We see many churches every Sunday going Live AND Premiering their sermons on Facebook. Both are incredible tools to share your sermon with those not in attendance on Sunday and to boost engagement with listeners. But which is better for you?
Duane Crosby asked on our Facebook group about the pros and cons of using Premiere compared to going Live on Facebook. Members have shared their experiences and opinions related to this.
Comments:
“I think Facebook favors live over premiers.” Jeff Rogers
“Facebook will often tell you before your Premiere goes live if it has found any copyright issues, giving you a chance to correct it…” Zach Brenner Duane Crosby
“We made the switch from going Live (via OBS) to Premiere on Facebook and YouTube for the following reasons:
- Video is all pre-recorded anyway.
- Premiere doesn’t rely as heavily on a stable connection (On Easter, our live stream was interrupted mid-sermon because my internet dropped out for a minute). I have not yet encountered any issues in Premiere with restarts or glitches. Our video was rightfully flagged one week for including a video clip downloaded from YouTube, but that did not impact the premiere video compared to the weeks we were not flagged.
- Engagement in the comments has been the same or increased.
- No one made use of the call-in option.
- Much less stressful for this humble staff member to have the worship service “put to bed” by Friday night. Sundays, I can focus on engagement in the comments.” Merrie Bunt
“We have used both. Premiere is better to package together with a video and still have the live feature of interacting. However, we’ve had more issues with Facebook, lagging, skipping, and even taking down the entire video. With live, I feel like it works better with Facebook. However, it relies heavily on a stable connection, which can always be a risk.” Brandon Morgan
“We’ve used Premiere mainly for pre-recorded sessions so we can avoid any live glitches and edit appropriately. We still get the live comments and watch party as Live would.” Josh Tate
“We have used both. The negative thing I have noticed is the views dropped drastically using the Premiere. So I am not a fan.” Amy Brannon Conn
“We use Premiere. We have great responses, happy we don’t have to worry about streaming and can sit back and watch. No copyright issues so far. We plan on live-streaming when we are back on-site, so I’m just sitting back and enjoying it while I can.” Starr Stackhouse
“Pro is that you don’t have to worry about streaming issues interrupting your broadcast. We have been streaming a pre-recorded service to Youtube, but premiering it to Facebook at the same time, so I can “set it and forget it.” Good to have a backup to redirect people to if something happens to our stream.” Trevor Jenkins
Conclusion
So, which is better?
You guessed it; there is no right answer. It all depends on your church’s needs. We know of many churches that prefer premiering videos, rather than going live; however, for others, Live is the way to go. But here’s the deal; no one said you had to exclusively use one or the other. Try mixing it up. Livestream your Sunday service and Premiere your Midweek service. If that doesn’t work, try the opposite. That’s the fun thing about what we do. We get to try new things. We hope you’ll experiment with these different features and let us know how it goes.
Which do you prefer? Let us know in the comments.
