though is the far bigger audience that Facebook Live gives you access to. In order to watch Facebook Live videos, an audience doesn’t have to sign up to anything. Any Facebook user will conceivably be able to watch your live videos as long as they’re following your page. At the same time though, you still have all the same advantages in terms of the engagement and excitement of live video.

There are specific use-case scenarios where other platforms come out on top… but if you had to bet on one platform now, Facebook would be the smartest choice!