You may have heard or seen a lot of commotion regarding Periscope. So what is it? Why is it good? Should I join?

What is Periscope?

Periscope is a live broadcasting app from your phone. Some have said ‘I can do that with Instagram’ but where Periscope is different is that it’s completely live and viewers can interact with you in the moment. Your broadcasts can be as long as you want so you’re not limited to a short amount of time like in Instagram. With Periscope your viewers can send you hearts and ask you questions while you’re talking.

Putting it in Periscope’s own words… “Explore the world through someone else’s eyes.”

What is so good about Periscope?

This is totally based on my opinion and it’s way too early to make a judgement on whether it’s something that should be a part of your marketing strategy but this is why I like it:

• It’s raw… it’s live, it’s not about the glamour and pretty perfect picture.
• It’s honest… it’s in the moment and there’s no hiding. It’s not the type of platform to stage everything but rather a spur of the moment thing.
• It’s immediate… because it’s live, it can be quite unpredictable. It’s very immediate as you will receive hearts and questions that partly shape the conversation.
• It’s fun… it’s slightly scary as you’re just speaking into your phone with an audience that you can’t see and don’t know but it’s so much fun to do it live and see the hearts and questions pop up.
• It’s great to connect… even though it seems a bit one way, it’s a great place to ‘chat’ and connect.

What’s not so good about Periscope?

It’s still fairly new so there are most definitely somethings they need to work on.

Firstly, there’s the trolling. I’ve seen quite a few periscopes where the broadcaster gets asked horrendous questions. There is a way to block these users but by that time the damage has been done. It’s live, and raw and honest but that can also backfire.

I haven’t really found any good tutorials on Periscope either so the first few times I had no idea what I was doing. For example, putting a title on it… that happens in the first screen where a box says ‘What are you seeing now?’ To me it wasn’t obvious that that’s where the title goes and you can’t edit it later on.

Another one is that your opening ‘scope shows what’s in front of you so you have to press a few buttons to switch the camera around. Not the most logical.

I’ve also had some problems with comments where I simply couldn’t see them. Not sure how to fix that, but I’m going with the flow. I’m willing to experiment for now.

Should I join Periscope?

That’s something only you can answer. It might just be another platform to add to your list and something that you might not want at this stage. Or you might not feel comfortable with being live on video.

I do think though, that if you are a creator or maker of something that it would be fun to show that in live setting. It’s up to you! If you’re jumping on, find me @hollabee_bianca.