The How Market Likely Wins Award for Fastest to Pivot To Streaming Video During Pandemic
That was everyone’s mantra over the past two years, but it’s likely that no segment of the market adapted faster than Houses of Worship (HOW). Though generally not considered the most tech-heavy in application, HOWs took to Facebook Live faster than any other segment of the market took to any other messaging platform. K-12 averaged well over three weeks before the majority of schools were on Zoom. The government? Nearly six weeks. Higher Ed? Well, while many were back within two weeks after HOW declared a pandemic, the majority were into week three before they had their students joining Zoom and Teams (and Meet). The corporation? Ha, the slowest, clocking in at an average of seven weeks; maybe in denial the longest.
The week after the WHO declared a pandemic, HOWs all over the world were announcing they’d shift their sermons to Facebook Live that very Sunday. It became the platform of choice for most of them through at least the summer of 2020.
How did they do it so fast? Well, let’s be honest — although not generally tech-savvy, they do have audio nearly perfected. The acoustic challenges of most HOWs are well documented and had to be overcome almost as soon as the microphone was invented. So, although HOWs can be video-challenged, they are not audio-challenged at all. Fetting the audio online was easy, but video proved simple too. Luckily, way back in 2016, Facebook added livestreaming via a service called Facebook Live. In 2008, it was as simple as opening Facebook on your iPhone and pressing one button. Boom, you were casting video — live.
Now, Facebook Live is far from the quality we have the capability to deliver for our clients. But, this was sort of an immediate proof-of-concept and, quickly, HOWs began upgrading to better cameras, better mics and better streaming. By the end of the summer of 2020, nearly every HOW that wanted to livestream was doing just that.