The Livestreaming Studio is a great way to create videos that are more personal and engaging for your audience. The studio creates an intimate environment where you can share your story, whether it be about the latest product launch or just a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in your office.

In this article, we’ll go over how to set up a home studio with affordable equipment so you can start creating live video content for social media marketing!

I will also take some time to talk about how you can use live streaming and a studio to grow the reach of your business, generate some new customer leads and of course, build a brand for your business that can differentiate you from others in the same space.

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Table of Contents

Why should you build one?

There are a lot of reasons why you should build a small live streaming studio either at home or in your office.

The most obvious reason is to create content that can live on your social media channels for weeks, months or years at a time. This will give you the opportunity to get more views and cultivate an audience with regular viewers who are interested in what you have to say or show them.

It also provides a way for people to follow your feed on Instagram, Facebook, Ticktock or any other channel that you find your customers on. It helps you to differentiate your business from everyone else in your space, and that, these days is super important.

When there are 100 competitors all vying for the same customer, you need to be a little different and do something that will stand out.

Another reason to live stream for your business is to grow an audience. This is especially true if you are a writer, blogger or speaker and want to build your tribe of followers without paying for advertising.

Where should I put my Livestream studio?

A live streaming studio doesn’t have to be a massive production, as many young people these days stream to millions of viewers from a corner of their bedroom.

But, if you want a more professional look and feel to your studio. You’ll need some room, preferably in an open space with ample natural light or by using artificial lighting.

Depending on the equipment you have you may need to adapt your space to get the best from what you have. For example, if your camera hasn’t got a lens that works well for a close-up, then you will need to place it further back, meaning you need to have space in front of you to set it all up.

Realistically though, a 2 meter by 2-meter room is all you need to get started, quite literally you can build an entire studio into a bathroom or cupboard!

Tip: Be careful when placing the live streaming camera on top of furniture that has dark colours since this can cause glare as seen through the lens.

What equipment do I need for my Livestream studio?

Camera, Tripod and Lenses

You don’t need to spend a huge amount of money on a camera for live streaming, you can use the camera, a basic webcam stuck on to the top of your screen and that is enough to get started.

If you want to take it a step further, invest in a camera that can change lenses, and a tripod that will hold 2x the weight of the camera, and that will keep you going for a long time.

Audio capture and mixing

The only thing you truly need to remember if you’re going to live stream, 90% of viewers will forgive not great camera work, however bad audio is the main reason you will lose viewers.

Invest in a good microphone, like something from Yeti or Elgato, I’m using an Elgato wave 2 and I have just repurposed a lamp swing arm to make it easy to move around.

Lighting

Good lighting is important, and if you have space you can research how to set up 3 point lighting for video. Basically, 3 point lighting is a key light, a fill light and then a backlight. The main point of the key is to make sure you can be seen clearly, so you’ll need some good lighting for that. But having an additional fill on the opposite side will also help keep shadows at bay.

The key light is a light that is positioned close to the camera, with a diffuser or softbox to create glare-free light on you. A fill light provides additional illumination, this is usually placed off to the side of you and not in direct view of the key and the backlight creates depth by emphasizing contrast on one side in relation to other areas.

Just look up how to place these lights and if you have the space to do it, give it a go, you will look fantastic.

Teleprompter

A teleprompter is a device that displays a script on two glass panels for the speaker to read. It’s just like what a news anchor reads off when they are talking directly to the camera.

The glass is angled and treated in a way that means they can reflect a monitor that shows high contrast text onto the glass so the reader can see it, and the camera, that’s mounted behind the glass just looks through and captures the speaker.

Now, is this something you need for live streaming, maybe not, but if you are going to have information that you need to refer to, then investing in a teleprompter is a good idea.

Another idea is to get the teleprompter and reflect the image of the person you are talking to or interviewing in the reflection, that way you can be talking directly to the camera and be seeing the person you are talking to, it can really make a massive difference to the presentation.

Computer and encoder

Importantly you will need a computer and a way to encode the video you are streaming, were have a great post on the site about hardware and software encoders I suggest you read but if you are on a budget, it is possible to get away with a laptop and an encoder for around $500.

One of the most popular platforms out there is Livestream which offers its services as both software or hardware but does require some investment – coming in at about $800 per year.

Decorations

Making your set look nice can really increase the quality of a presentation, take some cues from how YouTubers set up a studio, add coloured lights, and interesting objects behind them to make their set look a little more interesting, and add depth to the framing of the shot.

Some ideas for basic set dressing can include:

• • a poster of your product
  • some clipboards with notes on them
  • an extra laptop to show off what you’re talking about in the background
  • a monitor showing something relevant to what you are discussing (a video, pictures)
  • extra microphones or any other recording equipment that might be needed.

Anything that may tell a little more story about what you are doing, what your product is about and maybe even give a little more emotion to your message.

What software do I need to use in order to stream successfully

You have a number of options on what software you can use to live stream, and truth be told it doesn’t matter how big your production is, you can use the same software in your home studio that is used on large virtual conferences and it’s not going to break the bank or even be that much of a learning curve.

There are three options, you can use cloud services like restream and Shoflow, where you connect to a website, and then they have the full virtual studio set up for you to use for a small fee every month. This is a great option if you want to just test it out and not invest too much.

You can use software like OBS Studio, Streamlabs or Vmix if you want to start adding a little more production into your stream. This gives you options to have multiple cameras, overlays, stingers and more that will enhance the event feel, but there is a little learning curve to this and you will need a better computer to run this type of software.

Or you can use software like Livestream or studio6, these are more industrial level software packages and if you are starting to gain traction, and have a small team of people to assist in your production you would look at this type of thing to really bring it all up a notch.

Do I need an internet connection

Lastly, your internet connection is the most important part to your live stream, as if your connection goes down, your stream goes down and nothing is worse than losing connection in the middle of a stream.

some steps you can take to make sure you don’t lose internet connection in the middle of a stream are to hardwire your computer to the internet or get a good wifi router with a long-range connection. I would always suggest hardwire or LAN connect your computer over wifi if you can though.

If you have a good data plan on your mobile phone I would suggest getting some software like Speedify, installed and then connecting your computer to the local LAN internet and also your wifi hotspot on your computer through the Speedify software.

What this will do is give you an emergency connection to the internet that if you lose one, it will instantly use the other, and you are ensuring that your live event never loses connection.

It’s best to test out your connection before going into production mode for a Livestream event so no time

So in conclusion

You don’t need a massive budget to start a live streaming studio, just get a basic camera, find a space with good light and an interesting background. Invest in a quality microphone and install some software like OBS, then just connect your internet to Speedify and you’re ready to go.

Then, you can spend 30 min learning how to use it all, and that’s it, you can go live and start telling the world how amazing your product is and building more business with your passion.