A consistent, sustainable release schedule is critical when building and fulfilling audience expectations and maintaining your well-being.
When building an upload schedule, it’s important to review and consider:
- Frequency: How often do you go live per week/month? Is this frequency sustainable over the long term? Do you have a structure for what comes when?
- Consistency: Are you consistent about your live streaming schedule? Is there a particular format or content type that you plan to regularly stream? Will you link content to specific days of the week? Have you taken any breaks or made changes in the last 6 months?
- Content Volume: Will you live stream and make them private when the stream ends, or leave the archived streams public for your audience to watch later?
Look at the efficiency of each type of content:
- Monetary Cost vs. Return
Review the monetary cost to produce an individual live stream and compare it to both the viewership and revenue it generates. RPM is a great metric for tracking revenue. - Time to Produce
Whether it be 5 minutes or 5 hours, live streams can vary dramatically in length. Consider how much preparation time is needed and how long you plan to stream live for.
Be clear about the goals that your live streams aim to achieve:
- Revenue Focused Content will likely focus on advertiser-friendly topics and appeal to high CPM audiences.
- Subscriber Growth Focused Content will need to introduce your brand and incentivize viewers to come back on a consistent basis.
- Reach Focused Content is likely to be accessible and mass appeal. It can answer common questions, address topical issues, or provide universally understood entertainment.
Surviving 50 Hours Trapped in a Glass Box 🚨 Subathon 2.0 🚨 !Donate
Ludwig’s five part, 50-hour live stream reached great success, but is a format that might not be replicated often.
Ludwig’s virtual reality gameplay live stream is also popular among his viewers, and requires much less time to produce.
Final considerations:
Are there other elements that you could build into your programming schedule?
- Notable dates, such as local or global holidays
- Relevant game releases or movie premieres
- Content collaborations
- Your vacation or breaks
Remember that your upload schedule doesn’t just have to include live content. Think about how to maintain consistent interaction between live streams without overwhelming your audience.
- Video
- Shorts
- Community Tab Polls
Once you have considered what content you’ll create to meet your goals and how often, create your upload schedule for the coming weeks or months.
Things to keep in mind
- Setting up your first live stream can be some work up front, however, once you have that established, it can be a great way to save you time in post-production.
- If you are choosing to upload live streams along with different format types, remember to give your content time to breathe. If you just posted a video, consider waiting to go live so your fans have a chance to watch and engage with your most recent upload before diving into your stream.
We recommend
- Introduce your live stream schedule and communicate any changes to your fans. Consider showcasing your upload schedule in your channel banner so that your audience always knows when to watch.
- Use YouTube tools to help automate your live stream by scheduling your mobile live stream or reusing stream settings.
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