Why Internal Communications Needs Live Streaming

Employee expectations have been forever changed since the COVID-19 pandemic forced a hard reset on more than 100 years of workforce norms.

According to a 2023 Gallup survey, 80% of today’s remote-capable employees expect to work in a hybrid or completely remote work environment. Further, 40% have shifted from working entirely on-site to either a hybrid or exclusively remote work arrangement since 2019.

As enterprises continue to adjust to a hybrid landscape, many are realizing that traditional video conferencing tools may not be sufficient for all internal communications uses.

Company town halls and all-hands meetings typically feature multiple speakers and a run of show. Webinars include presentations and sometimes prerecorded content. Earnings and sales kickoffs present sensitive information that needs to be restricted to the right people and roles.

Video conferencing continues to play an invaluable role in connecting workforces, but it isn’t enough to meet the needs of today’s internal comms strategies. To unlock the full potential of a hybrid workforce, businesses are finding that live streaming video offers several advantages.

Better Security

During the early days of the pandemic, video conferencing platforms experienced rapid adoption. For example, in just a matter of months Zoom saw its daily users skyrocket from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million by April 2020. But along with this growth came a rise in security risks that put business security teams on high alert.

Especially for confidential communications, security vulnerabilities ranging from annoyances like “Zoombombing” to outright attacks are unacceptable. Live streaming through an online video platform (OVP) has the tools to avoid these risks.

• Enhanced encryption and SSO. Live streaming solutions prioritize robust end-to-end encryption measures. Coupled with Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, they ensure that communications remain impenetrable and are an effective measure for thwarting hacking attempts.
• Role-based access control. Offering more protection than just passwords, live streaming provides user-level controls. Role-based access means that only authorized users can access, modify, or share content, which significantly reduces the risk of information and content being stolen and distributed.

Better Reliability

For hybrid work environments to function, communication must be reliable. Any connectivity issues can result in lost opportunities, frustrated teams, and/or miscommunication. Live streaming has the technology needed to guarantee a seamless viewing experience.

• Media-grade servers. Outages can indicate the solution wasn’t built to handle the bandwidth hybrid workforces require. Brightcove is built on media-grade servers with industry-leading uptime. These servers are specifically designed to handle the rigorous demands of media companies and are thus much less susceptible to crashes or outages.
• Award-winning transcoding. Buffering represents a bigger challenge than servers and uptime. Internet speeds vary dramatically by country, making it difficult for global companies to connect their distributed workforces. Brightcove’s Emmy Award-winning transcoding technology solved this problem for media companies years ago. Transcoding rescales a stream’s resolution in real time, preserving quality and preventing disruption.
• Dedicated support teams. Both Brightcove and our partner Socialive have dedicated support teams and offer support packages for live streaming. Support helps your internal communications run as efficiently as the rest of your business.

Better Experience

For hybrid workforces, creating engaging, interactive, and seamless experiences for employees is more important than ever. And there are several ways live streaming doesn’t just match the experience of in-person interactions or video conferencing, it enhances it.

• Speaker management and control. Through our partnership with Socialive, Brightcove offers greater control over the run of show. Speakers can be managed in Socialive’s Virtual Green Room before going live. This ensures they’re fully prepared and their tech is functioning properly before joining the live stream. Socialive’s Studio also includes easy-to-use templates, allowing you to customize the experience with prerecorded video and presentations.
• Cross-device delivery. Whether your employee is using a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or even a smart TV, your live stream will be easily accessible and optimized for any device.
• Customized branding. Brightcove gives you complete brand control with white-label customization. This means that even your live streams will reinforce brand identity through customizable features like mobile web-first interactive player overlays.
• Increased engagement and interactivity. Live streaming isn’t just for broadcasting information; it should also facilitate interactive dialogues. Features like live chat provide real-time conversations by allowing attendees to comment, ask questions, and engage with peers. Further, interactions like polls, surveys, and quizzes give companies the opportunity to solicit instant feedback while fostering active participation.
• Accessibility and scale. Today’s diverse workforce necessitates that content is easily accessible to employees across geographies with different language and streaming needs. Live streaming includes features like transcription and captioning that make content more accessible to non-native speakers as well as the deaf and hard of hearing. It’s also easily scalable, so your internal comms strategy can grow as your business grows.

Better Value

With the increase in video conferencing has come a general interest in video. More and more, employees are expecting video for recruiting, onboarding, training, and other internal comms uses. But to keep up with this demand, corporate events have to become more than just events.

Live streaming through a proper OVP is especially well suited to extend the life of your live content and bring more value.

• Content repurposing. From product updates to open enrollment instructions, company meetings include lots of valuable information, prime for repurposing. Through Socialive, Brightcove allows you to easily clip video segments and make them available on demand for onboarding, training, or whatever else your employees might need.
• Enhanced discoverability. A library of on-demand content is useful only if it’s easily discoverable. Brightcove’s live streaming solution allows you to tag content, auto-populate Smart Playlists based on keywords, and then auto-publish to branded portals. Furthermore, this workflow can save valuable resource time for content managers.
• Valuable insights. Insights into consumption patterns can be invaluable for the long-term success of your hybrid work initiative. Knowing what videos are viewed most and for how long can go a long way in understanding your staff’s needs and delivering the best employee experience.

Better Technology

The hybrid work model isn’t just a passing trend; it’s the new reality. But to truly achieve long-term success, companies need the tools that marry the best components of in-person and remote work. Ultimately, an enterprise's success in the hybrid landscape will be directly tied to the technology they deploy and the employee experiences they deliver.

Our partnership with Socialive offers an end-to-end live streaming solution to complete your internal communications strategy. With Socialive’s Studio and Virtual Green Room and Brightcove’s Communications Studio, enterprises can set new standards of communication and collaboration.