In the most recent update of Periscope for iOS there have been a number of changes that are note worthy. If you have not yet updated your App after the release on 28 July 2015 you will find the update in the app store.
It is worth noting that on 8 July 2015, Periscope informally released some data about the use of the app through one of their users and stated that there were over 7.2 million users of the app and and over 36 million broadcasts.
Unfortunately horizontal (landscape) video is still not possible, but for me one of the most important new features is the ability to determine who you want to receive notifications for of their live stream.
Periscope for business tip – how to turn the notifications for individual accounts you follow on or off
I personally follow hundreds of people on Periscope – sometimes these are clients, organisations I am interested to learn more about or friends. Some people also scope multiple times a day – one person in my feed today has scoped 20 times at last count and it’s not because they are at a conference or event.
I had been using recipes on IFTTT.com to determine who I receive notifications from, but with this change I will revert to Periscope for notifications. What is the benefit of receiving notifications? You can ensure that you are able to join the Periscope live stream in real time and engage in the conversation rather than watching a replay.
If you turn notifications off you will still see a replay in your home feed, so don’t worry that turning notifications off means you will no longer be able to catch up with someones scopes. I know there are some people who deliver great content that is of interest to me and they may have only a couple of hundred followers, but I want to join them live – it’s not always about joining the people who have the biggest following which often has come about through gamification and hearts competitions.
So here is how you turn off notifications – yes they are on by default to be aware to go through your account may take some time – I have four accounts to manage so that it will be a day or so before I can turn notifications back on.
Under each account profile you will see a small bell once you have followed the account – if you wish to turn off notifications for that account you can click the bell. You will be able to review all of the accounts you follow to see which you have turned notifications on and off.
This is an important update for you to be aware of as a marketer as if people turn off notifications for your live streams they may miss them in their feed – as an example my feed currently only shows replays for the last 10 hours.
Periscope for business tip – how to make sure the global feed is relevant for your interests
The global feed allows you to discover interesting content from people around the globe. This feature was introduced in a previous update of the app.
In the latest iOS update you can now change your profile settings to indicate your language preferences. By default Periscope will select your devices preferred language or languages.
You need to be aware of this as a broadcaster as it may mean that your content is not discovered as widely as it was before.
Periscope for business tip – how to review the analytics of your past live streams
At the end of your live stream on Periscope, a panel appears with some statistics about your event.
In the latest update on the iOS app this information is now meant to be visible for past boradcasts – although I have personally found this to be glitchy.
As a marketer, you can not yet download these statistics so you may want to create a spread sheet to record the analytics that are available to you which will help you evaluate how effective for example your promotion of the live stream has been and how engaged you audience was.
I anticipate that Periscope and other third party tools such a Katch.me will be introducing additional anlaytics features in the months ahead.
Periscope for business tip – how to
The final update in the iOS app enables us to start watching a broadcast on one device, and transition to watching it on another device – both have to be running iOS 8+ or OS X, have Bluetooth turned on, and are logged in to the same iCloud account.
This is great for when you’re watching a broadcast on one device and then want to transition to another device – for example as a marketer watching a live stream and then wanting to multi task on that device so moving the stream you are watching to another device.
If you have not yet started to explore Periscope for your online communications, you will find additional resources here on my Periscope for business page and remember to follow me on Periscope for visual marketing tips.
