Live streaming your events online is not as hard as you think. All you have to do is pick a tool, invite your attendees and make sure your computer (or a smartphone) is set up for the task on the day. In this article, we’ll show you how to choose a tool that’s right for your event & how to make sure that your livestream runs smoothly. 

1. Choosing the tool for your event livestream

First thing first, you need to decide what streaming platform to use to livestream your event online. The most popular event live streaming tools currently used by other event organisers are: 

• Zoom
• Facebook Live
• Youtube Live
• Instagram Live
• Google Hangout

There are a plethora of other tools available, and they come with many advantages. However, we’ll focus on the tools above as they’re the easiest to get started with. 

The easiest way to distinguish between these online livestream tools is the compare price, livestream duration and participant interaction during the live stream.

Zoom and Google Hangout allow you to interact with your livestream viewers by enabling their cameras and microphones. If you’re teaching a class that requires interaction from the participants, these are your best choices. 

Youtube, Facebook and Instagram provide their streaming platforms and are best suited for showcases - when you don’t need to see or hear the participants. These platforms do allow text interaction with your participants and come with additional poll and question functionality, so you can interact with viewers. They also are the easiest to set up, all you need is an already existent Facebook page or an Instagram account and a YouTube channel. 

All these online livestream tools are free, with the exception of Zoom - it’s free up to 40-minute transmission. For more, check out Zoom pricing. 

2. Inviting attendees to join your online livestream event

Now that you have picked the streaming platform, you can think of the way you will invite people to join your livestream. If you have an established attendee list and you’re inviting people to join a digital version of your regular event, you can use that list to send out an email invitation. Simply copy the link to your scheduled online event stream into your email marketing copy.

You can also create an ad campaign on Facebook or Google to invite people to your digital event - that’s if you’d like to find new participants to your event. 

There is plenty of event listing websites to post your event to, people are looking for online livestream events right now. 

Live videos provide for great social media content. You can use a short version of a livestream to promote a longer or a paid version of the online livestream you’re creating - give your audience a taste of what to expect. 

In other words, you should promote your online livestream event just like you would promote an offline one. 

3. Charging for your online livestream event

So, you have decided on the online streaming platform and you have created a promotion plan. How about the money?

If you want to charge for your online livestream there are a few ways to do it: 

• Create a donation page. You can set up a donation-based payment page that will allow your attendees to pay what they can for the class. Use it to collect donations before your live stream starts or after. You can include a link to the donations page in the description of your stream and ask for the donations during the stream. 

• Paid webinar page. You can also simply create a simple payment page an use it in the promotion for your event. Once your participants have purchased a ticket, they can get access to your livestream. 

Getting ready for your livestream on the day of your event

Finally, you have the livestream scheduled and your participant list ready. Now, it’s the day of the event. There are a few things to remember to make sure your livestream runs smoothly:

• Test your computer or phone camera a couple of days before. This seems to be a no-brainer, but you want to make sure that your camera is really working. Testing your equipment a few minutes before the stream can result in an uncomfortable delay. 
• Test your Internet connection. Maybe do a test run stream to see how good your Internet connection is. No one wants to sit through an interrupted live stream. If the internet is not good enough, perhaps find a way to get better access elsewhere. 
• Check your surroundings. Place the camera where you want it to be during the livestream and check what’s happening in your background. Any loose drying underwear or maybe you’re pointing the camera to the window, which makes your face disappear with the sunlight. Is your lighting in general, ok? Find a well-lit and a neat spot in your place and make sure it’s tidy on the day of the stream.
• Tidy up your desktop. If you’re planning on including screen-sharing into your livestream, make sure that you have all the materials ready and no tabs open with your private browsing sessions. Keep it professional. 

That’s it. An easy guide to online livestream your event for free. Follow the links for more details on every step.