Livestreaming video has quickly become a hot trend in digital marketing. Facebook users, for example, spend three times longer watching live video on the social network than video that’s pre-recorded.

And innovative brands that were early adopters of livestreaming have already reaped the rewards of this powerful, authentic, engaging, measurable, and cost-effective digital marketing channel—and they continue to do so.

Whether you’re now evaluating livestreaming video or you’ve already decided to use it in your marketing mix, here are six helpful tips to get you started, based on my experience helping Pottery Barn, REI, GoPro, and New Balance harness the power of livestreaming video for the first time.

1. The Right Platform

Choosing the right platform to host your livestreaming video event is key. For a quick, raw, and unmoderated stream, you can use various mobile apps, such as Periscope and Facebook Live. However, those apps are limited in function and don’t allow for custom branding or product content outside of the video stream.

It’s that time of year again: awards season. Snow is falling, people are celebrating the holidays, and as December makes room for January, the biggest entertainment awards in theater, movies and television are revealed. Upcoming is the 2017 Golden Globe awards and audiences will find plenty of opportunities for watching the glitz and glamor this year. In addition to watching the Golden Globe Awards on NBC, the network where the event will air, you can legally watch shows like the Golden Globes live streaming online. Jimmy Fallon hosts the 2017 Golden Globe Awards that will air on NBC, January 8, 2017, at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT. This is the 74th annual, Golden Globe Awards event.

Watching the Golden Globes online is simple, and there’s plenty of time to get ready for the big event. While some people enjoy hosting their own Golden Globe parties and getting decked out for the event, others will want to tune into the excitement while on the go. The Golden Globes are considerably more laid back than the Oscars. You’ll find celebrities chatting away at tables in a conversational setting, eating and drinking to the occasion. It isn’t uncommon to spot a celebrity or two who are a little tipsy by the time they make their acceptance speech.

One of the exciting things about the Golden Globes is it is often a precursor for the Oscars. If an actor or actress wins a Golden Globe, chances are they will win an Oscar, or at least it’s safe to presume they will be nominated. Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the greatest actors of this generation and had yet to win an Oscar. He won the Golden Globe for his performance in The Revenant and later won the Oscar for best actor. Check out some of the video highlights from past Golden Globes below, and you’ll see there is a more relaxed feel to the celebration.

There is a timeline of events leading up to the Jan. 8, 2017, Golden Globe Awards show that will stream live online at NBC and through various apps. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) created and bestows the Golden Globe awards on winners. They also announce the nominees and select a winner for the Cecil B. DeMille award. the Cecil B. DeMille award is presented to a selected recipient for their remarkable and outstanding contributions to the entertainment industry. On Nov. 3, the HFPA selected Meryl Streep for the 2017 Cecil B. Demille award. She will be presented with the award during the Jan. 8, 2017, Golden Globes show. The first African American to win the Cecil B. DeMille award was Sidney Poitier in 1982. In 2016, Denzel Washington won the award. You may see a full list of past Cecil B. Demille award winners at the official Golden Globe site.

Another tradition associated with the Golden Globe awards is Miss Golden Globe. There is now an opportunity for Mr. Golden Globe to have his shot at hosting duties, but typically the honor has been given to women. Mr. or Miss Golden Globe tends to be the son or daughter of a Hollywood movie star who is on the road to a successful career in the entertainment industry. The hosting duties put the starlet or young actor in the spotlight and really gives them a time to shine. This year, there will be three Miss Golden Globes. They are the stunning daughters of Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin: Sophia, Sistine and Scarlet Stallone. The 2016 Miss Golden Globe was Corrine Foxx, daughter of Jamie Foxx. You can learn more about Mr. and Miss Golden Globe at the official award website. Check out the video announcement for Miss Golden Globe 2017 below.

On Dec. 12, 2016, the 2017 nominees for the Golden Globes were announced. You can see a full list of nominees at the website. The nominations announcement was streamed live, online at the Golden Globes Facebook page.

Keep an eye on the Golden Globes Facebook page as they will continue to have live streaming videos, Red Carpet events and backstage, behind-the-scene interviews as we get closer to Jan. 8, 2017. Check out the video playlist below for highlights from Golden Globes 2016. Because NBC will stream the Golden Globes live, you can watch online with the NBC app in applicable areas. Stay tuned for more ways to legally stream the Golden Globes live as we get closer to the big event. Also, check back as on Jan. 3, 2017, the HFPA will release the Golden Globes 2017 menu and ballroom preview.

Here are some classic, funny moments from the Golden Globes including Joan Collins winning best actress.

[Featured Image by NBCUniversal (used with permission)]

Digital video ad spend will reach $9.59 billion by the end of 2016, showing unprecedented growth over the last year. We’re watching more video than ever – thanks to the proliferation of new platforms, but the smart money is betting on mobile. However, there is no shortage of innovation in the category. 

With that in mind, here are four predictions for digital video advertising in 2017. 

VR’s embrace – and the inevitable growing pains.

Consumer interest in virtual reality and 360-degree video has soared with sales of virtual reality devices expected to hit $1.1 billion in 2016 and $2.7 billion by 2020. VR global search interest, for example, grew four-fold year-over-year. And the world’s top technology companies – from Facebook to Google – have all made major investments in VR, fueling its adoption. With these developments, brands are finally beginning to consider VR and 360-degree video for advertising. They know that these types of immersive experiences can drive engagement unlike any other form of content. 

But as branded VR and 360-degree video scale in 2017, there will be serious barriers to success – particularly on the creative side. VR requires a completely new approach to branded storytelling, which means a new production infrastructure to manage content development, including advanced hardware and software. As a result, the video advertising workflow fundamentally changes – it becomes even more complicated and expensive. For branded VR and 360-degree video to stick, it will need to drive greater engagement to offset the additional investment. 

Vertical video adoption will drive up costs.

Snapchat exploded this year, threatening Facebook and YouTube with more than 10 billion daily video views. Its user base in the U.S. also grew by nearly 30%. That adoption, along with other platforms like Periscope, has conditioned consumers to accept vertical video at a scale never seen before. This has forced the advertising industry to rethink everything about mobile video – from formats to content. 

More publishers and platforms – such as Hearst and YouTube – are now offering vertical video support. And advertisers need to change how they think about content for video ads. After all, beyond adoption, vertical video ads are more engaging – with up to nine times more completed views, than horizontal video ads. But having to ideate and develop new content with completely new aspect ratios across many channels – social, mobile, OTT, VOD, web and more – only drives up costs. As mobile video spend increases in 2017, expect a large chunk of those dollars to go towards vertical video.

Managing video creative will be much harder.

Today, there is no such thing as a single-channel strategy, and there hasn’t been for roughly a decade. The customer journey spans multiple screens, formats and platforms. But with multi-channel campaigns now dominant, video has become the go-to asset for driving campaign engagement. In fact, advertisers’ video spend grew by 85% over the last two years. In addition to surging consumer viewership, video advertising simply performs better than most other ad formats.  

On the demand side, video ad content is at an all-time high, driven by advancements in programmatic buying, which have improved targeting for video-driven campaigns. Programmatic has also enabled ease across transacting video inventory. 

While this is great news, the explosion in growth raises a host of challenges for those managing creative assets. Video file types differ by channel – think linear TV versus YouTube versus OTT or on-demand – and regardless of format are usually large and unwieldy. Additionally, each of these files must be adapted to the specifications required at its destination. Logistically speaking, managing video assets and related metadata will only grow more difficult in 2017, as video advertising continues to expand.  

No surprise – viewability will be critical for ROI.  

As video advertising has ballooned, viewability has become one of the biggest measurement challenges for brands and marketers. Next year, this will play out most significantly in the mobile space. Confusion still exists around how viewable ad formats are across mobile web and in-app. 

Earlier this year, the MRC rolled out a first pass at guidelines around mobile viewability measurement, offering directions for both web and in-app environments. But those guidelines were largely based off of desktop approaches. Mobile is a different animal, with its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, in-app ads are typically more viewable than desktop given how scrolling works across mobile screens. Next year, mobile viewability standards must evolve further to provide advertisers with even more reassurance – especially as spend on mobile video continues to skyrocket. More dollars means a demand for better insight and more transparency.   

As more advertisers recognize the importance and impact of reaching customers through digital video, switching over from traditional formats like TV, 2017 will be a critical year for the future of the channel.

—Ian Wheal is the global strategy director at Adstream 

Image source: Wikipedia 

Amazon Prime Video’s HTML5 video player now supports Safari on Mac, as spotted by Reddit user netmute over the weekend.

Amazon Prime Video previously required downloading the Microsoft Silverlight plugin for playback in Safari, or switching to an alternative browser such as Chrome or Firefox, which already supported the HTML5 video player.

Some users on Reddit reported that, while HTML5 is now supported, AirPlay Mirroring and Picture in Picture functionality is lacking. Additionally, it appears video playback is limited to 720p rather than full HD resolution.

Many people have stories about their relationships to television when they were growing up. Some warmly remember how their families gathered around a favorite weekly TV show for dinner, while others recall the regimented half-hour their mothers gave them each day. For some it was a reward after a long day; for others, an escape from the anxiety of hard days to come. The small box that grew bigger every year, a bringer of very real news and provider of fantasy all in one. Binge watching, streaming, offline show content—none of these really entered into the traditional TV formula in the decades that followed the television’s creation.

Traditional TV has been dead for years, and now cable consumption, as you’ve likely heard, is diminishing.

Today, the field for television content has dramatically changed. Ads grow in their domination of air time while increasingly more users are “cutting the cord” in favor of specialized online services. Meanwhile, online streaming platforms continue to see strong growth with Netflix leading the field. As a result, people are becoming accustomed to watching their favorite shows in multi-episode sprints and demanding seasons to be released in their entirety from the start. Binge watching, which was once only possible through infrequent “marathons” has now become a norm that Netflix has begun to research and work into its own formula. Television is moving online, and in a space with more content, fewer interruptions, and greater variety, viewers seem happy about it.

But you know all that, most likely because if you’re not a Netflix subscriber, you know someone who is. You’ve heard them talk about the weekends they’ve lost to shows such as Black Mirror, Narcos, even Mad Men (for the third time). And one night before bed, it hit you: people are willingly devoting hours to this content because they love it. And maybe if they loved your brand story that much, they would do the same for you.

Here’s the problem: more likely than not, you’re among the 83 percent of marketers who would love to create more video content, if only you had the time and resources to do so. Even if you had it, you wouldn’t know where to start. There’s no way you can make readers actually binge on your brand.

Or so you assume.

Encouraging the Binge

There are clearly a few differences that prevent brands from treating themselves like Netflix, not the least of which being that such streaming services offer video content as their product rather than promotional material—meaning they can devote considerably more time, effort, and budget to its creation. But there are still a number of ways in which marketers can encourage binge-viewing behavior within their own communities, without much change to their existing content engines.

The most fundamental place to begin the pursuit of bingeingess has to happen at the content level. If your video content doesn’t lend itself to continuous viewing, then there’s no combination of video presentation or infrastructure that’s going to be able to keep your audience watching. There are two primary forms that at the content level encourage this kind of viewing behavior.

1. Episodic video

Episodic video content typically involves recurring characters, themes, visual style, and plot that grow which each subsequent episode. The advantage of this form is that it most closely mimics television-style content and—if engaging enough—has the highest potential to keep people watching one after the other. However, this form does make it a bit more difficult to onboard people halfway through, presenting some challenges when it comes to promoting your content with each release (though this difficulty is somewhat reduced if with “full season” releasing models.)

Pepsi continues to produce one of the strongest examples of this with Uncle Drew, which cast Cavaliers player Kyrie Irving as an old man with incredible basketball chops. To date, the series is pushing out its fourth episode, in addition to loads of behind the scenes and extra content which has netted the Pepsi brand over a hundred million views across the current 13 videos combined. A fun and funny story with engaging characters that encourages people to keep coming back for more.

2. Video Series

Typically used for live content or interview style pieces, series content keeps much of the thematic consistency of episodic content while stripping away the continuing plots and recurring characters. This content tends to be much easier to produce, since each individual video doesn’t impact other videos in the series. This can reduce production costs, allow for more concurrent productions, and greatly widens the pool of potential video ideas for content creators to choose from. However, series don’t have the same guardrails built in that episodic content does, making binge watching a little bit more self-guided and less evident for the viewer than with episodic content. For great examples of how this looks on both small and large scale, music brands like Musicbed and KEXP Radio provide awesome Youtube hubs to see what well curated and grown series can look like through their series of artist “session” videos.

But once you have content in hand, what good does your audience binging do for your brand?

Measuring Binge Watching

The first step to measuring binge as a metric requires your brand to make some decisions in video content hosting.

The least cost intensive option is to use playlists, recommended video spreads, and titling on public video hosting platforms to guide users from one piece of content to the next. As with all marketing, every action your user has to make will cause some friction that may cause them to leave your video flow, so putting the work in on the front end to make it easy for users to start-and-leave your content gives you the best chance for a binge viewing session. Episodic content should always have the first episode of any series at one click away (end of video recommendations are a great space for this) for viewers who discover your content halfway through, while series content should make every effort to make sure that autoplaying content continues to meet your audieince’s tastes and doesn’t repeat content—segmenting thematically can really help with this. (If your brands content were music, could your separate it out by genre?)

With this structure, binge viewing is largely measured by looking at the difference of views between your video content, number of average videos watched per visitor, and average time watching per user. The lower the difference in views between each video, the closer your average view time is to the average length of your content, and the higher the average number videos watched per user, the better your brand is doing at binging. With this data in hand, you can then answer three questions: Is your audience made up of bingers? Is your content bingable? Are your bingers more likely to click off of a video CTA or to your website? Not every brand appeals to binge-prone viewers, so understanding how your content relates to your audience’s viewing habits can help you make informed decisions about your video marketing strategy.

The more cost-intensive-yet-effective method of hosting this binge content is to create a specialized video hub on your own website. Red Bull has done this across many of its audience segments, and it continues to provide a powerful mix of episodic and series content that grabs headlines and bring viewers back for more. With the ability to better track individual viewer behavior from your webpage’s analytics, video content on your own website offers you the chance to both more directly track binge watchers (perhaps defined as a visitor watching three or more videos in one session) and then segment out their behavior specifically. Are your binge watchers more likely to respond to certain types of CTA, make a purchase, request additional information, or convert in a different way after watching your content? Do they return to your website more often or less often than other visitors? Do they have the same lifetime value as the rest of your audience? (A critical question given the amount of content you’ll need to be creating to support this viewing behavior.)

Overall, binge viewing and measurement can help your brand engage with viewers in a way they are becoming increasingly accustomed to, while also giving you a powerful outlet to develop a better understand how people are reacting with your brand’s ongoing themes and stories. This isn’t an approach that works for every brand (sorry B2Bers, this appears to be a primarily B2C tactic, at least for now) but for the brands who can afford the upfront costs, build an intentional infrastructure, and make clear goals for this highly engaged segment there are clear wins to be had.

Who knows, maybe one day we’ll even look back on video marketing and brand storytelling with the same nostalgia that many of us hold for the television of our youth. This is a story that only time can tell. In the meantime, your brand likely has a lot to share that can help audiences pass the time until we get there.