How To Use Periscope To Quickly Expand Your Brand

Periscope is a social media platform that came onto the scene in 2015, with incredible success. But if you don’t know how to use Periscope, you’ll miss out. What is it, exactly?

It’s a live-streaming app that Twitter acquired and launched a few months ago and its success has been astounding. More specifically, the success business owners have had on this platform has been out of this world.

My colleague Amber Aziza made $40,000 selling services and products on Periscope. I’ve increased leads, made new contacts and sold out a class where I taught registrants how to get more online press for their business. Ninety percent of the registrants came from Periscope.

Tips on how to use periscope

Here is the key takeaway: if you’re marketing to Millennials as I am, your market already knows how to use periscope. They just need good content—your content—to be waiting for them.

Of course, there’s a right and a wrong way to use Periscope to build your brand and have success. Below you’ll find some tips on how to use periscope that I have found to be extremely beneficial.

1. Use a compelling broadcast title and hashtag

Periscope allows you to title your broadcasts before you go live.  Use this to let people know exactly what you will be talking about.

For example, I did a broadcast titled “3 Tips to Succeeding as a Freelance Writer” with the #freelance hash tag so people could find me on Twitter. This was much more successful than a broadcast titled “News and Updates” with the #makemoneyyourhoney tag.

One thing you can do is go to Hashtagify.me to see what hashtags are trending on Twitter. For example, I can search “freelance” and then Hashtagify.me will give me a report of how popular this tag is as well as other popular related tags.

2. Make sure it’s going to Twitter

You want to make sure you are notifying your followers on Twitter about your live broadcasts. In other words, you want to leverage the audience you already have. Fortunately, Periscope makes it incredibly easy to do so.

Tap on the little bird icon under the title to share the broadcast live on Twitter. This will also allow you find the replay link afterward to share on your other social media pages.

That’s it! Very simple and easy to use.

As a side bar, this is why it’s so important to use relevant and popular hashtags. If you’re going to be sending this off into the Twitterverse you want to make sure people can actually find you.

3. Engage with the audience

Periscope is a perfect way to show people what you do instead of just telling them. I’ve done live coaching on these broadcasts. I’ve also shared my personal finance knowledge whenever I learn something new.

This does two things. First, I show people that I know what I’m talking about. Second, I am able to actively engage with people so they feel more compelled to follow me and even purchase my offerings later.

4. Keep it real

Periscope shows people who you are in real time. It’s real, it’s authentic and it’s completely unedited. You could let this intimidate you, or you could use it your advantage.

Remember, people are craving real connections more than ever. They aren’t going to buy anything from you unless they actually trust you—which is why it’s so important to keep it real.

Also remember to have fun with it. I watched a broadcast Chris Ducker did where he played the harmonica when he got to 100 live viewers.

5. Lead with value, not a sales pitch

You need to provide immense value in your scopes. That means help people, give them what they are asking for and genuinely do the best that you can to offer them value. Don’t hold back.

After you’ve done this, then you can get to selling at the end. For example, I did an entire week of broadcasts where I was offering free tips on how to get more media mentions. This was all leading up to the online workshop I was teaching.

Because the free content I gave was so good, people were encouraged to purchase seats to the actual workshop. I nearly sold out the class and I was easily able to cover the cost of the webinar software.

You don’t have to be selling anything to leverage Periscope. You can also have calls to action where you encourage people to sign up for your email list, check out a blog, get a freebie etc.

6. Repost the Periscope replay on YouTube

The secret to being everywhere is to re-purpose content. It also means to work smarter, not harder.

The great thing about Periscope is you’ve already sent out to a social media channel like Twitter. You can take it a step further by putting the recording from your phone on YouTube. I did this with a scope called “How to Use Periscope for Introverts” and it’s helped YouTube viewers learn what Periscope is, see what I do and put me in front of new people.

Final thoughts

People need to trust you before they pay you. The great thing about knowing how to use periscope is you can foster that trust in a very real way. By leveraging this tool and using it to it’s full capacity, you too can expand your brand to a whole new audience.