Nowadays, with the help of smartphones anyone can create a video and publish in the virtual world, sharing live news with the rest of the world.

The same goes for online classes, which can be watched in real time, even allowing interaction with the teacher.

A valuable resource for schools and online courses, understand how streaming live online classes can improve your distance learning course.

What are the advantages of live online classes

Online classes taught through video have already proven their effectiveness and preference for the vast majority of viewers. 

Through recorded classes the student is able to see and hear the teacher, facilitating the dynamics and connection that occurs in a classroom.

– How to create videos for online courses

If this feature attracts and holds the viewer’s attention, it is not surprising that live streaming has been gaining an increasing number of fans. 

Great advantage of distance learning, this allows the students to attend live online classes in the comfort of their home.

And the benefits do not stop there. Below are five advantages of broadcasting your classes. 

Favors interaction

Live online classes allow interaction with students through chats and comments, which helps to make the class more dynamic, encourages debate and allows immediate answers to questions.

Using a simple messaging system, those watching can interact with the teacher and other viewers.

Promotes credibility

How a famous phrase used to say, “who knows, does it live”. A professional who transmits classes in real time gives confidence and credibility.

This is also the instructor’s chance to show mastery over the subject at hand, proving that he feels safe enough to talk to the audience as if he were really in their presence.

Increases sales

Watching an online course with the dynamics of a classroom without leaving home is an option that gains more and more fans. If your content is good, there is a great chance that your next online classes will have even more subscribers. 

Live streaming is an efficient way to present your content to a large number of people at the same time, which serves as an excellent marketing and sales strategy.

– Live video streaming: 5 ways to earn money

Can be watched later

Despite being a real-time broadcast, all the content is recorded so that it can be watched later, which is of great help for those who were unable to follow the live online classes or want to review it.

When the transmission is finished, the teacher can make the recorded material available for later viewing, with the bonus of buttons that allow pausing, fast forwarding and rewinding the video.

Easy to use

It may not seem like it, but as much as it involves technology, online transmission is not difficult to set up and use. All the teacher needs is a computer with internet and a connected camera. 

All the viewer needs is a computer with Internet access and a browser like Google Chrome or Firefox. 

– 5 ways to sell online courses using videos

The step by step depends on the chosen tool, but, whatever it is, the process is quite simple. Two excellent options for broadcasting your live online classes are Vimeo Live and YouTube.

Vimeo Live

Vimeo Live has emerged as a new resource for the famous video upload and sharing site.

Widely used by audiovisual producers, Vimeo gained popularity for being simple to use, allowing even the most laymen to upload content on the platform.

– Advantages of using Vimeo

The video sharing site has accumulated a collection considered to be of high quality, gathering award-winning works from around the world and conquering a huge user base, second only to YouTube.

What was missing was precisely a feature that enables the transmission of live videos, which was resolved with the launch of Vimeo Live.

In 2017, the company announced the acquisition of the Livestream tool and, with that, its new streaming platform.

With Vimeo Live, content producers can capture, edit, stream, host their events and archive videos after the broadcast is over.

Some of its main features and advantages are:

• Streaming HD 1080p videos complete with cloud transcoding;
• Live chat and email capture;
• Live statistics;
• Automatically archive and manage your videos in one place;
• Provide all professional privacy controls, review tools and customization options;
• Offer a unique place for all your video hosting and live streaming needs.

Ideal tool for anyone who creates online courses and wants to broadcast live online classes, Coursify.me users can embed videos hosted on Vimeo directly on their page on the platform. 

YouTube Live

Second most accessed site in the world, loosing only to Google, YouTube currently has 1.9 billion users.

Content creators can publish videos and stream live on YouTube for free. Depending on the tools you want to use, however, you may encounter some restrictions on your channel that require a specific number of followers to be unblocked. 

For example, to broadcast live directly from your cell phone, you need at least 1,000 subscribers on your channel. But, in most cases, the resources accessible to everyone are sufficient to conduct live online classes successfully.

One of the most significant benefits of YouTube Live is the ease of monetizing live streaming. 

– How to promote your business on YouTube

When you use the platform for live streaming, viewers can support you through Super Chat, while promoting your profile. 

Super Chat is a way for viewers to pay to highlight their comments on live streams from their favorite youtubers.

In other words, people will have the opportunity to “buy comments” on any Live.

In addition to Super Chat, streamers can also activate ads in the following ways:

• Ads before the broadcast starts.
• Ads in the middle of the broadcast.
• Display and overlay ads on the video being shown.
• Some channels have access to member associations, which allows users to pay a subscription fee to their channel.

– How to sell online courses on YouTube

Live streaming on YouTube can also help you increase your online reach far beyond that on-demand videos. 

Platforms like Facebook and YouTube tend to favor live videos over pre-recorded ones, meaning that your videos have a greater chance of ranking well in search.

3 tips to improve your live online classes

Creating video lessons is a process that requires little investment and can bring many advantages for both the teacher and the student.

With the help of some simple equipment, anyone can produce videos without leaving home, using, most of the time, resources they already have.

The great advantage of broadcasting live classes is that you don’t have to worry about taking multiple shots and editing the final material. In other words, you create content while saving time and money.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

Although live streaming is not a difficult task, there are some precautions that must be taken to ensure a good result:

1 – Plan your streaming space

Live video is all about location. Give your viewers something interesting to see, be it a home studio with personal touches of decor or an attractive setting, such as a beautiful natural landscape. 

Although you can transmit from anywhere, it is important to consider the configuration of your space and the message it gives to those who watch.

First impressions can be critical to retain new viewers. It is worth making some effort to design and create a pleasant environment.

2 – First impressions on the camera

When recording live online classes, you stop being just a teacher to become a host. While recording, you need to keep your energy high to keep viewers engaged. 

– Tips for speaking well on video

Also, plan well what you are going to wear, so that it represents your message. Are you teaching yoga? So it would make sense to wear gym clothes. Talking about math? The casual but well-ironed clothes you would use in a classroom are a good choice. 

As well as the decoration of the scene, your appearance and behavior must correspond to the topic of conversation.

3 – Posture, eye contact and interaction

When you broadcast live, it is crucial to maintain eye contact with your audience in the same way that you would in a normal face-to-face conversation. 

You also want to ensure that your facial expressions and posture convey authority, conviction and interest. If you smile while speaking, you convey enthusiasm and confidence to your online audience.

Encourage interaction. Most viewers of live streaming want to be part of the action. Therefore, you need to give them chances and ways to interact. Greater interaction means more retention time – your audience will stay longer if they feel they are able to contribute.

Platform for broadcasting live online classes

It is important to broadcast your live online classes on the right platform for you and your audience. 

Give preference to the channel most used by your target audience. But don’t discard other platforms because of this, as you can alienate others who would like to see your content.

Evaluate the options available and follow the metrics to determine where you might be best positioned for live content. 

– How to Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform

Suitable places to start include Insta Live, YouTube, Facebook Live and Vimeo Live. There are, of course, many others, but focusing on one or two options is the best thing to do. 

ELearning platform (LMS), Coursify.me has all the necessary features for you to integrate and import content from video hosting platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Instructors can embed their hosted videos in any of these channels on their page on Coursify.me, leaving their lessons even better and more complete.

To learn more, visit our website and take advantage of all the platform’s features to create, host and sell quality online courses.

The post Live online classes: advantages of live streaming your classes  appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

With over 70 million users, the tool offers videos in high quality and has gained preference among professionals who want to showcase their work.

Why use videos in your online course

A research conducted by Cisco found that global IP video traffic will make up 82 percent of all consumer internet traffic by 2020.

Common preference between the virtual consumer, videos are being increasingly used in marketing strategies with excellent results.

Studies show that 74% of users who watched an explainer-video about a product subsequently bought it.

Thanks to technology and platforms like Vimeo, this type of visual content is reachable. It is easy to produce and share videos and it can be watched at any time and place through electronic devices like smartphones, which makes it even more attractive.

Just ask yourself, how many videos you produced already using your phone? And how many videos per day you receive and watch?

With the continued growth of the videos consumption, it makes sense transfer and take advantage of this interest to teaching and learning.

– How to record videos at home

Elearning students are already waiting for this kind of content, and the reasons for instructors use this feature are numerous, such as:

• Videos are more efficient in capturing and holding the attention of the student than reading materials, for example;
• Through demonstration is easier to understand a complex concept;
• It has high power of immersion, being able to excite and impact people;
• Creates greater engagement, contributing to the debate and assimilation of the content;
• Through the use of image and sound, video classes contribute to building a closer relationship between teacher and students;
• Enables transmit more information in less time;
• Through hosting and sharing platforms, the material is easily available online and therefore accessible to all.

This feature is also widely used in corporate training.

According to Carol Leaman, CEO of Axonify, is “just the way employees like to receive information in today’s modern world….If I need to learn how to install a doorknob in my house, the first place I go is YouTube. Employees want that same experience in the workplace and appreciate it when they get it.”

” Video provides increased accessibility by using closed captioning and subtitles for people who are hard of hearing or who speak different languages. It also, Leaman says, “addresses illiteracy, which is a concern for many organizations.”

Vimeo has grown in the last decade. Created in 2004, it has surpassed in number of users other known sites such as Dailymotion, to become the main competitor of YouTube.

Though YouTube has approximately 1 billion viewers per month, Vimeo is running close with about 280 million viewers per month.

Even with smaller audience, Vimeo growth is explained by the fact that many professionals prefer this platform to share their materials.

This is justified by a number of advantages the site offers, as we will discuss below.

Better encoding and video quality

While the YouTube mantra is quantity, Vimeo’s  is quality.

Over 300 hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube every minute and all these videos need to be processed before they can go live.

– How to get more views for your lessons on Youtube

To deal with all this material, YouTube must balance compression speed with compression quality.

On other hand, Vimeo has stricter guidelines for accepting videos, which makes its processing load is far lighter, and that means it can focus on maximizing the quality of each video using the best encoding techniques.

Summing up: if you load the same video at the same resolution, to YouTube and Vimeo, the Vimeo version will appear much better, because the video will have a much higher bit rate. The audio will also sound better because Vimeo supports 320 Kbps.

Best reputation

Notice what comes to your mind when someone says “YouTube video,” and then “Vimeo video.”

If you have any experience with both sites, your perception of each brand must be radically different.

YouTube works basically like a “video dump.” You can upload anything, as long as it isn’t sexually explicit, gory, excessively violent, etc.

No one will stop you to upload low quality material that is useless or spam, while Vimeo is quite strict about the content it displays.

This restriction acts as a double-edged sword. On one hand, this limits the kinds of channels you can run on Vimeo (for example, you will not find any game-related content beyond documentaries).

However, the videos shared on Vimeo are often seen as more professional and credible.

If your material fits into one of the Vimeo video niches, and is accepted, it certainly generates more prestige for your content that to be on YouTube.

And there is also the famous “Staff Picks” which are selected videos selected by the Vimeo curatorial team.

Having your content chosen to appear on that page puts you in a position of authority and many careers were released after being discovered by professional curators on Vimeo.

So while YouTube is the option chosen by channels that produce a lot of content, Vimeo is the choice of those who invest significant time and effort to create each video. Quality, not quantity.

Qualified audience

Because Vimeo limits the kind of videos that can be uploaded, and is seen as a most prestigious site in relation to YouTube, which attracts a different kind of public, Vimeo has more qualified audience.

Even though YouTube has more scope, the Vimeo viewers are more likely to engage with your content.

The public that uses YouTube is easily distracted, pay little attention on the displayed video and quickly move to another option.

Vimeo viewers are more receptive to slower and more thoughtful content. The expectations are different.

These observations on the profile differences are evident when we compare the comments sections of both sites.

YouTube is famous for its war atmosphere in the comments. Most of the observations are made by exaggerated fans, haters or someone who just wants to make jokes.

With Vimeo the story is completely different. The comments tend to be more constructive, mature and insightful.

For those who want to create online courses, this can be quite helpful and uplifting.

Exclusive benefits

Now, let’s talk about some practical advantages of the site in terms of features and flexibility, in that it is superior to the others:

• Video replacement without losing URL: this is one of the best features of Vimeo. You can replace any of your existing videos with a new one without losing your URL, thus keeping all likes, comments and statistics.
• Password protection: you can set a password for any video to control who can view it.
• Social resources: Vimeo enables the creation of groups and albums. Groups form a meeting place to discuss and exchange knowledge. Albums serve to assemble and share a compiled on what you like on the network.
• Domain-restricted embeds: the site allows you determine which domains could embed your videos. With this feature you can disable the display of the video on Vimeo itself, and only make available on your site, for example (feature available on Plus plan).
• Advanced analysis: depending on your subscription plan you can get various levels of analysis, starting with a traffic panel and custom reports, going all the way to engagement graphics and Google Analytics integration.

Another major advantage is that Vimeo does not display ads. Unlike YouTube, Vimeo is funded by the community, rather than advertisers.

You can use it for free, but free accounts are limited to upload 500MB per week.

With unique features, there is also the Plus plan that costs US$7 per month, Pro for US$20 per month, Business for US$50 and Premium for US$75.

See a comparison of complete plans to learn more.

Livestream and Vimeo Live

Quite used by audiovisual producers, Vimeo gained popularity for being simple to use, allowing easy access to all who want to upload content on the platform.

With this, the site has reunited a collection of videos considered high quality by bringing together award-winning work worldwide and greatly increasing its user base.

Sought by many professionals, what was missing was a live streaming feature.

To address this issue, in 2017 Vimeo bought Livestream (streaming platform),and launched its own streaming service, Vimeo Live.

The Vimeo Live then emerges as a new and valuable resource for the site users.

“Live Streaming is the number one requirement of our creative community, and we are focused on bringing a new level of quality, convenience and creation with this surroundings,” said the CEO of Vimeo, Anjali Sud in a statement.

Advantages of Vimeo Live

Through Vimeo Live content producers can capture, edit, perform streams, host their events and archive video after the broadcast ends.

Some of its key features and benefits include:

• Streaming videos in Full HD 1080p with transcoding in cloud;
• Live chat and email capture;
• Live statistics;
• Archive and automatically manage your videos in one place;
• Provide all professionals privacy controls, review tools and customization options;
• Provide a single place for all your video and live stream needs.

The live streaming (live broadcast) provides a more direct communication with your target audience, through which you have the opportunity to demonstrate your authority on the subject and create a relationship with the audience, which can interact through comments.

Vimeo and Coursify.me

Perfect to create videos for your online course in addition to all the mentioned advantages, Vimeo has excellent editing tools.

The site allows you add to your video title, description, category, tags, license, audience rate, closed captions and subtitles.  

Ideal solution for those looking for more privacy and a high level viewing experience, the Coursify.me allows full integration with Vimeo.

Instructors can embed videos hosted on Vimeo in their Coursify.me page, creating even better and more complete online courses.

Elearning platform (LMS), the Coursify.me has all the necessary features for our customers integrate and import content from sites like Vimeo, YouTube and Dropbox.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Visit our website and see all the resources we offer to those who want to create and sell quality online courses.

The post Vimeo: create quality videos to your online course appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.