Back in April of this year, gaming streamer Pewdiepie made waves when he announced he was moving his live streams off of Twitch and exclusively onto the burgeoning blockchain-based service DLive. Overnight, the little known community made headlines from its high-profile new creator driving massive traffic to the young site. This move shed some light on the community of lesser-known streaming services and tools.

From Facebook, DLive, Youtube, and Twitch, content creators and business people alike are leveraging Livestreams as a tool for content creation and community engagement. Continuing off of last week’s blog post, we’re going to briefly explore several pieces of live-streaming software a new streamer can use right now to start building a community around their brand.

Open Broadcaster Software(OBS) – Windows, OSX, Linux

Pros: OBS is likely the most used broadcasting software. It has an accessible layout, it’s open-source, and it’s free. It also supports plugins to add features to its already comprehensive set of tools.

Cons: OBS doesn’t natively support multiple stream outputs, and changing scenes mid-stream can be a little clunky.

FFSplit- Windows

Pros: It is free and supports streaming to multiple services at the same time. It can also be used to record video from multiple sources and will output in three available formats (.mkv, .flv and .mp4.) It is also lightweight compared to the potentially CPU heavy OBS.

Cons: FFSplit is only supported on Vista and later, and it is often noted with having poor stream quality that’s hard to troubleshoot.

XSplit – Windows

Pros: It has the most intuitive interface of the three, and is best suited to the non-technical streamer. It also supports multiple streams and can receive video directly from a Skype stream. A major distinction of XSplit is its ability to run custom JavaScript and interactive Flash files(allows loading .swf files.)

Cons: The full set of features are behind a paywall(starting at $24.95/3-months,) and the free version will include adds. Addition, it can be resource-heavy, and can’t stream above 1080p.

“This is the opportunity. It is available and equitable, but you have to decide to execute consistently.”

Hello everyone, welcome to my new blog! For those of you who may not know me, my name is Tyler McMillan. I am a writer, digital marketer, coffee enthusiast, hockey player, and overall avid fan of life. The purpose of this blog is to document my thoughts on my profession of digital marketing and content production; however, I will also include other facets of my life for everyone to enjoy. For those of you who do know me, thank you for your continuous support!

For my first post ever, I would like to tell you that in today’s world you have the potential to be Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, or Gordon Ramsay. I know, it seems far-fetched, but we are currently living in an era where content production is not only effective but consistently affordable. Our sources of distribution are at an all-time high. A great example of this is the “Sound Cloud Rapper” and the many jokes associated with the profession. For those of you fortunate enough to have missed the phenomenon of sound cloud rappers (not all are bad), this trend started because of the accessibility to create a rap song and upload it on the popular music distribution sites online. Keep in mind, this generally costs no money and has potential to monetize.

So my question is, why aren’t more people creating online content? This is rhetorical in nature; however, my guess is that many people are uninterested or afraid to put their lives, faces, dogs, or hedgehogs online for the world to see. That’s completely fine. No one is forcing you to put your life online for the world to see; but this statement changes if you are attempting to jump-start your own dream business or career. This is the opportunity. It is available and equitable, but you have to decide to execute consistently.

Some quick facts for you:

-Facebook advertising can get you in front of thousands of people for less than $30 USD

-Youtube videos are completely free to upload

-Instagram advertising is connected to the pricing of Facebook and is also very cheap

-Creating a blog (like this one) is free

-Writing your own E-book is time-consuming but free

-You can install tracking analytics online to continue marketing to your audience (for free)

So, this being said, it is very possible to take an idea you have and start producing content for people to see you online and engage with you and your business/idea. It takes commitment, but content creation is the key to take your dreams and turn them into reality.

Let me know your thoughts on this blog. I would love to hear from you: What content would you like to see next?