Why should politicians use Periscope (asap)

(photo: https://twitter.com/JerryMoran/status/581241827023568897/photo/1)

No matter if you’re politician at national or EU level, political party manager or representative of an institution – if you wanna be successful, you’d better do some awesome stuff on your social media handles.When running a campaign or maintaining a permanent one in between, the way you communicate will affect your audience and the results will show up in polls.There’s no doubt that campaigns are going digital - demanding gradually bigger budgets.Periscope – an up & coming live-streaming social media app is a cheap, easy-to-use tool, which enables you to broadcast anything from anywhere. All you need is your smartphone and an internet connection.One simple fact to realize is that video is already a presence of advertising and soon, almost 75% of internet traffic will be video.

3 reasons why politicians should use Periscope :

1. Being first

If you’re not sure, whether to enter new social media platform ( omg, new one!! We have FB, IG, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest.... isn’t it enough??), it’s better to be pragmatic. The thing about those unproven and emerging apps without a certain ( in best scenario - successful) future is that when you're about to start using them immediately, they bring a much higher payoff in the future. In other words, it's better to invest the resources from the very beginning – even if the platform won’t be successful. Your acquired audience in the case of big success will bring you the advantage among others subjects. If you start using it later, it’ll be much harder to gain those people – or it’ll be much more expensive ( future monetization once the numbers are big enough) than investment made at the beginning. 

2. Widen audience

You want to spread the word among every group, right? New platform = new people. Especially those younger voters. Mitt Romney already admitted, that he's “just another old guy trying to keep up with the stuff the kids are doing” when joining the service. No doubt there’s a need for typology and psychology – every platform is different and needs a tailored style and strategy of communication.

3. Authenticity & Interaction

The way Periscope is different is because of authenticity + interaction at the same time. It's much more personal than any other social media. And we know that huge viral stories are those, that are in some way more personal than others. Can you remember, when did you have regular discussion or dialogue with your voters? During the election campaign? Don' t stay within your personal bubble and face the real world at least from time to time. When using Periscope, your followers can easily ask and comment on your session. Authentic feedback is valuable  asset for your future work. 

Stay tuned if you wanna get inspired on how the Periscope can be used within political context.