If you haven’t heard of it already, Twitter’s Periscope is an app that allows users of the fast-paced social media platform to stream live video to all their followers, with live interaction capabilities.
Periscope is remarkably easy to use: any Twitter user with a smartphone running Android or iOS and reliable Internet access can download the app and start broadcasting live video right from his or her phone. Periscope has the potential to open up an unprecedented amount of interaction with latent customers, and marketing agencies are paying close attention.
While most current Periscope users are merely people testing the waters—YouTube bloggers trying out the live format, budding entertainers practicing a comedy routine, etc.—the potential for real-time content marketing campaigns is huge. Rather than spending months working on one marketing campaign that might flop, marketing agencies can bounce prospective ideas off their target audience ahead of time—or even ask consumers directly.
Periscope can also give followers a glimpse into the inner workings of your company or business. Sure, tweets and Facebook posts are useful, but nothing speaks louder than live video. Live streaming gives views a sense of authenticity—rather than a doctored PR video, a live video feed shows a company with a strong commitment to transparency.
While the biggest draw of Periscope is the capability of real-time interaction with large numbers of followers, videos are archived afterwards, allowing followers continued access to Periscope feeds for 24 hours after the user stops streaming. While this might seem like a drawback, the short half-life of Periscope videos is exactly the point—live streaming is inherently a current undertaking. Keep videos around for too long and the content gets stale.
Should marketing agencies rush to reassign staff members to focus solely on Periscope? Clearly not. However, in an age of increasingly fast-paced information flow, it would be imprudent for Web influencers to write off Periscope entirely—at least before giving that live video streaming business a proper shot.
