⚠️How to handle technical glitches in a live session
The latest news from StreamAlive and the world of online, offline, and hybrid live events.
Hi there! In this week’s newsletter:
What’s new at StreamAlive?
Three must-attend #StreamAliveShowcase events
3 tips for dealing with live session glitches
Will Mr. Beast make millions in revenue share from X?
Now available: StreamAlive App for Zoom
2024 couldn’t have gotten off to a better start for us as we received notification that our app for Zoom was live on the Zoom App Marketplace!
Why is this useful?
By adding the StreamAlive App for Zoom (yes, it’s a mouthful) you don’t need to login to the StreamAlive website to set up your interactions.
Everything that you would normally do in the StreamAlive website can be done directly within the Zoom desktop client.
Your audience will love it
The great thing about using StreamAlive in Zoom is that there’s zero learning curve for your audience.
All they have to do to participate is put it in the chat.
No second screens, no URLs to click on, and no figuring out a new UI. It keeps their focus (and browser tab!) on your session and not on another website.
Use the StreamAlive App for Zoom as a guest
Additionally, if you’re not yet a StreamAlive user, you can still run polls, word clouds, spinner wheels, interactive maps, etc. as a guest - you don’t even need a StreamAlive account.
Once you’ve added our app to your Zoom account you can run one of the pre-defined interactions or create your own.
Once you’ve added an interaction, just share your screen like you would when you’re using StreamAlive, start the interaction and watch as your audience responses are updated in real-time on the screen.
Create unlimited interactions for free
As a guest or free user, there’s no limit on the number of interactions that you can run in each of your live sessions.
If you want to run 25 polls and 15 word clouds in your upcoming Zoom session, go ahead (and good luck!).
There are two limitations though:
As a guest, any results from polls, word clouds, Q&As, and other interactions are not saved, so when your session ends, the results are deleted.
To save your results, you just need to sign up for a free StreamAlive account which you can do directly in our app for Zoom.The interactions are limited to the first 30 participants. If your session has 50 people and 35 people answer your poll, only the first 30 responses are counted.
In a sea of AI assistants for Zoom…
There are 2,487 apps for Zoom. I’m eyeballing it here, but I think about 2,400 of them are AI assistants to take notes and transcribe your meetings.
We’re happy to be one of the few apps for Zoom that help your audience feel heard and connected to your live session 💃
👉 And one of the very few that don’t require your audience to install anything.
Upcoming #StreamAliveShowcase events
We have three exciting #StreamAliveShowcase events coming up with three exceptionally knowledgeable people in their field.
Jan 31 - Roshan Abbas will teach the art of storyselling for yourself or your brand
Feb 14 - John Chen is a master at creating engaging virtual events and he’s going to be teaching you the methods he uses to keep butts glued to seats
Feb 28 - Suhas Motwani has built the largest community of product managers in the world. He’s going to teach us how to replicate his success to build your own community.
Save your seat to all of these events today!
How to handle technical glitches in a live session
Murphy’s law states that your laptop will decide it absolutely needs to do an update immediately before your live session or when you’ve just started.
The Zoom law also states that your rock-solid-hasn’t-been-down-in-months internet suddenly develops speed issues.
So how do you handle technical glitches when they inevitably happen?
Tell the audience what to expect
At the start of a presentation you often go over logistics like where to put the questions, how to access the recording after the event, etc.
Make it a habit to let the audience know what to do if you experience a technical problem - how long should they stay on before they drop off.Login to the session using your phone at the start of the session
If your computer glitches, then your phone (or a second laptop if you have one) is a great way to keep the audience updated via the chat box while you troubleshoot and recover from the glitch.
Your phone might also be able to use the cellular network if your internet fizzles out.Try and get a moderator
Having a moderator or co-pilot is the single best thing you can do during a technical glitch. Discuss before hand what the plan of action will be in case you drop off unexpectedly.
Make sure the moderator has presenter access to the live session because if you drop off you don’t want the session to be closed automatically!
We post tips like this on our TikTok channel, so give us a follow if you’re on TikTok!
What we’ve been reading
In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been an exodus of everything from advertisers to creators to decorum from Twitter X ever since a certain billionaire was forced to follow through on his stunts.
Despite this, Musk believes that X is a brilliant place for creators to earn money with their revenue sharing scheme. If there are no advertisers on the site besides crypto-scams, AI girlfriend apps, and dropshipping sites, then I’m wondering what advertising revenue they have to share.
Mr. Beast has famously snubbed X, saying that his videos cost millions to make and X won’t recuperate that cost.
Now, he’s decided to backtrack on that position and says that he’s curious how much revenue his videos will earn if they are on X and will publicly reveal his numbers.
His video that he uploaded a few days ago already has 116m views, so if he gets 1 cent per viewer then he’s made his $1m back.
Catch us on our social pages
If you haven’t already, check out our social media pages to stay updated on our quirky takes on the latest social media trends and the occasional piece of engagement-related advice.
All the best,
Peter and the StreamAlive team