The creator economy is a force to be reckoned with today. With over 200 million independent content creators, curators, and influencers, the creator economy has built million-dollar companies with as little as a laptop and webcam. The creator market, which includes the influencer marketing industry, is valued at over $191 billion and is projected to reach $528.39 billion by 2030.
As an influencer, you too can build a super successful company. Curating live video experiences with fans is a simple and effective way to do so. By mastering the art of live streaming, you open your brand up to countless new avenues of success.
This guide will take you through why and how influencers should live stream, including tips for getting started and marketing yourself to brand partners successfully.
Boosting influencer marketing with live streams
Influencer marketing is all about connecting with fans to share insights on your favorite brands with them. Live streaming is the best way to engage with your audience online because it happens in real time. Start a conversation with your followers, speak directly to them and answer their questions instantly, all on a live stream.
Boosted engagement is a big factor on its own. But what else can live streaming do for influencer marketing?
- Live streaming makes influencers more accessible. Getting close to your audience and treating them like valued friends is how you win their trust as an influencer. Plus, going live means that your viewers do more than just watch:, They can give feedback and participate in your stream via live chat.
- Live streaming produces quantifiable results. The return on investment for influencer marketing can be hard to measure, but not with live streaming. Easily track your audience’s growth and see how many people made a purchase or checked out your brand during a stream.
- Live streaming is free and easy to learn. It takes much less time to go live than it does to make a pre-recorded video, or video on demand (VOD). A three-minute VOD takes three hours to edit, while a thirty-minute live stream takes exactly that long. Once a live stream is over, you can even save the recording and repurpose it as a VOD. You’ll get the best of static videos and live content all in one go!
- Influencers can do live collaborations. Streaming with another influencer doubles your audience and exposes more people to your brand. You can also do one live stream on two channels simultaneously with Restream Pairs. Just create an event for the upcoming stream using Restream Events and send an invite link to your co-host!
- Site algorithms love live streams. On platforms like Facebook and Instagram, users who are live appear at the top of their followers’ feeds. You’ll show up before any posts, which increases your visibility when you stream regularly. Next time you’re planning to post on Instagram or X, give it a try and see for yourself!
Create stunning live videos
Restream Studio is the easiest way to create high-quality live videos on multiple platforms at once. It's user-friendly and offers an engaging viewer experience.
Live streaming platforms for influencer marketing
- Instagram: Instagram is one of the biggest social platforms for influencer marketing. As an intuitive photo and video sharing app, it’s easy to promote your brand or sponsor with custom posts and collaborations. The app also boasts live streaming features, seamless merchandise integration, a sponsorship system, and more powerful brand marketing tools. In terms of influencer marketing, Instagram is used for product showcases, Q&As, and paid advertisements to raise awareness.
- YouTube: YouTube is the largest online video sharing site, with a bigger user base than any other apps on this list. The platform is great for short- and long-form content, and YouTube Live is home to many successful streamers too. On YouTube, you can set up ad revenue as well as paid membership tiers for your brand to reward top buyers and generate more profit. On YouTube, Influencers can post in-depth product reviews, receive donations on their live streams, and create video and live content for a vast audience to enjoy.
- Facebook: Facebook has been around for decades at this point, but it’s stayed relevant because of tools like their Live feature. Most people you know have a Facebook, and growing a network on the site is simple. Groups are one way to easily connect with people who have similar interests—it’s also a great way to build an audience for your streams. Going live on Facebook is as easy as tapping a button, adding a stream description, and broadcasting to all of your followers instantly. This ease of use, combined with the vast age range of Facebook users, is why the platform’s great for live influencer marketing.
- TikTok: TikTok has caught fire in the past five years and remains the most relevant social media app today, especially among young adults. Along with Instagram, TikTok is where influencer marketing is the most common—countless beauty, entertainment, and sports influencers have used TikTok’s live feature to promote a brand or product. It’s mobile friendly, easy to use, and often algorithmically promotes your live streams to users, thus growing your reach and audience simultaneously. If short-form content is your wheelhouse and your fans are young adults, TikTok is the perfect platform to stream brand or product promotions to your audience.
Influencer marketing made easy with multistreaming
It’s clear that live streaming benefits influencers and marketing efforts. But what if you could expand your audience faster and further grow your reach? By multistreaming — streaming to multiple platforms simultaneously — you can. With a multistreaming tool like Restream, you can go live on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, X (Twitter), and other popular platforms all at once.
Multistreaming ensures that your target audience isn’t restricted to any one social platform. Your viewers also won’t have to watch you on a platform they don’t use. You meet your audience where they are while boosting your brand’s visibility.
If you work in influencer marketing, you’ve probably put the work in to build a following on at least one platform. By multistreaming, you can grow your audience on several sites at once with the same amount of work. Your time is valuable as an influencer, which is why multistreaming is crucial to brand growth.
Get more views with multistreaming
Reach more people, and meet viewers where they like to watch. Live stream to YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and more at once.
Best live practices for influencers
Today, live streaming is accessible enough that any influencer can easily start broadcasting regularly. If you’re new to streaming but you want your marketing efforts to pay off, keep these tips in mind.
1. Invest in a live streaming setup
On major platforms like Facebook and X, you can go live using only your smartphone’s mic and camera. Streaming this way is super easy, but you won’t have much control over your stream quality. To stand out from other content creators and influencers with your high-definition live streams, you’ll need good recording equipment.
Even with a small budget, you can still afford a good webcam, external mic, and cheap lighting. These three factors alone improve your stream quality by miles.
2. Keep cultivating an audience outside of streaming
Once you start live streaming, you should still keep using your other marketing channels. Post regularly on social media, add new blog posts, produce new podcast episodes, and maintain your other audience-building techniques. As an influencer, live streaming is just one tool in your toolbox, and it’s more powerful when used in tandem with other channels.
3. Partner with brands you care about
When it comes to influencer marketing, you should either be knowledgeable or passionate about the product or brand you’re promoting. If you commit to promoting something you don’t like or know nothing about, it shows. You’ll feel less encouraged to create content and won’t put as much effort into marketing it. Your fans will quickly pick up on this, which could impact both the brand’s image and your own. That’s why pursuing your own interests is crucial to influencer marketing; feigning excitement won’t fly, especially during a live stream. Your audience will be more encouraged to buy the product if they see that you’re genuinely into it!
4. Choose the right schedule for live streaming
For your audience, there are good and bad times to go live. Figure out when most of your fans tend to be online, and try to go live during those times. For instance, YouTube shows when your viewers are active on their site in the last 28 days. Search for analytics like this, and tap into this data to help schedule your live stream.
Also consider these factors when scheduling your stream:
- The type of content you’re streaming
- The action you want viewers to take afterward
- The devices your audience is watching your content on
- The time zones your viewers are in
5. Prepare your streams ahead of time
Going live is great for interacting with your fans in real time. But preparedness is still important, so write a short outline for the live stream beforehand. Going into it without a plan could lead to awkward silences or mishaps. Think briefly about what you want to cover on stream and how long you want to spend on it. A flexible outline of a plan is always better than no plan for your next live stream.
6. Be authentic
Preparation before a live stream is useful, but don’t make your whole stream scripted! Be genuine to your audience when you’re live, especially when you’re talking about your brand partner or sponsor. Your fans are watching for you, so give them what they want and show off your personality.
7. Use the right streaming tools
There are many live streaming solutions to choose from. For an easy-to-use streaming solution that lets you multistream, try Restream Studio. Use our live studio to start a broadcast on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, X (Twitter), and your favorite platforms all at once from your browser. Simply connect your accounts to Restream, launch Studio, and use all the awesome features Restream Studio has to offer. Add a custom logo and background, share your screen, invite guests to the stream, play local video files and copyright-free background music, and so much more.
The benefits of influencer-brand collaborative streams
When influencers and brands team up and unite their respective audiences, it leads to remarkable results. Influencers have the power to tell a unique story and weave the brand into it via interviews, Q&A sessions and more. Behind-the-scenes content is also effective for collabs, and so is having brands co-host a stream too.
Creating a live video together decreases production time and increases authenticity.
Both you and the brand spend less time on the content, and by streaming together frequently, you help reinforce the message.
Luckily, we’ve got a tool that makes co-hosting live streams a breeze. With Restream Pairs, you can send a live broadcast to your channel and your partner brand’s channel at the same time. Just schedule your upcoming live stream with Restream Events, then send your partner a secure link. The stream will air to all of your connected channels and your brand’s channels.
Restream regularly hosts live collaborations with other brands, which is where the Pairs feature comes in handy. For instance, Restream added integrations for the transcription service Descript to Restream products. To co-market both brands and announce the integration, we hosted a dual live session on both brands’ channels. Doing so boosted views and engagement for both brands, with 9.3k views on Restream’s channel and 2.5k views on Descript’s channel, for a combined total of 11.8k views.
Another interesting way to collaborate is with takeovers. Either the influencer takes over the brand’s channels or vice versa. The brand’s followers get something new and unexpected from the influencer takeover, and the influencer’s followers get access to exclusive content or offers from the brand.
Examples of influencers using live streaming
Let’s see the actual possibilities live streaming can offer to influencers. Here are a few examples of streamers who use affiliate links or other forms of brand sponsorship.
Popular Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins entered into a multi-year sponsorship deal with energy drink company G Fuel to make his own drink flavor. The collaboration was announced on his live stream and affiliate links were made available to his viewers on stream. The G Fuel branding and logo was displayed on his stream, and the collaborative drink flavor became popular enough to hit the shelves in stores like Walmart and more.
2. The Rock x Teremana Tequila
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson streamed a few Instagram Live sessions to promote Teremana, his brand of tequila. The Rock explained how he founded and created the product and fielded some live questions from his viewers too. He also engaged his fans and audience by proposing a toast and encouraging them to join in. The Rock’s live streams were very casual, and he remained thorough and honest to the joy of his fans. His live audience felt like they were part of something special, and were thus more encouraged to try his line of tequila.
3. Zoe Pastelle x Tommy Hilfiger
Clothing brand Tommy Hilfiger hosted a YouTube livestream that featured live shopping with a handful of influencers. This included model and content creator Zoe Pastelle, who came onto the stream with select Tommy Hilfiger products, including a blazer and bag. Viewers could also purchase the items that were showcased directly from the stream, which drastically boosted sales during the live broadcast
This past Christmas, singer and songwriter Dolly Parton teamed up with Walmart to deliver a live stream that showcased limited-time Christmas deals offered by the store. Parton put a fun spin on the broadcast by focusing on products that had her name and face on them, including Dolly Parton-themed plates and coffee tumblers. The live stream was available on most major media platforms like Facebook, X, and YouTube.
For the 2024 Met Gala, Vogue Magazine hosted a TikTok live stream in which the event’s attendees were interviewed by influencer Emma Chamberlain. The live stream showcased a variety of celebrity outfits and featured endearing conversations between Chamberlain and a number of other influencers at the event. Chamberlain often drew attention to neat and stand-out highlights of other people’s gala outfits, which kept live viewers engaged. Chamberlain’s friendly and often humorous personality also made for several candid and wholesome moments during the Vogue broadcast.
How Restream helps influencers who live stream
Restream is the ultimate live streaming solution for influencers. Our range of tools is geared towards making live streaming easy and accessible for anyone, whether you’re a beginner or pro. Here’s how our products help influencers who live stream:
- Multistreaming: Go live across multiple channels at once by simply connecting them to your Restream account. You can then connect Restream to streaming software like OBS Studio, or go live directly from Restream Studio too. We support 30+ platform integrations, so you can pick from dozens of sites to multistream to!
- Restream Studio: With our live Studio, you broadcast right from your web browser — no download needed. Simply allow access to your camera and mic, thenadjust all the awesome settings and features Restream Studio provides to your liking. One particularly useful tool is the Brand Folders feature. You can save different sets of overlays and settings and switch between them with one click. This is useful for easily switching between general streams and promotional broadcasts with your brand partner.
- Upload and Stream: With Upload and Stream, you can use your Restream video storage to create pre-recorded broadcasts for later. Upload videos from Google Drive, Dropbox, or your computer storage, then schedule them to go live at a certain time. This is perfect for on-the-go streamers or weeks where your schedule is packed. Our Upload and Stream feature lets you stick to your streaming schedule, focus on live chat without multitasking, and cut out live mistakes for a picture-perfect stream.
Upload & stream pre-recorded videos
Schedule recorded videos to appear live when you are away. Perfect for glitch-free streaming, repurposing, or simply taking a break.
More useful tools from Restream
- Chat: When you go live, your Restream live chat will feature comments and feedback from all your destination platforms in one place. No more switching tabs to check different feeds.
- Custom Destinations: Want to stream to your own personal website, or destinations other than popular live platforms? Restream has you covered. We support RTMP streaming to other software, and you can embed a live stream on your site’s landing page.
- Stream Recording: Restream lets you record and download your live streams for later use in VODs or clips for other platforms. This is perfect for building a following on video platforms or sharing highlights with your friends and audience.
- Analytics: Track viewer count, followers, chat activity, and channel stats with Restream Analytics. We provide a place to view all your stream and viewer numbers in the Analytics tab.
- Countdown timer: Create hype around your next stream by using a countdown timer to kick off your broadcast. This way, viewers will anticipate the start of your live stream, and they’ll have time to settle in and get ready to watch beforehand.
FAQ
What is influencer marketing, and what does live streaming have to do with it?
Influencer marketing involves brands, sponsors and businesses working with people who have a significant presence on social media or other online platforms. Social media influencers are essentially paid to promote products to their large audience online—the product can even be relevant to their viewers’ interests or channel content. By live streaming, influencers can promote their partner brand AND interact with their audience in real time. This allows influencers to answer questions about the product, give their own opinion of it, and see how their viewers respond.
Is live streaming important in the field of influencer marketing?
Absolutely. There have been countless collaborations between big-name streamers and their partner brands. Live broadcasts are important in influencer marketing because they can create spontaneous excitement about a product or deal. When an influencer reveals a limited-time promo code or discount to their viewers while live, it feels more urgent than a static video. The influencer’s audience is more likely to redeem a code or purchase a product if it’s presented to them in real time. That’s why many brands use live streams and broadcasts of well-known influencers to promote their products.
How does live streaming make influencer marketing more effective?
Viewing a social media post from your favorite content creator is one thing—seeing that they’re live right now is entirely different. That’s why your fans get much more excited when you go live compared to just posting on social media or putting out videos. Live streaming changes things up because it effectively creates opportunities for real-time branding. Your fans will be more attentive when you’re live so as not to miss out on anything you say. During a live broadcast, you also have the chance to speak directly to your supporters, creating the sense of importance that’s ideal for brand promotion.
Let’s wrap up
Live streaming opens countless opportunities for influencers to build their community and make brand partnerships last. Taking advantage of the real-time engagement live video offers not only brings you closer to fans but also attracts the attention of brands and sponsors. If you can become a successful live streamer, then you’ll be a successful influencer and affiliate marketer.
