If you’re not familiar with Periscope, it’s time to learn all about it.
Owned by Twitter, Periscope is a video app that allows users to take real-time video and post it to a variety of social media outlets.
After originally gaining popularity with a host of diverse companies, Periscope has quickly been hailed as one of the most exciting and effective ways for a company to extend its message and promote a brand.
What is Periscope?
Periscope is a live-streaming video app that allows people to stream video directly from their phones to anyone who is interested enough to watch. (Note: it’s only available as the app, not on a site currently.)
Much like Snapchat except without the annoying immediate delete feature, Periscope is a broadcast platform that allows everyone to become an instant videographer.
Twitter purchased the app earlier in the year for a grand total of $100 million dollars and, so far, it’s performing well.
Within Periscope, users take videos, stream them out to the world and viewers can “like” and comment on the videos. It all happens real-time. These updates appear as a live-feed on the video screen for the original user to read and interact with.
So, basically I can turn my camera on and immediately broadcast, and real-time comments, “hearts” and member names pop up as people join and interact with me.
You can “follow” people here, and people can follow you. You’ll even be notified of live shows to watch if your friends say you should watch (it’s an annoying whistle on my phone that I need to turn off, ha).
There’s even a map showing how many people are live on Periscope around the globe, like so:
Photo credit bloggersociety.com
I’ve been pretty successful at watching and joining a few Periscopes, and soon I plan to host my own Periscope, answering questions about writing. (Feel free to get in touch if you have some you want me to answer before the show!)
I have to say, it’s pretty fun to be on. You can join anyone’s live feed – and anyone can join yours. You can even share after to your Facebook or Twitter and anyone can watch the reply.
How much better can instant video get?
Some even say it’s more refined and useful than its close cousin, Meerkat.
Periscope is a great way for content marketers to effectively promote their company while also making a unique and accessible impression on their audience.
4 Big Brands Using Periscope
Although Periscope is new to the game of live video streaming, it’s already garnered a wide variety of followers. Companies have chosen to use the app thanks to its cool features: unlike some of its competitors, Periscope allows users to view archives of video streams, which means that viewers can locate live-stream videos even after the broadcast period has ended. Additionally, the app offers a curated and featured section that displays videos the Periscope team loves as well as the videos that people a user follows have recently interacted with. Because of these features, Periscope has become popular with these companies:
1. Spotify
Spotify joined the Periscope community in late March and immediately got down to business by posting a behind-the-scenes video of a performance by popular Irish singer Conor O’Brien, a member of the band The Villagers. The video garnered 382 views during its live-stream period and gained 1,534 likes during that same time.
2. Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew hopped on the Periscope bandwagon almost immediately after the app was released, choosing to release a vine-style video called “stop by to say what’s up.” In the video, a girl spells the word “Swag” on a chalkboard in front of a table full of the company’s logo-branded shirts and hats.
3. Red Bull
Red Bull is known for being one of the first companies to hop aboard new social media platforms and they didn’t miss a beat when it came to Periscope. The energy drink company streamed its live events from the Red Bull Guest House at Miami Music Week earlier in the year using the app and supplemented its use of Periscope with updates on Twitter and Snapchat.
4. DKNY
Known for more than just edgy clothing, this lifestyle brand has begun using live-streaming video as a way to offer customers behind-the-scenes views of the company’s shoots and clothing selection. Specifically, DNKY used Periscope earlier in the year to provide customers and fans with a look inside the company’s closets. This created a frenzy of anticipation among eager customers and was, by all accounts, a very good marketing move.
10 Ways to Use Periscope to Do More Business
Most companies are familiar with the ways in which content marketing can be beneficial to businesses, but many people associate content marketing with written content in the form of blogs, articles, how-to’s and answered questions. Content marketing extends to video and visual content, however, and Periscope is a promising tool for any company that wants to promote its brand and reach more customers. Here are the top 10 ways companies can use periscope for business purposes:
1. Use Periscope to Make the Brand Relatable
Customers love to feel like they can relate to a given brand. Often, companies can come off as somewhat cold, omnipotent forces without a human face or a personality. Periscope and other live-streaming video services can help change that. Take the Spotify example from above: Spotify is a company that specializes in live-streamed music and thus works closely with musicians. The average Spotify listener, however, doesn’t see that. All the user sees is a list of saved songs and various playlists. By live-streaming their studio session with Conor O’Brien, however, Spotify added a human face and a sense of relateability to an otherwise impenetrable company and, most importantly, allowed viewers to take a peak at what really goes on in the Spotify offices.
2. Use Periscope to Offer Behind-the-Scenes Peeks
Much like making a brand relatable serves to produce a stronger brand identification in customers, giving customers sneak peeks of behind-the-scenes action helps make them feel like insiders. It’s a widely known fact that customers love to feel like they have insider intelligence and offering behind-the-scenes videos is one of the best ways to promote interest in your company.
3. Use Periscope to Offer Pre-Release Demos
Periscope will be a powerful tool for companies to offer demos of soon-to-be-released products. Although a snazzy photo and a “coming soon” description on a company’s website are great, they’re often not enough to get customers truly excited about a product. For example, PrecisionHawk, a data collection company, used Periscope to provide a flight demo preview of its new drone collection as well as live-streaming impromptu interviews with some of the flight-demo attendees. Doing this builds anticipation and encourages customer interaction with the eventual launch of the product.
4. Use Periscope for Tutorials and Help Desk Purposes
Nothing kills a company/customer interaction quite so quickly as a difficult-to-navigate product and poor customer service. Thanks to Periscope and other live-streaming apps, however, this can soon be a thing of the past. By translating customer concerns into live-streamed tutorials and how-to episodes, companies can offer stellar customer service while also humanizing their company and creating outstanding customer loyalty.
5. Use Periscope to Present Ideas
Much like a pre-release demo, Periscope can be used to introduce new ideas to customers. When a company doesn’t have a physical product produced yet (or is dealing with ideas rather than products), it’s nearly impossible to write something up on a website that will incite customer interest. With Periscope, however, companies can introduce new offerings without having a physical product in hand.
6. Use Periscope to Broadcast Live Q&A
Customers love companies that offer surprise value and Periscope is a great platform for introducing exciting guests and dispensing short, vivid, exciting Q&A sessions to the customer base. Alternately, companies can use Periscope to answer customer questions in a live Q&A session, as Tim Ferris often does through various video methods.
7. Use Periscope for Live Events
When customers are dedicated to a company, they want to be present for live events. If they can’t be, Periscope offers the second-best option: an exciting live broadcast of live events. Because Periscope offers a unique perspective on a highly accessible platform, companies that broadcast their live events in this fashion are likely to draw more customers and increase excitement.
8. Use Periscope for Viewer Feedback
Wondering about what your customers want from a product? Use Periscope to ask them. Because Periscope is an interactive platform, it is a great way for companies to interact in real-time with their customers. Customers can provide feedback, offer comments and interact with a company’s proposition using Periscope much easier than they can on less flexible platforms.
9. Use Periscope to Offer Webinars
Webinars are a close cousin to the Q&A. Ideal for boosting engagement and broadcasting low-tech, simple sessions with interesting guests, webinars are a great way to engage customers and promote further interaction with the brand.
10. Use Periscopes to Spread the Word About Exclusive Offers
Want to produce a literal rush of business for your company? Use Periscope to announce an exclusive offer to the customers who are watching the live-broadcast. Again, people love to feel like they have insider knowledge and using Periscope to release secret deals and promote limited-time-purchase offers is an incredibly effective way to produce new business and get people excited about your products.
For companies that want to interact with their customers in a relatable yet exciting new way, Periscope offers the ideal platform. Great for companies who want to remove barriers and interact with their customers in a more organic fashion, Periscope offers a huge amount of content options in the tiny package of a single app.
Whether you’re seeking to promote a new product or share the fun of a live event with your absent customers, Periscope is the tool of the future that will help your business get it all done.