Guide to Multistreaming: How to livestream to multiple platforms simultaneously

Choosing a livestreaming destination can be a difficult decision to make. Should you go live on Facebook or Twitter? What about YouTube versus Twitch?

The truth is, each social media platform has its own unique benefits and audience types, and it’s advantageous for you to connect with your audiences on different channels.

One of the best ways you can do that? Multistreaming.

In this blog post, I’ll cover:

• What is multistreaming?
• The benefits of a multistreaming app
• How to go live on multiple platforms
• Multistreaming with Switcher Studio

What is multistreaming?

Multistreaming is the process of streaming a live video to multiple destinations or platforms simultaneously. With multistreaming, you only have to create one stream and choose which destinations to stream to — Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Microsoft Stream, Twitter, a website, and so on. 

Which livestreaming destinations you stream to are completely up to you and the capabilities of the multistreaming tool or service you use. We’ll cover more on choosing a multistreaming tool and the right destinations in just a bit.

What’s the difference between multistreaming and simulcasting?

Although multistreaming and simulcasting are similar, and often used interchangeably, there are some key differences in the origin and meaning of the two words.

Simulcasting is a term that was originally used to describe simultaneously broadcasting a radio show or television program on various stations. As technology has advanced with software like OBS Studio and livestreaming to multiple platforms has become a possibility, the word “multistreaming” has been used as a way to specifically describe livestreaming to multiple destinations simultaneously (ie: Facebook, YouTube, and so on).

The benefits of a multistreaming app

Multistreaming offers unique advantages over livestreaming to a single destination. From growing your audience to streamlining comments in one location, multistreaming provides a variety of benefits.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the major benefits of multistreaming. 👀

Expand your reach 

One of the biggest benefits of multistreaming is the ability to expand your reach. Livestreaming to multiple platforms simultaneously opens up the opportunity to broaden your audience. Not everyone has a Facebook account, YouTube profile, or even knows what Twitch is — so the more platforms you multistream to, the more opportunities you’re creating to connect with viewers.

Plus, the more you can expand your reach on different platforms, the more brand awareness you’ll create on each. Steadily increasing brand awareness over time can have a direct impact on brand loyalty — helping you to continually grow your audience and keep them coming back for more content.

Streamline viewer comments

Verbally responding to viewers’ questions and comments can be time-consuming, especially if you’re having to do so on multiple social media channels. Some multistreaming tools, like Switcher Studio, streamline viewer comments from all destinations — allowing you to easily view and respond to all of your audiences’ questions in one place.

Better understand your audiences’ preferences

No two audiences are the exact same, especially audiences across different social media platforms. Content that performs well on one platform isn’t guaranteed to perform well on another.

Multistreaming can be a great way to learn more about the types of content your audiences on different platforms prefer. For example, let’s say you livestream a monthly Q&A session that typically performs well on Facebook. You might try multistreaming to Twitch and realize that those Q&A streams perform really well, or you might multistream to YouTube and realize that Q&A content on that platform has low engagement.

Multistreaming can be used to determine what types of live video content your audiences are interested in. Be sure to analyze what works and what doesn’t work, and adjust your multistreaming content and destinations accordingly.

Make viewing convenient for your audience 

Multistreaming doesn’t just benefit content creators; it benefits their viewers too. By going live to multiple destinations, viewers have the opportunity to watch content on their preferred platforms. Whether that’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Microsoft Stream, Twitter, or elsewhere, your viewers are more likely to regularly tune in to your livestreams if you’re bringing your live video content directly to their favorite platforms.

Be more efficient

When I think about multistreaming, the phrase “work smarter, not harder” definitely comes to mind. Multistreaming enables livestreamers to use their time more efficiently and avoid duplicating their content creation efforts across several different platforms.

Multistreaming also ensures that all of your audiences get to experience your content in real time, rather than creating a disconnect by going live on different platforms at different times or reposting streams on other platforms later. 

How to go live on multiple platforms

Now that I’ve covered the multistream meaning and its benefits, let’s discuss how to go live on multiple platforms!

The first step when learning how to multistream is choosing a video platform that allows multistreaming. Depending on your needs, you have three options to choose from:

• Hardware encoders: This is the only option that is a physical piece of equipment. Hardware encoders have their own processing power and don’t rely on a computer, but you will need a high internet upload speed to produce a quality stream. Aside from multistreaming, many hardware encoders lack additional features, and they can be expensive.
• Software encoders: With software encoders, you get a browser-based encoder that requires a powerful computer along with a high internet upload speed. The more destinations you choose to stream to, the more bandwidth you use — which lowers the quality of your livestreams.
• Cloud-based platforms: Unlike the other options, cloud-based platforms don’t require any hardware or additional bandwidth. Cloud-based platforms use a network of servers to distribute your livestreams to your desired destinations.

Multistreaming with Switcher Studio

Using OBS Studio to stream to multiple platforms can be difficult and time consuming. As a cloud-based multistreaming app, Switcher Studio lets you multistream to your desired destinations without sacrificing video quality or the need to buy expensive hardware. With Switcher Studio, you can simultaneously stream to Facebook and YouTube or nearly anywhere else using Custom RTMP.

Switcher offers two plans featuring Multistreaming:

• Studio: Multistream to two destinations simultaneously. Plus, your 10 most recent Multistream recordings will automatically save to the Switcher Dashboard.

• Business: Multistream to up to five destinations simultaneously. Your 50 most recent Multistream recordings will automatically save to the Switcher Dashboard, and you can even pin your favorites to keep them for as long as you wish!

Switcher’s Multistreaming feature offers high-quality streams to a variety of destinations, and since Switcher runs completely on iPhones and iPads, there’s no need to purchase any expensive cameras or hardware. For more on Multistreaming with Switcher Studio, check out our Help Center or our Multistreaming page.

If you’re ready to subscribe to Switcher Studio, check out our monthly and annual plans!