FAQ

First of all, you need to connect your Instagram account to Strea.ma. You can connect your personal Instagram account as well as an Instagram Business account.

• If you connect a personal Instagram account, you can only show content that you have posted on Instagram.
• If you connect an Instagram Business account, you can also show updates from other Instagram users that match #hashtag searches.

Due to Instagram’s API restrictions, Strea.ma is unable to search Instagram posts by @username. This means that you cannot search for Instagram content from other users by their @username. 

This restriction also means that you cannot block specific Instagram users, because Strea.ma cannot identify individual Instagram users.

Instagram now also restricts the number of requests we can make per hour, so occasionally there will be delays in showing Instagram content.

First of all, you need to connect your Twitter account to Strea.ma.

Your own Twitter updates and retweets will show if you check ‘Show my personal Twitter updates’.

Strea.ma also shows tweets from other users that match #hashtag or @handle searches, i.e. within the text of the tweet. Please note that you’ll only see other users’ tweets from within the last 7 days.

First of all, you need to connect your Facebook account to Strea.ma.

Your personal Facebook updates will show if you check ‘Show my personal Facebook updates’.

Strea.ma can also show posts from Facebook pages. If you want to show content from Facebook pages, you’ll need to be an administrator on those pages. Strea.ma shows every post from your Facebook page, as well as posts to the page from other people (PLEASE NOTE: Strea.ma won’t show posts from people who have locked down their privacy settings).

No, you cannot search Facebook posts by hashtag as Facebook does not allow external applications to use this feature.

Strea.ma is designed to show new Tweets and Instagram updates in your stream as they happen. We are able to get some historical content for your stream, but it varies by social platform:

Instagram restricts the number of requests we can make per hour, so occasionally there will be delays in showing Instagram content.

Strea.ma and other external applications are affected by the privacy settings of people and pages on Facebook. Strea.ma can only access Facebook content if your page is public and the users posting there are making their posts public.

Strea.ma does not display retweets from other users (otherwise the screen would fill up with lots of copies of the same post!).

Strea.ma only shows other users’ tweets from within the last 7 days. As soon as fresh Twitter content comes in, Strea.ma will show it.

Very occasionally, some tweets just don’t get shown. This is because Strea.ma uses Twitter’s search API and Twitter does not index absolutely every tweet in its search results. 

Twitter explains that their search service “is not meant to be an exhaustive archive of public tweets and not all tweets are indexed or returned. Some results are refined to better combat spam and increase relevance.” 

No, Strea.ma doesn’t currently support video posts. But this is coming soon!

No, Strea.ma does not store all the social media updates from your event or campaign. Your stream can store a maximum of 200 updates. This is to keep it nice and fast.

If you want to keep your best social media updates, you can use the Strea.ma ‘Pin content’ feature (see ‘How do I keep the best updates in my stream?’).

Sometimes social media users get their potty mouth on and it can be a bit embarrassing to see rude words appearing in your stream. That’s OK – Strea.ma has a filter for updates containing profanity and blocks them automatically before they become visible in your stream. You can also add words to your own blacklist to hold posts for approval, or block from your stream completely.

If you have Strea.ma on a big screen at your event, you can moderate the updates in real time from a laptop or mobile device. Just like a remote control!

First of all, make sure that the device that is showing Strea.ma on your big screen(s) is showing your public stream.

Then, on a second device, log in to Strea.ma and select ‘Moderate Posts’. You’ll see a delete (x) on each update. When you delete an update, the public display on the big screen will update within seconds and the content will disappear.

This way you can delete any updates from your stream as soon as they appear. Our built-in profanity filter catches a wide range of curse words and flags inappropriate content in your admin screen to make it even easier for you to moderate.

ou can use the Strea.ma ‘Pin content’ feature.

See the little pin icon at top left of this tile? That’s the pin icon. When you click on it, it turns yellow. This means the content is now pinned. It will remain in your stream until you un-pin it.

Each pinned update will keep moving through your stream like normal Strea.ma content, but when it reaches the end of the display, it won’t disappear forever – instead, it will re-enter your stream. This way, your audience will continue to see your best content.

Strea.ma offers Manual Approval Mode, where you can decide to block all your stream’s updates and choose just the ones that you want to appear on the screen. 

On your moderation screen, each update has an option to approve or delete. When you approve an update, the display on the big screen will update within seconds and the approved content will appear.

Strea.ma features user blocking. Simply go to the ‘Moderate posts’ screen and you’ll see a ‘Block user’ icon next to each post (except for Instagram posts – see above).

If you click this icon, this user will be added to your blacklist and all their future posts will be blocked from your stream. You’ll also be prompted to report the user to our moderators. We recommend that you report any users who are abusive or post inappropriate content. Our moderators can then block them from all Strea.ma displays. This way, all Strea.ma customers can benefit.

If you accidentally block the wrong user, don’t worry. You can undo it by editing the blacklist in your stream settings.

Our plans start at US$119 per month. We also have a free trial that you can use to see if Strea.ma is right for you. Read all about our plans on our pricing page.

If you’re currently on a paid plan and you want to change from monthly to annual or vice versa – or change your card details – you can do this through the account settings page in your Strea.ma dashboard. If you try to choose a new plan on our pricing page, you might accidentally create a new subscription!

Yes, absolutely. You can cancel your subscription at any time. And if you’ve got another event coming up, you can reactivate it by logging in and upgrading to a paid plan.

You can do this through the account settings page in your Strea.ma dashboard.

Yes, there are no restrictions on where you can use Strea.ma. We have customers all around the world in over 50 countries.

No. As a New Zealand company, we do not have a VAT number and we do not issue VAT invoices.

Yes. We use Chargify, PayPal and Braintree for credit card processing to achieve full PCI DSS compliance. We also accept payments for annual subscriptions via international bank transfer.