X, formerly Twitter, is a leading social media platform. While the company has experienced some rough patches in the recent past, it remains a go-to social networking website, especially for streamers.
Streaming on X offers multiple benefits. Most notably, it lets you grow your brand by interacting with your followers in real time. Numerous surveys have shown that live broadcasts can ramp up social media engagement by allowing streamers to reach audiences that are usually difficult to access.
Hosting Twitter livestreams is particularly effective at targeting followers across various time zones. You can always schedule your videos for later posting when most of your viewers are online.
But if you plan to go live on X, you must have wondered how long your broadcasts can last. Does Twitter impose strict time limitations on live broadcasts, or is the duration long enough to pass your message across?
Read on to find out.
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How Long Does a Twitter Livestream Last?
Having briefly highlighted the benefits of live streaming on X, it’s important to determine the suitable duration to broadcast your live sessions. Many streamers recommend keeping broadcasts short enough to captivate your viewers’ attention and long enough to cover all the essential information you wish to pass across.
However, how long a Twitter live stream should last is subject to a streamer’s discretion. The more pertinent question here is whether Twitter limits the duration of live broadcasts.
The good news is that X doesn’t impose a time limit on live broadcasts that start immediately. That gives creators the freedom and flexibility to choose how long their streams can last.
However, there’s a time limit for scheduled streams.
Twitter allows creators to pre-record video broadcasts and then schedule them for posting at a later time or date. This feature is especially useful when tapping into an audience in a different time zone. However, scheduled broadcasts can only last six hours.
Is Six Hours A Serious Limitation?
Twitter’s six-hour time limit for scheduled broadcasts may sound like a deal breaker to amateur streamers. However, according to professional creators, only a few streams should last this long.
Most X live broadcasts last a couple of minutes but produce absolute results. You’ll only need to stream for six hours while following an actively unfolding event that might generate buzz among your audience, such as a red-carpet ceremony or a hostage situation.
Besides, there are significant drawbacks to longer streaming sessions. Streaming videos for hours can affect your internet loading speed, especially if broadcasting with an unstable internet connection. You may also face issues with replays and when using Twitter’s LiveCut. Such problems can affect the content quality of your streams, adversely impacting engagement.
Other Time Restrictions Pertaining To Twitter Live Streams
X imposes an additional time restriction besides the 6-hour limit for scheduled broadcasts. Creators can only schedule Twitter posts for up to one year in the future.
The saving grace is that you can edit your scheduled broadcasts’ start and end times before they go live. Even after your scheduled videos are live, you can still edit the “Ends” field to terminate the session earlier or extend it up to six hours.
It’s also important to note that scheduled broadcasts on X do not load exactly at the indicated start time. Depending on your internet connection, there may be delays of up to 30 seconds or a little longer. However, you’ll know your post is live when the generic X poster image appears on your custom poster image.
Lastly, X only allows you to host one broadcast at a time from a single source. You cannot stream more than one session simultaneously on one source. Neither does the platform have overlapping streams. The only way to go live with several broadcasts simultaneously is to create and use multiple sources.
How to Stream On Twitter
You’ll need the proper hardware (PC or smartphone), a stable internet connection, and a powerful streaming application like EvMux to stream on X.
EvMux is a cloud-based streaming service that prides itself on its intuitive dashboard, making it a top recommendation for amateur streamers. The platform boasts many customization features, including ISO video recording and dedicated chat functions. It also has multistreaming capabilities, which means you can use the software to stream on X and multiple other websites simultaneously.
Here’s how to stream on X with EvMux;
- Log into Twitter with your sign-in details.
- Open another tab and log into your EvMux account, then head to “Broadcast Channels.”
- Use RTMP support to go live on Twitter.
- Find the video you intend to stream.
- Give your videos a suitable title, description, and thumbnail.
- Save the changes.
- Head to “Go Live” and hit “Start” to go live.
- When done, hit “End Broadcasts” twice to end your session.
There are additional settings you can implement to optimize your live broadcasts when streaming on X. These include settings to improve the audio-visual quality, invite the desired number of participants, and incorporate the live chat function.
Summary
There is no time limit for X streams; start immediately. The social media platform only imposes a 6-hour limit for scheduled posts, which is still long enough if you consider that engaging streams tend to be way shorter than that.
