Periscope or Perish

A colleague recently mentioned Periscope during a meeting, so I took to Google and found this Forbes article on how this new service could become a pretty powerful tool for digital marketing.

Periscope (owned by Twitter ) is a live video streaming service aimed at mobile and is a sort-of mashup of YouTube, FaceTime and Twitter. Sort of like Snapchat, but with video, and sort of like Vine, but live. Basically you can broadcast your own live TV station right from your mobile device.

It enables you to "go live" via your mobile device anytime and anywhere. The app enables you to become your own on-the-go broadcasting "station", streaming video and audio to any viewers who join your broadcast. There is also an interactive component where users can “like” a broadcast by clicking hearts on the screen, get involved in the broadcast by commenting live, and share stations on Twitter.

So why could this be an important tool for businesses? Of all the possibilities, these two caught my eye. Forbes says:

Create Brand Release Videos 

Periscope is all about instant news, so a release of a product or service is a great time to create a live broadcast. You can simply have the CEO of your company making an announcement and explaining the process of creating the new product and/or any events happening to celebrate. This can be your first announcement and it can help you create a great video for later. 

Ask for Email Addresses During Your Broadcast 

As you create your broadcast, ask viewers to leave their email addresses in the comments so that you can create a Periscope mailing list.

In other words, you can have an Apple-style live keynote, at the cost of free. You don't need to rely on being picked up by a traditional TV / media source, or be time-lagged by YouTube and other non-live video sources. Also, you can make the broadcast truly interactive, with a quick and easy method of obtaining customer information and loyalty.