12 Effective Ways Startups Can Use Periscope

The following is a guest post by Rick Riddle. Rick Riddle is a successful blogger whose articles aim to help readers with digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and self-development. Connect with Rick on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Periscope is one of the fastest growing ways to reach your audience and customers in a new and effective way. The Twitter-owned live streaming service is catching on with business due to its large reach and immediate nature.

Periscope essentially allows you to live broadcast almost anything, anywhere. While broadcasting, people viewing the channel can provide live comments and feedback. It’s one of the most personal and interactive ways to reach your audience.

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Startups can use all the help they can get, and using Periscope is a great way to grow the business. Here are 12 ways you can take advantage of Periscope in your startup.

Create Personal Relationships

There’s no better way to get personal than to connect with the audience via live video. Those that have used face-time or video conferencing will be familiar with the connection you’ll feel with this format.

You can only shoot video on mobile devices, like phones or tablets. This creates a more face-time type vibe than professionally curated live video as you would find on YouTube. The feedback is also in real time as you’re shooting, so you can respond instantly in the video.

Event Showcase

If your startup is a part of events, like stage presentations, press conferences, or expert panels, using Periscope is a great way to bring people to these events and reach a wider audience. In the early days of a startup, reaching a larger audience is always tough. Periscope allows you to do this instantly.

Product Demos

When it comes to unveiling and demoing products, Periscope can make it a really cool experience. Caterpillar used periscope and a drone to showcase their products with amazing results.

You don’t need to go to those lengths, but simply having Periscope broadcasting a product demo can really help people see what you’re talking about. It allows them to ask questions and give feedback as well. Where YouTube is perfect for putting up a static video, Periscope will let you know instantly what people want to see while the broadcast is still happening.

Behind The Scenes

There’s nothing cooler than feeling like you have an all-access pass. Show people your operation. Take them on a tour. Bring them behind the curtain at events. Anything you can do to give people a little more information on your startup can really help personalize and attach people to the brand.

Invite People to Remote Locations

One of the best parts about Periscope is the ability to take it almost anywhere. All you need is a cellphone and some reception. If you were demoing something on a speedboat, it would allow you to take hundreds or thousands of people along on a small boat. The only other way to live demo it would be to bring one person on at one at a time or do the demo on land.

If you’re traveling to far away destinations, working in small spaces, or have limited access, Periscope is a great way to connect with people.

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Live Q&A

Question and answer periods are one of the more obvious uses of Periscope. What makes them amazing are the real-time questions, and live nature of the video. It’s so effective, even presidential candidates have used it for Q&A sessions.

Startups can use this method effectively to interact with their audience. This can be really helpful for new technologies that may need a little bit of understanding. Potential users or buyers can drill down and ask questions that may influence their decision.

Breaking News

If something exciting just happened or is about to happen, switch on Periscope and tell everyone! Get the message out right away and in real time. This makes people feel they’re part of something. There will be plenty of exciting things happening with your startup, so this feature should be well used.

Get Instant Feedback

There are many ways to get feedback, but none are quite as immediate as Periscope is able to deliver it. While you’re broadcasting, the feedback pops up right on the screen. It allows you to instantly adjust the broadcast, answer questions and understand what people like and don’t like about what you’re showing.

For a startup, feedback is invaluable. It’s hard to appeal to your customers if you’re not listening to them when they’re telling you what they like and don’t like about your product.

Live Interviews

Getting experts, startup team members, or influencers on periscope can help build interest in your operation. You can combine the live interview with the Q&A suggestion above to make a real powerful experience for people to connect with your brand.

Scheduling and promoting live interviews in advance will also drum up interest in your Periscope channel. It’s a great way to attract viewers to the brand so they’ll be there when you are actually doing demos and events.

Contests and Giveaways

There are many social media platforms that are great for doing giveaways – but none are quite like Periscope. Here’s a social media cheat sheet for brands looking to connect with a specific demo. What none of those platforms have is the ability to do it all in real time and on video.

You can essentially start broadcasting to announce the contest or giveaway, and then after a product tour, interview, etc., you can conduct the contest draw live. This adds excitement, credibility and can really attract people to a channel. Who doesn’t love free stuff?

Capture Emails

When viewers are watching your Periscope, you can solicit emails. Either just straight up ask for them to leave their email address in the comments for those that are interested, or you can do it was part of a contest giveaway, coupon offer, etc.

After your broadcast, you can take all the emails from the comments and add them to your database. This is a great way for startups to keep the communication lines open, even when you’re not broadcasting. You can also use emails to let followers know when your next scheduled broadcast is that you have coming up.

Connect with Mobile Users

There are some sites that allow you to watch Periscope feeds from the web, but for the most part, it’s a mobile platform. This means that mostly phones and tablets will be watching the broadcast.

If your startup is looking to connect with the mobile user, this is the way. If you’re an app company, it’s a great way to demo the app, do a Q&A, and then have them download it right away.

Periscope is a solid way for your startup to help build the business. They keep adding features all the time to make the experience more valuable. For example, one common complaint is that by the time people found out about the live stream, it was over. Now users can go back and re-watch the stream just as it was broadcast live.

You obviously can’t participate and ask questions in the recorded version, but if you have a solid broadcast, it’s nice to be able to link to the information and share it with people that may have missed it.