Soapbox Engage Blog

It’s that time of year to talk about year-end fundraising! If you’re not already getting your ducks and schemes in a row for your organization’s big event, now is definitely the time to start planning a virtual fundraising event or gala, hosted through one of many streaming platforms.

We’ve put together a guide on how to plan the ultimate virtual event, and recently discussed using YouTube Live to throw a smashing virtual gala. Today we want to share 7 clever tips to take your Youtube streaming game to the next level.

Table of Contents

1. Don’t Come Down With Talking Head Syndrome
2. Bring Your Audience Into the Excitement with Incentives
3. Scheduling Ahead Makes Planning Simpler
4. Plan Your End Game Now
5. Do a dry run with the unlisted feature
6. Add Real Time Captions to Your Stream
7. Super Chat

What is YouTube Live?

YouTube live is a real-time streaming service that debuted on the YouTube platform in 2011 and has grown in accessibility and features over the last nine years.

While streaming privileges were initially limited to a handful of vetted channels, YouTube Live now allows anyone with a channel and internet access to broadcast their message to the world. This leads us directly into discussing the benefits YouTube Live brings to your organization!

Benefits of YouTube Live

Viewer interest is significantly higher for live videos. Livestream found 82% of people prefer live video to social media posts. That means the medium itself works with you to gain your viewer’s interest.

Streaming on the platform is practically fool-proof. No third-party software is needed and minimal hardware is required to stream to your audience. A microphone, a webcam, and a YouTube channel are all you need to get started, and most computers now-a-days come equipped with two of those things!

You can live stream directly from your computer by following the requirements in the "live streaming" tab in your "Creator Studio Tools" in YouTube Studio. Or, if you’re more mobile friendly, live streaming is available to you in the YouTube App.

Empower your viewers with Super Chat. Super Chat allows your viewers to donate to your organization in real time through the live chat on your YouTube Live video stream.

Easy, accessible, and incentivized, Super Chat is an excellent way to gain funds during your YouTube Live streamed event.

While getting started with YouTube Live is really easy, we do want to point out the (limited) requirements YouTube has for someone to be able to stream. From a computer, your channel account must be verified and YouTube recommends at least a 24 hour period to "enable your first livestream". So be sure to plan ahead.

On mobile, YouTube requires a channel to have 1,000 subscribers to be able to stream through their mobile app.

In your planning phase you’re likely already thinking about the hardware you’ll need to stream to your audience, but if you are torn, these facts may be the deciding vote on which direction you choose.

7 Tips to Make Your Next YouTube Live Event a Viral Hit!

1) Don’t Come Down With Talking Head Syndrome

The most common streaming setting is the talking head: a static camera angle, a vaguely interesting background, and the conversational content de’jour. To get your live streamed virtual event to stand out, break from the mold.

Plan your event to have dynamic views, motion, live props, more body parts than just a head and shoulders in frame, really anything to keep your viewer’s interest.

Since we’re talking about interacting with the camera, here’s a bonus tip: encourage all speakers to put a smiley face or other joyful sticker right next to their webcam. This way they can remind themselves to always look at the camera instead of falling to the temptation to glance down at the viewfinder’s feedback pane.

If you’re looking for some creative virtual fundraising events, themes, and other dynamic ways to spice up your YouTube Live virtual fundraiser, check out our blog post with more than 40 awesome tried-and-tested virtual fundraising event ideas!

2) Bring Your Audience Into the Excitement with Incentives

A good virtual event is an experience no one wants to miss! You want your viewers to stay engaged with your message and interested in your mission. Ultimately you’re building a base of loyal supporters!

One expert said it best: use physical visual incentives to take the intangible (but good) feeling of giving to a cause, and pair it with the excitement of seeing something magical. To do this, include tiered interactive props and easy to see donation trackers. Some incentive ideas include:

• A light and sound system that triggers when a donation arrives
• A visual ticker or scoreboard which interacts with a metric
• Balloons that blow up automatically
• A confetti cannon
• Shooting flags and decorations
• A bubble machine
• Smart light bulbs to change the color ambiance of your setting
• Slow-motion shots of things exploding
• Spin-the-wheel for live giveaways

To make an incentivized tier, consider combining prop interactions for higher level donations. Whatever method you choose, make sure your incentives are clearly displayed and described to your audience repeatedly.

3) Scheduling Ahead Makes Planning Simpler

One of the great features of YouTube is the ability to schedule your livestream in advance. YouTube will give you a dedicated link to your future stream which you can use to direct your attendees to your event through your usual channels.

Soapbox Engage’s Events app allows you to schedule automated emails. The calendar integration will remind donors of your upcoming event for you! That’s one more task checked off your to-do list!

Finally, don’t forget social media! Direct your loyal followers on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn of your upcoming event with posts, promotional images, and videos.

One of the biggest advantages to scheduling ahead (besides promotion) is that YouTube allows all the views you earn during your livestream to count toward your total view count later. This is fabulous news, since this will affect your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in a good way.

Bonus Tip: Since we’re on the topic of SEO, take a moment to brainstorm keywords for your video title that will make it easier to find for latecomers who are interested in your organization’s message or event topic.

4) Plan Your End Game Now

Tell your viewers the schedule throughout the event while maintaining recognition of their presence and interactions. For example, if you have a Q&A session planned after a speaker, remind your audience routinely during the talk that they can comment in the chat and their questions will be picked for the Q/A session later.

When scheduling your live stream, you’ll also have the option to turn your stream into a video after your event finishes. This is an excellent opportunity for future donors to interact with your mission long after your live stream has ended. Think of it like a never ending party! (Or the gift that keeps on giving!)

With that being the case, you’ll want to create your schedule with replay in mind. Intro animations, greetings, interactions, B-roll videos, and schedules should feel loose and organic just like a live event, but still have a planned air to give a polished end video result.

Additionally, Youtube Live has an incredible feature that lets you create mini-videos from your live stream. Once you’ve finished streaming, the highlights give you short, edited versions of your completed stream that you can use as promotional pieces.

Think of a great moment you’ll want to highlight, like presenting an award or a speaker making a moving, powerful statement. You can grab that moment and share it with all your followers for increased promotion!

5) Do a dry run with the unlisted feature

Practice makes perfect, and with all the wonderful moving pieces you’re planning for your smashing Youtube Live gala, there’s no way you should expect it to go perfectly without a dress rehearsal.

Thankfully, Youtube Live has you covered with their "Unlisted" feature. When you select your settings for your stream, you can choose your video to be "unlisted" or private. This feature won’t broadcast your stream as an actual event, but gives you the opportunity to test out all your hardware and software integration, run through your agenda plans, and shake those camera jitters!

6) Add Real Time Captions to Your Stream

Real time captions can bridge a viewer gap and give all viewers the opportunity to enjoy and interact with your event. It’s a simple addition that heightens the experience for event attendees and sets your stream above the rest.

When in the Youtube Live platform, you can toggle on Captions from the settings menu and select "Embedded 608/708", then click save. It’s as simple as that!

7) Super Chat

Speaking of features, who could miss Super Chat? Rolled out in 2017, this feature lets your viewers directly donate to your organization through a chat message they post in the live chat panel. The higher a viewer pays (up to a $500 cap) the longer their chat message stays pinned and highlighted for other viewers to notice.

This feature encourages viewer interaction and gives its own miniature incentive for viewer engagement. To capitalize on that engagement, we recommend including Super Chat as one of ways viewers can interact with your tiers you created earlier that encourage visual rewards for donations.

It is important to note that Youtube does take a 30% royalty cut from all Super Chat Donations. This can be a steep figure for such a convenient service, especially if your virtual event is the hit success we know it will be.

To avoid that painful royalty fee, integrate Soapbox Engage’s Donations app into your website and video description box. The Donations app lets viewers easily donate through their payment method of choice, just as easy as Super Chat and without the steep processing fee.

As always, reminding your viewers of the myriad of ways they can donate will give them the freedom to choose how to interact with your cause.

There you have it, seven snazzy tips to improve your next virtual fundraising event with Youtube Live. This streaming platform is worry-free and practically fool-proof, making it great for accidental techies looking to innovate their year end goals in this crazy time. With these tips, we’re sure your next event will be a viral sensation!

• How to Host A Virtual Fundraiser Using Zoom: Many nonprofits are harnessing the power of video conferencing tools to keep in touch with donors and host fundraisers online. This awesome podcast has some great tips and tricks to harness the full power of Zoom for your next virtual fundraising event.
• Virtual Fitness Fundraising Ideas For Any Nonprofit: More than ever, people are using fitness trackers and looking for virtual fitness options to stay active and motivated during the pandemic. This blog has some tried and tested ideas to leverage virtual fitness events to help you raise money for your organization or nonprofit.
• 6 Tips for Virtual Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Peer-to-Peer fundraising has become more diverse, creative, and efficient than ever, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many nonprofits are learning how to incorporate this type of fundraising throughout the year, instead of limiting it to one or two campaigns. Here are some great tips and tricks to help you create an effective virtual peer to peer fundraising campaign that works even during the pandemic!