How to Live Stream on YouTube - Complete Beginner Guide 2022

How to Live Stream on YouTube - Complete Beginner Guide 2022

This is the complete beginner's guide to YouTube live streaming. We're gonna step through exactly how to Livestream on YouTube in the easiest ways possible and build up to some more advanced software, apps, and tools that you can easily incorporate to boost your results fast.

So let's jump into it. So this is the complete beginner's guide to YouTube live streaming. So we're gonna start with the most basic options first. Then show you how you can easily get set up and get going live. From there, I'll start to introduce some more advanced steps that you can easily implement to boost your quality, including some simple software, some simple apps, and even how you can get branded animations and incorporate cool elements into your live streaming so that you get super polished results.

How to Live Stream on YouTube - Beginner Guide :

So first up, no matter what you're using, you will need to make sure that your channel is set up for live streaming. So you need to make sure that your YouTube channel is verified and that you do have live streaming enabled. You can do this really quickly, or you can check that this is enabled for you by heading to youtube.com/verify. If you're already verified, it's going to say your channel is already verified. Now that that's done, we can go and look at the easiest way to go live, and this is a basic way for you to go live just with your web browser on your desktop computer. And literally, this is done on the YouTube webpage itself just using your webcam and your microphone. So for this, all you need to do is head to youtube.com, come up and hit this create a video and more button, and come down to go live.

Now when this page loads, on the left here, you wanna pick a webcam and give your stream a title. We'll just go test stream. In our case here, we'll make this test stream private, but you could also make it unlisted or public. Now, if you do wanna schedule this stream for later, then you can check the box here and enter the date and times for your Livestream.

We'll turn that off now 'cause we're gonna go live now. And you will need to answer this question here around, is this video made for kids to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA? So is this made for kids? No, it is not made for kids. And we'll just go next. It's gonna quickly take a thumbnail. Pose, do something silly. Okay, we've got a thumbnail (laughs). Now if you do wanna upload your own custom thumbnail, you can choose to upload a custom thumbnail. Or you wanna retake your image? 

1. Go to the youtube channel www.YouTube.com.
2. Click on “View your channel” and select.
3. Now Go to youtube.com/account_advanced
4. Copy your Channel ID shown below (check images for more clarification).
5. Type in youtube.com/channel/(PASTE YOUR CHANNEL ID HERE)/live. type your channel id without brackets.

Now, grab a copy of the link for you to share with people or on your website to let them know that you are going live, if you wanna post it on other platforms, you can hit share. And then your link here to send out to people and to let them know that you are going live. So you can actually do this right now before you do go live. Jump on Facebook or wherever else you wanna post it and share that link out. But then when you wanna go live, all you have to do is hit go live. And we're live, okay. So then on the side here is where you have your chat to interact with everyone.

How to Live Stream on YouTube - Complete Beginner Guide 2022

So, yeah, super basic, but we're live. And we're on YouTube. This is the easiest way to go live on YouTube. To end the stream, all you have to do is click down the bottom on the end stream. Are you sure you wanna end your stream? End and we are done. So the advantages of going live this way are that it's fast, it's easy, and there's no additional software required. So as for the disadvantages or the downsides then, there really is no control that you're getting over things like screen sharing or adding titles into your stream or playing videos or changing cameras or bringing in additional guests or other people to join you while you're live. But going live to YouTube this way is the most basic and easiest way to go live from your desktop.

Now, the process to go live from your mobile is very similar. All you need to do is to open up the YouTube app. We hit the little create video button at the top again and come down to live. Now, while you're getting this setup, you can keep it in portrait. You will wanna rotate it to landscape before you go live. But you can give your video a title, and test stream. We can choose if it's unlisted or public. Let's go unlisted. We can add our location there if we want to. Once again, we'll need to mark if this video is made for kids or not. No, it's not made for kids. And you'll need to answer this question. Do you wanna restrict your video to an adult audience? No, we don't restrict. Then we can just go next.

It'll make us pose or smile for a thumbnail. And then all we need to do to start the stream is just hit go live. Now, if you do wanna go live from your smartphone, then YouTube does have some restrictions in place that you need to meet their requirements first. So they say, to be able to Livestream on your mobile, your channel will need to have at least 1,000 subscribers. Now, that is if you're going to be using the YouTube app. Now, if you do wanna Livestream to YouTube from your mobile device and you don't have 1,000 subscribers yet, you can still do it. You just can't use the YouTube app. You can use another app like PRISM Live Studio, which will let you get around that and broadcast to YouTube on their app.

Okay, so now let's ramp things up a little bit more and get a little bit more advanced. This is the result that we are going to build out to now. Now there are a few simple tips and a few tools that we're going to incorporate to help you get there. But don't stress. You don't need to do all of them. Each one of these alone will take your result up a notch so that you can start small. And you can eventually build out and incorporate more of these things over time. So the first thing you can do to take your live streams up a notch and to get some of these more advanced things happening is to grab some live streaming software or to use a live streaming platform.

What we're talking about here is using software like OBS or Ecamm Live or Be. Live or StreamYard or Wirecast or vMix. All of these solutions are really gonna let you level up and create much more professional-looking live streams, giving you support for things like multiple cameras, adding titles and videos on screen, using green screen, the ability to bring people in for an interview, or even to share your PowerPoint presentation or your Keynote presentation and much, much more. Now, so I'm not leaving you high and dry or confused at this point, my immediate recommendation for most people right now, is if you're on a Mac, go to Ecamm Live or there's also StreamYard, which will work on both Mac or PC. Honestly, you can't go wrong with either one of those two.

My personal preference and one I use is Ecamm Live on Mac. But once you've got your live stream software picked, you can schedule up your Livestream by again coming back to YouTube, coming down to go live. Or what you'll also find is that a lot of the live streaming platforms or a lot of the live streaming software will actually let you schedule your Livestream directly from within the application. So for this example, I'm on Ecamm Live now. We can see we have the destination of our Livestream going to YouTube. Our broadcast, let's go private. And then we can either choose to go live now, unscheduled, or to schedule it up, they are already being scheduled. Or we can come down to a new scheduled Livestream, and we can fill in this information, again, to schedule up your stream.

So as for some of those more advanced controls and better-looking live streams,  we can just drag and drop an image. I can pinch to zoom and make it bigger or smaller. I can come up and switch to a screen share and get rid of that guy so you're able to see the computer screen. I can pinch to zoom and move things around if I wanna do a tutorial or something on here. And again, all of this can be happening and be changed and tweaked while you're actually live. So you can see you get so much more control and so much more creativity that you can bring into your live streams just by using software like this.

How to Live Stream on YouTube - Complete Beginner Guide 2022

So once you've got that up and running, the next thing you can do is to start to look at some cool animations or some lower thirds or some titles and things that you can use and you can incorporate in your live streams to add that next level of professionalism. Now, I personally used to sit there and create this stuff from scratch. It took a ton of time. Now we're gonna look at some of the gear that's gonna help you with your live streaming. One of my favourite pieces of gear for live streaming is called the Elgato Stream Deck. This makes it so easy to control your live streaming software and easily switch between different camera angles or your screen share literally with the press of a button. So what this is is essentially a heap of extra buttons that you can program up to run and manage your Livestream. Now, Stream Deck does support a heap of different live streaming programs and live streaming software. But if the one that you wanna use isn't specifically listed, likely, you'll still be able to use it just by manually programming these keys to trigger keyboard shortcuts to do the things that you're looking to do.

Now, if you're someone who's looking for a really professional-looking Livestream, then you could consider using a more professional camera instead of a webcam to actually run the Livestream. So this is where you could hook up your DSLR, your mirrorless, your video camera, or your point-and-shoot camera to hook that up to run the live stream instead of just using your webcam. But to do that in most cases, you will need what's called an HDMI interface unit. This will essentially let you take the HDMI feed or the video feed out of your camera and plug it into your computer so that it essentially picks it up as a webcam. And from there, you can use that in your live streaming software. Now, the one that I use currently and the one that I recommend is the Elgato Cam Link 4K.

This thing is absolutely amazing. And if you are looking to plug your camera into your computer, this is the piece of gear that I would recommend. Now just while we're on this, there are some cameras out there that will let you hook them up directly to your computer to use them as webcams or for live streaming without the need for things like the Elgato Cam Link 4K. They'll just work straight out of the box. So it is worth doing a quick Google search to see if your specific camera can be connected with USB for video use because there seem to be more and more cameras that are supporting this right now. But if your camera doesn't support just using USB, then that's where you'll need something like this Cam Link 4K. So now that you know how all that stuff works, I've got a couple of really quick pro tips for you for live streaming.

The first one is to always run a speed test before you actually go live. Having a solid Internet connection is probably the most important thing when it comes to live streaming so that you can actually push out a good quality live streaming feed without dropouts and issues for your viewers watching. So to run a test, you wanna head over to the website Speedtest.net and run the test on the website there. Now, it's gonna go in two parts, the first is gonna test your download speed, and then the second part of the test is where it tests your upload speed. And that's what we're looking at here because you're going to be uploading your video and audio or your Livestream to your live streaming platform, YouTube, Facebook, or wherever you're sending it out. You wanna make sure that it is your upload speed that is good and consistent and not jumping all over the place.

So what I'd say here, at an absolute minimum, and I do mean minimum, your upload speed needs to be a solid or a consistent 2.5 to three megabits per second, at an absolute minimum, but ideally, you're looking at five to 10 megabits per second just to be safe. And obviously, if it's higher than this, then perfect. But if it is lower than the absolute minimum, 2.5 megabits per second or three megabits per second, at a minimum, then I would be looking for an alternative to go live. Maybe look at the hotspot from your phone or just try to use a different Internet connection so that you don't have any issues while you're live.

So the second pro tip I've got for you is after your Livestream has finished, you can actually jump into your YouTube analytics for that Livestream. And you can see how many viewers you had. You can see if you had any technical issues or errors with your Livestream and with your Internet connection. You can see how many comments you had, how many people stuck around, and how long stuck around and watched your Livestream. So it's really interesting to dive into the analytics after your Livestream is finished to get some insight into how your Livestream went and how your viewers liked it and how long they stuck around.

And the third pro tip that I've got for you is that you can actually edit down your live streams once they're finished. So you don't need to download your video, make any edits to it and remove any sections you don't want, and upload it as a new piece of content. You can actually just edit down and remove pieces from your Livestream while that video is live on YouTube. So say, for example, you're running some sort of live training, You could trim off the start of your Livestream where you might be greeting everyone and welcoming them onto the training. And maybe you'll cut off the Q and A at the end. Or if there's a section that goes wrong in the middle you wanna remove, then you can use the YouTube video editor once your Livestream is finished. So to access that, all you need to do is to bring up your Livestream and come down to edit the video.

And then on the left-hand side, you get access to the YouTube editor. But it's a pretty cool feature to be able to trim down your live streams without the need to create a whole new video and reupload it to the platform. So that's how easy it is to go live on YouTube. Whether you're looking for the simplest and easiest way or whether you're looking to grow into something more professional and more advanced, we've got you covered.