Live-streaming apps like Periscope are taking over the social media landscape. Here’s how to leverage live-streaming to market your events, by getting your audience to do the legwork for you.
Social media is already a deeply ingrained part of event marketing, and it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. But as more and more marketers jump on the social media bandwagon, it’s becoming more difficult for event organizers to make their content stand out among the clutter, and reach the audiences they’re attempting to target.
It’s becoming increasingly important for event organizers to get creative with their social media marketing strategies, and that includes staying on top of the trending social platforms and technologies.
One trend that you definitely don’t want to miss out on is crowdsourced live-streaming, or “crowd-streaming.”
The future of live-streamed content is here…and it’s here to stay
The live video streaming app Periscope currently has more than 10 million users–2 million of which are active daily–and more than 200 million broadcasts to date. While this is still small compared to Facebook’s 1.7 billion users, live-streaming apps like Periscope are still in the early stages of user adoption, and are growing quickly.
Crowd-streaming is live-streaming on a mass scale
Many tech-savvy event marketers are already using live-streaming apps like Periscope, Meerkat, Facebook Live, and even Snapchat to share their event with viewers. That’s great, but that’s also just one audience being reached.
Imagine if instead of just the event organizers live-streaming the event, the attendees themselves got in on the action. As an example, let’s say that even just one attendee decided to livestream your event, and that one attendee had 100 followers. That’s 100 people that now have exposure to your brand and your event, just because of that one attendee! Now, imagine the possibilities if 10, 100, or 1000 attendees all live-streamed bits and pieces of your event.
Welcome to the power of “crowd-streaming!”
Social media users crave crowd-sourced “behind the scenes” content
Whenever a brand is promoting their own product, service, or event on social media, there’s always a level of skepticism that audiences experience. After all, of course the brand behind the event is singing its praises…why wouldn’t it be? But when that message comes from one of their peers, users are much more likely to tune in and become engaged.
As an example, consider the exclusive New York Fashion Show. While 100,000 people actually attended the September 2015 event, 2.6 million watched via live-streaming. Although those viewers who didn’t actually attend the event didn’t bring any money to the event organizers, that’s still a huge win in terms of brand awareness, reach, social buzz, and potential attendees for future events.
By watching this peer-generated live-streaming content, viewers feel as if they’re getting an authentic insider-perspective, or a behind the scenes “sneak peek.”
How to inspire your attendees to livestream your event:
- Include interactive elements. Attendees are much more likely to livestream events on their own when they’re able to be involved in the action in some way.
- Invest in cool, unique, and exciting visual effects. Remember that people are more likely to share their experience if it makes it look like they are doing something fun and interesting.
- Create your own event geofilter for Snapchat.
- Keep some events a surprise. “Random” events that are funny, exciting, or unexpected are more likely to gain a share from attendees than those that are pre-scheduled.
- That said, make sure your attendees are well-aware of major keynote speakers or performers, so they can be prepared to livestream those events.
- Just remind them! Live-streaming is still relatively new in the world of social media, and many people may still be hesitant about using it. Encourage them to give it a try and make it as easy as possible for them to be successful by providing great content for them to share.
Rebecca Kennedy is a freelance travel writer.
