“It’s fine to have social media that connects us with old friends, but we need tools that help us discover new people as well.” Ethan Zuckerman

We’ve come a long way from expressing how sad we are on status updates to sharing delectable dishes using filtered images and mocking people falling off skateboards through looping videos. Social media’s leap forward has been astounding in the last few years, connecting millions of people from different geographical locations, who want to see something different, and presenting branding opportunities for businesses.

We’ve already mastered sending images that can be viewed for a short period of time and then automatically deleted, so why not broadcast a base jump off a cliff as it happens live? There’s no doubt that livestreaming was the next step forward, and Periscope is the tool to get it done. But what/who is the new kid on the block and should digital marketers be excited?

Periscope connects the masses in real time

Periscope is a social media app that allows users to livestream what they’re doing; scaling Table Mountain or just eating a cupcake. The inspiration behind the mobile app came about when two friends, Kayvon Beykpour and Joseph Bernstein, wanted to see events as they unfolded in Istanbul during the riots of 2013.

Their solution was simple, but the impact was monolithic. Within a month of the app being released on iPhone, it gained over 1 million subscribers. After being released on android that numbers more than doubled, and in August 2015 it crossed the 10 million user threshold. Eventually Twitter bought the application for a mouth-watering US $100 million – this writer has been questioning their life-choices since then.

If you can think it, Periscope can livestream it

In a nutshell, Periscope allows you to livestream anything you’d like your followers to see as it happens. The interface is simple to operate and signing up for an account is as easy as giving the app access to your Twitter account – it’s owned by Twitter, so don’t worry about your private information being stolen.

When you want to broadcast a video, you press the lens icon which starts initialising the video. As it’s initialising, you can type in what you’re doing as you wait. Once done, you’re in a position to start livestreaming instantaneously. The power to broadcast live is all in the palm of your hands.

The new digital hangout

Apart from early adopters, the application has received wide appeal from news broadcasters and media companies. Compared to traditional live-broadcasts, it’s a more affordable option for reaching a large audience, attracting musicians and politicians to sign up – even the UK prime minister has taken a liking to Periscope.

A branding opportunity worth the investment

As more and more people join the app, brands will have a large audience to start broadcasting live events such as product launches, and activation campaigns. And even though there isn’t a comparable crowd to Facebook’s, Periscope has been designed to work seamlessly with Twitter. This means that companies won’t have much of an issue livestreaming to their existing audience who, in turn, will join the app – that is, if the content is good.

Book authors, for example, are beginning to use Periscope as a brand-building app by livestreaming videos of where they write their novels and even reading works yet to be published. The Rolling Stones’ exclusive, secret show made use of periscope, offering their fans from around the world an opportunity to see the talented musicians strum it out on stage.

So basically, if your brand has interesting content, a smartphone and the creativity, there’s nothing you can’t do in an attempt to reach your fans in real time. Whether Periscope is the future of social networking isn’t the question really. However, what’s apparent is that digital marketers need to start taking notice now and looking at ways their strategies can make use of it.

Have you used Periscope before? Are you already launching your own reality-show as a result? Let us know by leaving a comment below.