{{How Mobile Live-Streaming Can Take Your Social Engagement to the Next

Level

Google was onto something when they realized that people would enjoy engaging with their favorite brands via live-streaming, Google Hangouts On Air channels. It wasn’t long before other companies figured out there was future in real-time video interaction and developed their own social video streaming products, like Periscope and Meerkat. Mobile live-streaming is a hot new trend that you definitely don’t want

to miss.

So what’s so great about it?

A lot - for example, adding streaming into your brand’s marketing strategy:

Main image via Shutterstock

Taps into your customer’s love of instant video

- According to the digital strategists at Accenture, “90 percent of consumers surveyed across Europe, North America, and South America currently view video over the internet.” If you know almost your entire target demographic engages in a particular activity, it makes good sense to use that as an opportunity to meet them where they are. Jump on the chance to engage customers in a way you know they already enjoy.

Gives you real-time feedback

- Services like Periscope provide viewers with a way to engage accounts via typed messages that instantly appear atop the streaming video. Marketers can live-stream an event, ask questions, and get an instant response from engaged, enthusiastic viewers. On the surface, it’s a terrific way to have virtual face-to-face time with your customers, but it’s also a subtle way to gather analytical data based on real-time responses that allow you to pivot your approach as needed.

Allows your customers to be part of the story

– Passively viewing video content will always have its place in branding strategy, especially for troubleshooting and how-to content. However, now more than ever, customers want to be involved in your message, not just be consumers of it. Red Bull's been tapping into this phenomenon for years with its Flugtag advertising campaign/competition. Live mobile streaming takes this concept and kicks it up five notches.

Lets your customers peek behind the scenes

– Consumers want to know brands care and that there are real people behind the social accounts they follow. What better way to show off your ace marketing team than to bring viewers right into the office during a coffee break or a group softball game. Humanize the people who quietly make things happen in your organization and give customers a chance to see the people who love your brand as much as they do.

Helps your brand be more innovative

- Don’t just rely on stock video to tell your story. "Live streaming is a new game entirely because it is dynamic, not static. Once a brand goes live, their competitors must follow. Customers will come to expect it. They won't want tired, off-the-shelf archived videos," Ron C. Pruett, Chief Advisor to Al Roker Entertainment, told the Huffington Post. "Live broadcasting on a cell phone is the missing link between TV and social media. Period.”