Live video broadcasting can be a great way to reach your current audience and beyond. But crafting the experience and making sure it’s the most effective experience possible takes time and some serious planning.

Defining your requirements and capturing all of your specific needs and the audiences’ is going to be a top priority.

Here are five key considerations that you’ll want to keep close to you before you jump in…

1. Audience

Knowing your audience and who specifically you want to target it going to help you create an experience worth experiencing. This would include also the devices that they may use, the bandwidth that they might have available (typically) and where they might actually be viewing from.

2. Quality and Speed

Not everyone is sporting an OC-X line for their broadband needs (really, really fast) so you’ll want to make sure you have the quality of the stream nailed down. Do they expect HD or just SD?

Understanding your audiences minimum requirements will be helpful.

3. Cost

You’re obviously going to want to do your homework on this area and getting the best “bang” for your buck is going to be critical.

4. Scalability

Is your audience small or large? Is it local or global? Knowing this will protect your current system, your current audience, and your future audience as well.

5. User Experience Besides Video

Will your audience require more than just the video? What about such features as live-chat, notes, or integration with social networking sites?

What about design and other such things? Nailing this down will help you plan for an optimal user experience.