How To Increase Event Engagement Through Simulated Live

How do you increase your online event engagement, boost production value, and reduce complexity of your online event all at the same time? An awesome way that we have found is through utilizing simulated livestreaming (sim-live). In this post, we’ll learn about the benefits and potential downsides of this streaming feature.

Read on about the benefits of simulated live on Resi’s event livestreaming platform or watch the video version of this article below!

What Is Simulated Livestreaming?

Simulated live, just as the name implies, is a way to stream or restream an event for the first time as a simulated real time video. This can be generated from a previously livestreamed event or even from a file with pre-recorded content. The online event is displayed concurrently in real time to your online community, enabling them to interact with other attendees at the same point in the event. It’s a powerful tool that enables online audiences to engage with events in creative ways while providing streamers the ability to more closely manage and produce their online event without stress.

Why Use Simulated Live?

There are several reasons you may want to consider streaming an event through simulated live. Some of these include to have better control of your content, to re-stream previous events on a schedule, or to be more flexible with broadcast and viewing schedules.

First, streaming through simulated live gives broadcasters the opportunity to produce and edit an event beforehand to have the highest control of the content. This is great to ensure the highest level of professionalism in your broadcast for things like conferences, webinars, or even live music such as concerts where the audio may need to be mixed down and mastered ahead of time. Many event planners also love this opportunity for streaming conferences and seminars in order to compile a group of speakers who pre-record their content and stream it together as one long event.

Reuse Your Existing Content

Another reason may be to get more value out of a previously streamed event. For example, if you streamed a church service on a Sunday, you would be able to restream that event a few days later in order to create the same community experience throughout the week. Life.Church does this with their live events, with several rebroadcasts of their services each day from the previous weekend. 

Finally, there is no better way to be flexible with schedules when streaming than through utilizing simulated live. An event may be streamed live at a certain time and then rebroadcasted several times later in order to reach those around the world equally across many time zones. All of this is done easily and automatically through scheduling, with no data connection required after the initial stream or upload.

The Benefits of Simulated Live

It’s no surprise that a “live” experience creates much more energy and engagement than a video watched through on-demand playback. Simulated live allows an event to operate just as if it is live, with opportunities for audience interaction and engagement no different than a traditional in-person live event. 

Simulated live events have been shown to result in higher viewing results. Many times, if you release a video as on-demand, people may say that they will watch it, but their schedule gets the best of them, and they usually don’t. A scheduled livestream broadcast, on the other hand, may create the impetus needed for them to commit to viewing. Watch times are also affected, with many organizations seeing 80-90% more commitment and longer retention through simulated live over on-demand.

The Downsides of Simulated Live

While simulated live provides many advantages, there is one, fairly obvious downside. Because the event is pre-recorded (either from a previous stream or uploaded file), altering the broadcast or facilitating live, back-and-forth interaction with viewers is not possible. For this reason, you may not want to use simulated live in times when interaction from livestream hosts is explicitly required — for example, with a question-and-answer session. However, there are still many good ways to interact with audience members that may work with your event, such as answering questions through an online chat while the event is going on.

How To Stream Simulated Live With Resi

Resi makes it easy to stream or restream a simulated live broadcast. You can simply choose a previously streamed event or even upload a video file, choose the dates and times the event should stream, select destinations (including your website, Facebook, YouTube, OTT devices, etc.), and click done. You can also schedule your sim-lives just like any other event. In your scheduler, after a livestream is scheduled, create a simulated live event using the same web event profile, and the event will restream to all of the same destinations just like it is live. 

Because these sim-lives are stored and broadcasted directly from Resi’s cloud, no network connection is required. Turn off your gear, relax, and go home!

Conclusion

Simulated live is a powerful tool that enables broadcasters to have the highest level of control, quality, and flexibility with their events and get the most out of their livestreamed content. Resi makes it easy to stream simulated live, either from a file or a previously streamed event. To see Resi’s simulated live ability in action, sign up for a no-hassle Resi demo.