Evergreen Livestreams: 4 Ways to Turn Livestreams into Great Video Content

Akande Davis

Digital Strategy Specialist and founder of Digital Pew. ​

One of the biggest appeals of livestreaming is all about capturing the ‘now.’ Church marketers (Digital Evangelists) can leverage their audience in a completely new way that is real, relevant, and in the moment. The level of exchange and interaction that Digital Evangelists can get from livestreams, gives creators unique moments in time with their audience. 

There is something awesome about that.
​
With all of the benefits of livestreaming being used in church communication, there is one that often goes unnoticed and that is the value of creating livestream content that is ‘Evergreen.’

---

​Evergreen content is great for promoting your message, church, or ministry to your audience

Evergreen content is content that can be shown to new audiences over and over while retaining its intrinsic value. It doesn’t become less interesting or less relevant, in fact, it has the same effect for every new person that watches it. Some great examples of Evergreen content pulled from livestreams are often conference videos, Q&A sessions, and even live group discussions.

Even if it is happening in the now, it can still be Evergreen.

While preparing for your next livestream to help aid your church or ministry efforts, here are 4 ways that you can do to make sure that your content is as Evergreen as possible:

• Avoid putting the date in the title of your video or mentioning it in your dialogue, lower thirds and anywhere else when possible. This won’t be a huge issue for most people, but the more that content becomes dated, it can be perceived as less relevant or important for your audience. Content that has a post date that is a few months old, or even years old, can still be relevant to the audience if they are getting a tremendous amount of value from the content. This is where you can couple your church or ministry efforts with Evergreen content. When you remind them that it is dated however, you could encourage them to go somewhere else to find newer, more recent information.
• Avoid trending topics that won’t be relevant to your audience in a month’s time. This doesn’t mean current events should be skipped out on, but if you are able to maintain an ongoing dialogue with your audience, focus on that. Don’t get lost in the weeds that could become the ‘now’ of the livestream. Always keep in mind that your content needs to be relevant: building an entire communications plan for your church or ministry around the advent of the fidget spinner would be a bad idea, so don’t do that with your livestream.
• Repurpose older content during your livestream. If you talked about something in the past, in a blog, article, video, etc. that really resonated with your audience, find a way to take that same information and graft it into your livestream. This will create content that your live audience will enjoy and engage with while still maintaining relevancy with your audience. This is crucial when it comes to digital marketing. If you have content that has performed great, there is nothing wrong with reviving it with a new twist! The key points for your marketing strategy should be the basis around what you have built up i.e., even if you're hitting the same point in a different way, it will still be interesting to your audience (when done correctly).
• Break your livestream into smaller videos to distribute and use as short-form content for your community. If someone doesn’t have time to watch an entire livestream, even if it is already uploaded, break it into 2 -3 minute easy to watch clips, highlighting the best parts of the webinar. Digital marketing is built on snapshot experiences - capturing your audience in a moment, several different times, can be just as valuable as having them for a 1-hour stream. Taking it a step further you could break it down into 30 – 40 seconds clips and drive users to the livestream with each clip (or any other content). Facebook is notorious for users dramatically losing interest in videos after 10 seconds, so the shorter the better.

---

Creating Evergreen content is practical and essential.

But take everything with a grain of salt; not all livestreams can be repurposed to be Evergreen.
​
Sometimes the ‘now’ of the livestream is what it is – there is nothing wrong with having a strategy that isn’t Evergreen or having content that isn’t constantly repurposed at every opportunity for your digital  campaigns. Your church/ministry is unique - don't drown it out by trying to conform your communications strategy to what is considered 'better,' if what you're doing is working well. However, it never hurts to try new things. Test and see what works for your ministry, and keep trying. 

---

​Don't know if your livestream can be used as Evergreen content?

If you're wondering if something can be turned into Evergreen content, consider some of these leading questions;

1. Does my audience still care about what is covered in this video?
2. How in-demand is the information that I am presenting?
3. If I was a part of my audience, would I spend the time watching it?
4. What is the overall replay value of the video or videos?

Reposted with permission from DigitalPew.

---

​Related Resources:

• 10 Tips to Get Your Videos More Views
• Designing Images and Creating Video for Social Media
• ​Enhance Your Digital Impact with Livestreaming (A How -To Guide)
• Social Media Image & Video Guide​