Just like choosing the right equipment for your video needs, choosing the right platform for your live streaming is essential. It actually impacts greatly with your engagements online. Two of the most popular platforms for online church services are Facebook and YouTube, but how do you decide which one to choose? That is why we want to discuss Facebook Live vs YouTube for Live Streaming. Both options have advantages and disadvantages, so you need to know what platform fits your church the best.
Facebook Live
Advantages
Everyone has Facebook. Because of this, it makes Facebook Live so easy to share with your audience and your targeted user. For example, when you’re live on Facebook, people can share it on the same platform and others will also watch it there. On YouTube, they would have to share it to other platforms. With this built-in audience, it is almost a no brainer not to use this platform to reach your community and build your social media presence.
Facebook also has a Facebook Live Map which is a great analytic feature that allows you to see how many people are watching and where each of them are watching from. You also have the ability to boost live videos as paid ads to reach even more viewers.
Facebook Live also provides unique features for audience engagement, such as real-time commenting and Live “Reactions” that allow hosts and viewers to interact and engage.
Disadvantages
One disadvantage of using Facebook Live is that users cannot index its video content. Meaning that search engines like Google can’t identify the Facebook posts with that specific livestream. You can search for the livestream within Facebook, but oftentimes gets you nowhere. Locating posts, especially older ones, is nearly impossible.
Due to the lack of SEO’s with Facebook Lives, your videos will likely not see much traction other than being shared by your church’s page as well as members of the church.
YouTube
Advantages
As far as being able to search and locate a video, YouTube wins, hands down. Because of SEO, your search will have results in seconds. Also, because YouTube is a Google-owned business, these videos tend to rank high in your search results.
While on YouTube Live, you can choose between a wide range of resolutions and bitrates. On Facebook, you can’t go above 720p. Although 720p gives you a good video quality for live streaming, it’s not the best.
Disadvantages
One disadvantage is that YouTube flags musical worship due to copyright issues more so than Facebook Live does. Facebook will silence the section in question until you confirm that you have the rights. YouTube will pull the video and will restrict you from uploading for a period of time. Make sure you get your CCLI licensing!
There is a difficulty in sharing while on live. You cannot share a live stream on other platforms such as Facebook or Twitter without being disconnected from the stream. This causes a hindrance in building a larger community on YouTube.
Take-Aways
In the battle between Facebook Live vs YouTube, each will have their advantages and disadvantages. The decision truly lies with what’s important for your church and where your audience is. With both platforms having great strengths, it could be best if you could utilize the two platforms to increase your engagements and extend your reach to more people.
