Over the last few years, live video has taken center stage in many newsrooms across the globe, but it’s had to grow up in front of mass audiences both on- and off-platform.
Live video, or live journalism as I like to call it, will become much more sophisticated from a planning and production standpoint in 2018 as a result of vast amounts of experimentation in 2016 and 2017. From exploding watermelons to highly specialized live programs, content creators have experimented with many different formats, but there’s a new rise of thinking around live video, which consists of:
BuzzFeed News has a three-prong live strategy across Twitter:
All of this, coupled with using other platforms, has enabled BuzzFeed News to expand its reach and build new audiences.
Live video experimentation is going to continue in 2018 with an eye towards nuanced coverage that audiences can relate to. This coverage will be brand safe and highly monetizable, much like Bloomberg’s upcoming global social news network, Tic Toc, which is live on Twitter starting today.
It’s also a great sign that a digital upstart like Cheddar, whose main vehicle is live coverage, recently announced some strong hires to helm its editorial efforts.
Live journalism has become essential to advancing stories across platforms and the stage has been set.
Let me leave you with a quote from Hamlet (Act 1, scene 3, 78–82) that I like to keep in mind personally and professionally that applies to live journalism and this current shift of pivoting to video: “To thine own self but true.”
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