What the heck are MeerKat and Periscope anyway?

They’re apps, for “livestreaming”. That means they allow you to broadcast from your smartphone, live, in real time.

So you download the app, and at the touch of a button you can be broadcasting whatever is in front of you to the world.

In terms of functionality, they’re quite similar; Meerkat is simpler, which means a shorter learning curve, but Periscope has some additional options. Some of those, particularly offering an “invite only” option to broadcasts, and keeping broadcasts available for 24 hours after the initial streaming, we think will make a big difference in a business context.

Video quality is similar for both. Glitching isn’t uncommon, and of course is also dependent on the quality of the internet connection where you’re broadcasting / watching from. Meerkat offers the option to watch and view in Landscape orientation, whereas Periscope doesn’t; this can make quite a difference to being able to follow a video if you’re watching on a smartphone.

Both apps are integrated with Twitter – for example, Meerkat automatically tells your Twitter followers when you’re broadcasting something, and Periscope gives you the option of whether to tell them –  which saves those with an established Twitter audience from having to start again on building and audience “locally”.

But, Periscope is Twitter’s proprietary app, which makes it highly likely that Periscope’s functionality and integration with Twitter will be increasingly privileged as time goes on. That isn’t necessarily the kiss of death for Meerkat – after all, Instagram seems to be surviving Twitter’s hissy fit after it was bought by Facebook quite well so far – but it’s inevitably going to provide Periscope with an advantage in the longer term, given that Twitter is the key distribution channel for both apps.

Social Features

As well as the Twitter linkup, there are a pretty standare set of  internal social features for both apps that allow you to interact with other users. You can comment on another user’s broadcast, and they’ll see your comment in real time. You can also “like” broadcasts, and tweet out other users’ broadcasts.

Choosing to Follow another Meerkat or Periscope user will activate notifications whenever that person is broadcasting – pretty crucial for Meerkat, where it’s gone if you don’t connect to the broadcast as it happens.

Using Meerkat or Periscope for business

For most businesses, these new apps won’t be a core part of the social media strategy; but they can certainly be employed usefully as an additional way to communicate, without a huge amount of investment or overhead.

The ultra real time, short lived nature of livestreaming may be a big challenge in some business sectors, where you can’t realistically expect your target audience to just drop what they’re doing at a moment’s notice and watch you. Periscope is at a big advantage there, because once the link to the broadcast has gone out, it can be viewed at any time over the following 24 hours.

Providing your audience are likely to be available to watch, though, livestreaming offers a level of immediacy and impact – letting them feel that they’re actually part of the event – that is completely new. When you try using it, you’ll immediately notice the difference between watching a livestream and viewing a finished video that’s been uploaded to YouTube; you just feel a lot closer to the action.

So, for example, if your organisation is hosting an awards ceremony, or launching a new product, letting your customers see that in real time “through your eyes” can be very effective in getting them engaged. Again, Periscope’s Invite Only feature gives it the edge here, as you can choose to offer the livestream only to “VIP clients”.

Things to bear in mind:

At the time of writing, both apps are only widely available in iOS versions (for Apple smartphones), although there is a public beta version of Meerkat released for Android, which has to be signed up for via a Google form. It’s very likely that both apps will have full Android versions available pretty soon, but in the mean time that may be a limiting factor for organisations who aren’t Apple fans.

And just as a final thought, don’t make the mistake of thinking that Meerkat / Periscope is now the best place for any video-related content. They should be used strictly for content that is ephemeral – ie, may be pretty exciting right now, but is unlikely to be of interest in six months’ time.

Anything that you expect to have a lifespan beyond the next 24 hours – a guide to this season’s new products, a training video – still belongs on YouTube where you can go on sending out links to it indefinitely. That doesn’t mean you can’t livestream the launch of your new season’s products too, of course!

What is Instagram doing so right?

If Twitter is about reading what’s new in the world, Instagram is about seeing it. That greater immediacy, and the “picture is worth a thousand words” principle, is obviously very powerful and attractive to users.

It may also mean that there’s just less “noise”. A substantial part of Twitter is taken up with signposting to other parts of the web (for example, people sharing links to interesting articles). That does have its own value, but a user being effectively limited to  what’s right in front of them, right now (reshares notwithstanding) does cut back on the overall amount of content each user is likely to be generating.

In addition, Instagram has taken a number of other  steps to keep the platform growing, such as:

Regularly offering new features that users love – for example, new filters;

Learning from Facebook in terms of taking steps to eliminate spam and bot accounts

Introducing advertising in a careful and quality controlled way, starting with brands who are already “power users” and know what works well on the platform. Future growth could well depend on how well controlled this continues to be; with video advertising on the way, there’s a huge potential for that to be very intrusive to users who are there to view still images only. If the level of complaints we’re hearing from YouTube users, where the length and volume of adverts has increased significantly over the last year, is anything to go by, there could be trouble ahead there.

As an aside, one can’t help but wonder whether Instagram could have been a little more creative in their monetisation approach. For example, allowing celebrities and power users to charge a subscription to their feeds, and taking a cut; or just partnering with one of the many photo printing services popping up in this space. But I digress…

What does this mean for businesses?

Firstly, that you’ll be seeing the usual blether from many agencies about how this is just another colossal opportunity that businesses should be paying them to get involved with. Funny how all roads lead to the large invoice Rome in terms of new and growing social media platforms.

In our opinion, the reality is more of a mixed bag. For businesses working in a naturally visual environment – making, designing, or working with beautiful things, locations or people: it’s a godsend. They’re being gifted a huge audience, and all they need to do is share what they’re seeing – provided there’s someone available who has basic competence with a smartphone, there’s not even any copywriting involved. Likewise for celebrities in whatever space: what fan wouldn’t jump at the chance to see the world through their idol’s eyes?

For businesses operating in more “mundane” fields – and really, that’s most of us – it’s less good news. Instagram is a much more exacting environment for marketing in than Twitter is; you need a reliable, regular flow of interesting first hand images, or you’re going to struggle. If most of your time is spent in an office, some really creative thinking is going to be needed about how to produce appealing content, and it’s likely to be much harder work because you’re not just constantly seeing interesting “stuff” in the course of an average day. That’s not to say it can’t be done, of course, but on the whole Twitter is likely to be a more natural fit and easier to provide value to your followers.

What should I be doing?

As with all social media platforms, if you’re thinking about using it for commercial purposes, the best advice is to get to grips with it personally first. Set up your own account, find things that interest you, get a real feel for what makes it tick. Then ask yourself the hard questions about who might be interested in the world through your business’s eyes, and what they would need to see from you to make it engaging.

* source: Socialbakers.com

Their latest offering is a function to help you do exactly that – the “Interests” option. This is being rolled out gradually but we’re seeing it in the UK already, so go and take a look!

What is the Interest function?

Basically, it’s a way of both grouping related content together, but in a way that gives more sophisticated and “fuzzy” results than a standard topic search, and allows Pinterest to put content in front of the user which they might not otherwise see. So when a user goes into the Interests area, they will see content that’s related to their own pins, but not necessarily on identical topics.

So for example, a user who’s Pinned images of Namibia on a “dream travel” board might get suggested content around “Deserts”, because one of Namibia’s key tourist attractions is their amazing red dunes.

Does it work?

The feature’s somewhat in its infancy at the moment, and also it’s one of those areas where what you put in very much affects what you get out. If you’re a heavy Pinterest user, then you’ll have given the site plenty of clues about what might amuse you, and your results are likely to be better. If you’ve only got a few pins currently, the Interest section may be more hit and miss.

However, compared to the old Related Pins option, which never seemed to work that well, Interests is getting rave reviews from users:

What’s the significance for business users?

Firstly, that this should be a good opportunity for enhanced visibility. Anything which brings stuff outside their current “bubble” to the attention of users, has got to be a good thing.

Secondly, it also means that thinking laterally about the interests you have in common with your customers (rather than just what your immediate products are) is even more important. Providing related content gives you a chance to get in front of a whole new set of potential customers.

We’d also recommend thinking a bit cleverly about how you can provide content which conveys your USP’s as a company, and your brand values. As an example: if you’re running a travel company at the more budget end of the market, there’s a LOT of competition.
If your “above and beyond” service is what sets you apart from the competition, how about sourcing images of great, value range bikinis / skiwear / whatever and posting them under the slogan “we want every part of your holiday to be perfect”. Every time those images are re-pinned (shared), your brand – and your USP – goes with them.

They’re relatively new content creation platforms which are almost entirely visual. Instagram offers both still photograph and short video capability, while Vine is video only.

They’re both arguably social media sites in their own right, in that users create standalone accounts and can interact directly with one another. However, they’re most commonly used in conjunction with one of the bigger sites like Twitter or Facebook; so users who have already built up substantial networks on those sites can share content without having to build up a “new” following. They are also predominately in use as mobile apps rather than desktop websites.

Vine is actually owned by Twitter. Instagram used to be closely integrated with Twitter – for example,  a Tweet which included an Instagram image would show the image when viewed through Twitter.com, without the user having to click a link and load a separate page. Earlier this year, Twitter decided to launch their own Instagram-like functionality however, and to change their code so that only “their” images would be embedded in this way. Presumably that may also be linked to Instagram’s recent decision to launch short video clip functionality, putting them in direct competition with Vine.

What’s the attraction?

In the case of Instagram, it basically boils down to: making your life or brand look cooler!

The main feature of the App is an extensive set of “retro style” filters and image editing capabilities, to be used on images you’ve snapped on your smartphone.

When Instagram launched, these capabilities were really revolutionary, allowing users to have the kind of control over how their images looked which had previously only been available to photographers with sophisticated software like Photoshop.

The attraction of Vine is perhaps a little less obvious, but possibly more addictive once sampled. The App allows you to create short video clips of just a few seconds long, but the creation tool allows the user to stop and start recording many times within that period, which means you can make animation or stop motion content. It may not seem that great an idea initially, but there are some amazingly creative users out there making highly engaging content.

Who’s using them?

At a fairly recent count (July 2013), Instagram has 130 million registered users. In August Vine had just 40 million. However Vine came along much more recently, and it’s likely that their user base will continue to grow more quickly than Instagram’s – that 40 million figure represents a tripling of their user base from just a few months previously.

In terms of who those users are, there is little detailed demographic data BUT, the fact that they are mobile-only Apps is going to immediately exclude those demographics who don’t use Smartphones – predominantly the older age groups. Although Instagram has a desktop site now, there is no such equivalent for Vine; if you come across Vine-generated content on Twitter, like this:

actually clicking on the link takes you to what is effectively a holding page inviting you to “install the app”. If you are viewing from a Smartphone with the Vine app installed, it’ll work. Otherwise, it won’t. This is the biggest and most obvious limitation of creating Vine content at the moment; although it is also possible to embed the content in a website, there will be many active social media users who don’t have Vine and so won’t be able to see it.

Are Vine and Instagram business tools?

Yes, they most certainly can be. Some big consumer brands wanting to take advantage of access to the younger, trend-aware market jumped on Instagram very enthusiastically; Starbucks is a notable example, creating beautiful images themselves but also actively encouraging others to contribute their coffee-themed snaps. US Interiors firm Homegoods is taking a similar approach.

But really, any business can use Instagram to build deeper connections with their customers, for example by providing insights into what staff actually *do* on a daily basis. It’s fun, it’s quick and it’s easy – but you do need to apply slightly better quality control standards to your images than the average user, in order to keep it reasonably professional!

Vine’s big strength is in showing off visual content where movement is important – for example, a short video clip might show off a clothing retailer’s dress far better than a simple still. But there are also businesses using Vine in really creative ways, such as Natwest using it as part of their customer service strategy.