Part 1: How To Choose Online Platforms for Literary Events

With physical distancing measures likely to remain a part of our lives for the foreseeable future — especially in regard to venue availability, public perceptions of safety, and travel regulations — the vast majority of book events will be virtual until at least Fall 2020. Yet, the switch to online has been rapid and uneven.

Some examples of quick pivots and innovative models in the literary community include LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel, FOLD Festival’s free, online programming and publisher DK’s daily shares from their author stable with #EverydaywithDK.

For others, essential questions still remain: Which online streaming platforms work best, and for what type of events? What are their limitations? Can they support ticketing models?

Whether you’re looking for the best platform to host an intimate author reading, or a full-on production with the biggest names, we’re sharing how to choose the right platform for maximum audience engagement and accessibility. For even more streaming options, be sure to check out this expansive comparison table from Monica Miller, Marketing & Promotions Coordinator at Caitlin Press.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Zoom

Zoom has quickly become a fixture in our daily work, and is — unsurprisingly — one of the most popular video-conferencing platforms. It allows up to 25 speakers and provides Facebook and YouTube Live functionality.

Zoom offers two options for events: Meetings, which are casual; reminiscent of a FaceTime call with friends and family, and Webinars, which feel conducive to educational programming or web conferences. It’s an especially effective platform for panel discussions, as “Gallery View” simulates an on-stage discussion, where each speaker’s expressions and reactions can be seen while others talk.

Best Option for: Panel Discussions, Masterclasses, Book Clubs, Educational Programming
Scalability: Maximum 100 participants for Pro Plan (with option to purchase larger audience add-ons); can be streamed to YouTube or Facebook Live for unlimited viewership.
Monetization: Two options exist. The first is through Zoom’s Webinar add-on, which allows events to have a fixed registration fee, charged through PayPal. The second is through Eventbrite, Showpass or other ticketing services, which you would provide standard Zoom invitation copy to, in lieu of traditional seating information.

Pros:

• Versatile: Can be set up for private or exclusive events, or can stream live to Facebook or YouTube.
• Familiar: Zoom is now a familiar technology for the public, significantly reducing the learning curve for participants and audience members alike.
• Semi-Interactive: With options to share screens, draw on white boards, and “pass the mic” to different presenters (and even the audience), there are many ways to produce interactive events that go beyond traditional streaming services.
• Archivable: All Zoom meetings can be recorded in their original resolution, and can be downloaded or stored on Zoom’s servers as on-demand video for an additional fee.

Cons

• Costly: To unlock all of Zoom’s most attractive features, there are significant costs (as compared to other platforms on this list). Branded videos — for example — are only available at Business level or up, costing roughly $200 USD/mo.
• Requires Software Download and an Account: While most people will have created a Zoom account and downloaded the app in some capacity for work or other events by now, this is still a barrier that should be considered. Note: Audio-only participants (if you choose to provide this option) do not need an account if they dial in from their phone.

Crowdcast

One of the unsung heroes in the virtual event boom, Crowdcast offers a range of useful features, including multi-streaming, fixed or sliding scale ticketing and donations. Of particular interest for publishers is the ability to promote a URL directly under the video throughout the entire event to encourage book sales, membership drives or other initiatives.

Crowdcast forces every audience member to register for an account, which may make usability feel clunky, but its other features are particularly attractive for book events. Realtime chat resembles a text message chain, and options to officially submit questions or participate in polls throughout the event help keep audiences engaged. Limited presenter capabilities mean Crowdcast is best suited for small panels of four speakers or less, or one-on-one Ask Me Anythings for authors highly comfortable with an online environment.

Best Option for: Small Panel Discussions, Intimate Q&As, Educational Programming, Readings
Scalability: Maximum 100 participants for Lite plan (with a surcharge for additional attendees); Allows for multistreaming to Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, Twitch and more, for maximum viewership potential. 4 hosts maximum.
Monetization: Fixed and sliding scale pricing can be applied to any event, which is processed through Stripe. Crowdcast takes a minimal fee on each ticket sale. A by-donation model is also possible.

Pros:

• Drives Sales: With a small section of the screen dedicated to an unobtrusive but visible URL button, organizers can drive participants to book landing pages or your book’s page on Bookshop.org, temporary marketing materials, or even a membership sign-up form.
• Convenient: With an easy event creation tool and option to schedule simultaneous streams to multiple platforms, Crowdcast makes creating and virtually attending events as easy as possible.
• Highly-Interactive: Beyond standard chat options, Crowdcast offers participants a chance to submit questions throughout the event, which can be collected by the moderator and voted on by other viewers. Moderators can also create polls, and with a text message-style chat window, events feel highly engaging and interactive.
• Abundant Support: Crowdcast has a number of FAQ and YouTube tutorials for all of their features, allowing marketers of various skill levels to successfully launch events on the platform.
• Archivable: Downloadable, high-definition MP4s can be downloaded for any event.

Cons

• Limited Presenters: At present, Crowdcast can host a maximum of 4 screens at a time, or one host and three guests.
• Unfamiliar: Despite its user-friendly interface and compelling features, Crowdcast is still relatively unknown to the general public. This may result in some confusion for your audience.
• Requires Registration: If your audience wishes to actively engage with your participants during an event, they must register for a free account. We recommend setting up at least one simulcast (or multi-stream) for any free, public event, and notifying ticket buyers early-on of this requirement to avoid tech support bottlenecks during the live show.
• Costly: Unsurprisingly, Crowdcast is more expensive than Zoom. In addition to ticket fees and participant surcharges, Crowdcast’s cheapest plan starts at $49 USD/mo for 2-hour maximum events. The next tier, Pro, provides 4-hour maximums for $89 USD/mo.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

Facebook Live

Facebook Live is ubiquitous in online events, though its demographic is aging, and not being replaced by new users: this is not the platform to use if you are hoping to connect with those 35 and under. It’s also one of the least interactive or intimate platforms out there, primarily due to the framework of the website. While streaming, viewers continue to receive regular notifications of friend updates and replies to threads they are following, and may spend more time in the chat window (or even leave the video stream to scroll their feed) if they aren’t consistently engaged. Hybrid, fast-paced events with music, comedy or poetry perform well here, and Facebook’s access to a large swath of the book-buying public can’t be discounted.

Best Option for: Single Author Readings or AMAs
Scalability: Unlimited viewers; 1 host
Monetization: Ticketed or by-donation events are not enforceable through Facebook.

Pros:

• Familiar & Widely-Used: Chances are, the majority of your followers have a Facebook account, even if they do not use it regularly. Event Page RSVPs, combined with newsletter and social media cross-promotion, can ensure anyone interested in your event gets a reminder to tune in.
• Archivable: All Facebook Live events are archived to your page’s Video tab automatically.
• “Go Live” Feature Open to Page Contributors: Not long ago, in order to host a Facebook Live from an organizer’s page, authors needed Admin privileges. Facebook has now added additional, highly-customizable permissions settings, so an author can host — without needing access to all of your page’s analytics and ad history.
• Multi-stream Available to Multiple Pages: If an author has their own page, they can also stream the event simultaneously to their own page, potentially widening your event’s reach.

Cons

• Limited demographics: With less than half of US teenagers active on the platform, organizers for children’s or Young Adult books may have a better chance of reaching their ideal viewership through YouTube Live.
• Audience may assume they need an account to watch: While it is possible to watch a Facebook Live event without having an active account, Facebook’s on-screen messaging suggests this is not the case (i.e., “Join Facebook to watch live”). We recommend communicating with your audience regularly with your live link (facebook.com/USERNAME/live) and a reminder that they do not have to create an account to watch current or past live events.
• Notification Limitations: Facebook and other social media platforms do not give organizers access to their followers’ emails. This has two significant detriments:
• Users must have push notifications on, or be logged in and RSVP’d, to receive a reminder that your page has gone live. This results in high attrition rates on the platform;
• Being unable to capture event-goer emails at the RSVP stage means you can’t market future events to your audience easily, especially when using an alternative platform.

Instagram Live

Instagram Live has quickly become a favourite tool for publishers. While using the app, followers receive constant notifications about live videos of those they follow, and the vertical format means that live streams have the potential to feel especially intimate, like FaceTiming someone one-on-one. Author takeovers, live book recommendations and AMAs are all wonderful uses of the platform.

However, this is only true for single-person events. Instagram Live’s limited screen space becomes clunky in two-person events, especially since the chat is overlaid the video feed. In single-person view, this isn’t distracting (and can even feel highly engaging), but in two-person view, your stream guest is frequently obstructed by messages flowing in, resulting in a diminished experience for viewers and, potentially, your guest.

Best Option for: Single Author Readings or AMAs, Catalogue Announcements or Previews, Audience Q&As
Scalability: Unlimited viewers; 2 participants
Monetization: Ticketed or by-donation events are not enforceable through Instagram Live.

Pros

• Familiar & Widely-Used: Like Facebook, Instagram is widely-recognized by the public, and is one of the few platforms which caters specifically to a mobile audience.
• Device Agnostic: Until recently, virtual attendees had no choice but to view Live videos from their phones. However, Instagram Live is now viewable via desktop, drastically opening up potential audience sizes. They will still need an account to view your content.
• Community of Book Lovers: Instagram is home to a diverse community of Bookstagrammers, readers and literary influencers. It provides a wonderful opportunity to reach a wide swath of the book-loving public, who will also be actively engage with your participants during any event.

Cons

• No RSVPs: Users of Instagram are only informed of live videos in real-time, forcing organizers to be creative in providing advance notice to their fan base. This can be accomplished through newsletters, social media cross-platform promotions, and frequent Instagram feed and Story posts.
• Requires Users to Have an Account: Whether your attendee decides to tune into your event via mobile or desktop, they will need an Instagram account. There is currently no exception to this.
• Mobile View Obstructs in Two-Person View: On the mobile version of Live, the participant visible at the bottom frame is often obstructed by chat activity and reactions, which may not be ideal.
• Not Archivable: Instagram videos are not archivable on the platform, though the file can be saved locally to the host’s mobile device.
• Host Requires Access to Login Information: If you are hosting a takeover, or an event with two participants not affiliated with your organization, one of them will require the login details to your Instagram account. We recommend always setting a temporary password, and changing it immediately after the conclusion of the event.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

YouTube Live

In 2019, YouTube boasted 2 billion monthly users, with 81% of 15–25 year-olds in the U.S. using it regularly (for older demographics, it’s 73%). It’s one of the most accessible platforms on this list, in part because it doesn’t require an account, specific device or any software downloads to view.

As a platform, YouTube feels like a home for polished content. Publishers may be comfortable sacrificing a bit of interactivity in order to foster live, deep dive discussions between panelists on a platform which caters to a discerning public always eager for more longform content. In many ways, YouTube Live can provide the grandiose atmosphere of a 300+ seat event — so long as your participants have proper lighting and audio equipment. It’s also quite useful for educational content, as it can be much more secure for students than Zoom.

Best Option for: Panel Discussions, Masterclasses, Book Clubs, Educational Programming
Scalability: Unlimited viewers; Up to 15 participants (through Google Hangouts)
Monetization: Ticketed events are not easily enforceable through YouTube Live, however feeds can be “Unlisted,” making them accessible only to those with the correct URL. However, if a ticket buyer chooses to share the URL with their friends or on social media, the organizer has no way to make the feed private again. Live streams can also be monetized through advertising, but the channel does not have power over which advertisers are shown.

Pros

• Easy to Share, Easy to Watch: With simple, short links and few barriers for viewers, YouTube is one of the easiest platforms for your fanbase to access, whether they are on mobile, tablet or desktop, and regardless of their operating system.
• Can Be Embedded: YouTube Live can be embedded into your website, opening up innumerable possibilities for the presentation of your event. Do you want viewers to be able to read about your participants’ books in an eye-catching way, with buy links and covers? Do you want to have a live ticker above the video, highlighting upcoming events? Perhaps you want a banner below the video reminding viewers to become a member, or donate to your organization. Best of all, this means your video can be domain branded, composed of your domain and whatever custom URL you’d like to create (example.com/live).
• Easy to Close Caption: If accessibility is a paramount concern for your organization, YouTube provides automatic closed captioning for live events, which can later be corrected via crowd-sourcing to a dedicated fan base, or through contracting a professional stenographer.

Cons

• Chat Feature Frequently Trolled: Given the public’s ready access to YouTube live streams, it is unsurprising that YouTube Live chat windows are frequently filled with trolls or bots which can damage other viewers’ experience. If you are worried this may become a problem, you can disable chat entirely, or only open the chat to “Super Users,” account holders who have paid a $5/mo membership fee to your channel. (You must have a minimum of 50,000 subscribers for this feature.)
• Multi-person Events Require Google Hangouts: Though YouTube has seamless integration with Google Hangouts, participants to your event will need to be familiar with Google prior to an event. (Or you can stream from Zoom or Crowdcast to YouTube directly.)

Keep in Mind…

Platform choice is just one consideration in developing a successful event. Finesse — as we will speak about in Part 2 — is essential for long term audience retention. Remember:

• Your presenter(s) must be comfortable with online events. Schedule tech rehearsals, and make sure you moderators and guests have adequate time prior to their event to speak with one another in a virtual “green room” to build rapport.
• Every guest should have an external mic, and know where to look and sit. Establish guidelines, including whether guests can join an event through their mobile phones, how far away from the computer they should sit, and what kind of external mic or headphones they should use.
• Event technicians are essential, and should be actively monitoring feeds and overall presentation throughout the event: Just because an event is online doesn’t mean the rules have changed! Virtual event technicians are a critical piece of the puzzle, providing tech rehearsals, pre-event support and live engagement with your viewers, reacting to comments and posting relevant links when appropriate — things that would distract your presenters during a stream.
• Moderators perform the crucial task of fostering intimacy: There are unavoidable and stark differences between online and in-person events. Lag, blur, scratchy audio and wandering gazes all create a sense of disconnect that wouldn’t readily exist for an in-person event. These technical realities can be countered with an engaged moderator who takes the time to respond meaningfully to answers from panelists, directs conversation with names (instead of gestures or a gaze to a panelist, as they would on a stage), and encourages panelists and the audience to take part in the discussion.

Did your favorite platform not make this list? Do you have any experiences you’d like to share? Let us know by emailing me at ariel@zgstories.com.

Ariel Hudnall
Online Marketing Manager
zgstories.com