There are some great new platforms and tools to help you augment your content marketing efforts.  Here are a few amazing apps and ways that will help you get started:

Meerkat is a hot new app that live-streams content.  While that in itself isn’t unique, Meerkat has a lot going for it, as you will see later in this article.  One exciting development: the app creators recently partnered with GoPro – this allowed for enable cross-functionality.  Now you have the ability to stream GoPro directly onto your device.  With so many more emoji’s, there is a tremendous amount of interesting content you can create this way.  It is a truly exciting option to have.

Periscope, which has been around for about six months, is also a real-time broadcasting app.  It has the capability to notify your followers the moment you go live.  This gives your audience a greater opportunity to interact with you, since they will know when you are on while you are physically streaming.  You can also archive your broadcasts so that your followers can watch various streams whenever it is convenient for them, as well as allows new followers the chance to “catch up” on all the great content they missed.

Another great app is a New York City based startup, Katch.me, which allows you to record either of your Periscope or Meerkat streams and utilize them elsewhere.  It is incredibly simple: all you do is add the hashtag #katch in the header of a Periscope or Meerkat stream and it will record automatically.  If that wasn’t easy enough, you can go to katch.me, and get in by signing in with your twitter account, and the whole thing will automate for you.  It is a foolproof way to keep that killer content you’re creating and use it in any way you see fit.

With a basic working knowledge of what these apps have to offer and how they can work together, you have to figure out how to utilize them in your content marketing efforts to your fullest advantage.

Using Live Streaming to Market Content: You Need To Amass an Audience

Both Periscope and Meerkat will give you live streaming capability to reach your followers.  While Periscope has a higher percentage of downloads (sporting over 10 million users as of August 2015), Meerkat has the advantage in the useful features category: it has cameo availability where you can invite users to take over your stream for up to 60 seconds, it integrates with GoPro, and also has a video feature included.

However, keep in mind that both platforms allow you to build your audience quickly.  The two apps do this in slightly different ways, and there’s no reason you can’t use them simultaneously to take capitalize on that fact and reach as many app users as possible.

With Meerkat you can create an audience rapidly, says Small Business Trends author Austin Iuliano, due to a feature “follow up”.  The app gives you the ability to see who engaged with you during your live stream and follow them on Twitter.  This type of direct interaction will help expand and sustain a loyal following, as well as providing you with large amounts of feedback.  You can use that information to help direct the path you should take, enabling you to continue making your content more and more appealing to viewers.

Periscope’s big advantage is that it already has a massive worldwide audience who are watching over 40 years’ worth of video every day.  And that’s only the live broadcasts.  This preexisting pool of followers can catch up any time with the app’s replay feature, and its map allows users to follow streams from around the globe.  Just think of the amount of people who could—and should be—viewing your content.  And it is as simple as streaming to reach every one of them!

They both have pros and cons, but ultimately the goal is to broaden your audience.  Whether you are trying to promote or sell yourself as a brand or a physical product, both apps can deliver you to a potentially massive pool of followers who are already looking for content.  They are out there waiting for you, you should take full advantage!

You will need to get acquainted with the act of live streaming video and its content to win over customer attention and be able to compete, not just next year but to be viable and relevant in the future.  Embracing technology is critical to your marketing campaigns from now on.  Just look at how far we’ve come in the last ten years!

People used to have to reach for encyclopedias for information years and years ago.  Then, with the birth of the internet, people could look things up online. And then YouTube hit the internet.  YouTube has revolutionized what we all know as video since its launch in February of 2005.  The ability to create and view user-made, high value video material has changed the way people look for help.  For example, if you needed to change the oil in your car, where would you most likely look?  Before YouTube, you had to look up a text somewhere.  After its launch, people turned to a content type they much prefer: the video format. 

Obviously people believe that a video would be more helpful, because it gives viewers the opportunity to physically watch someone walk them through the process.  But what if you could go beyond that?  Instead of simply watching someone change their oil on YouTube, what if you could watch a live tutorial with a professional mechanic? Even better, what if it went a step further, and the mechanic could not only be able to walk you through the process, but be able to answer your questions while he’s doing it?  That YouTube how-to isn’t looking so helpful anymore, is it?  The live tutorial is clearly the better choice and the more appealing option.

This is where live-streaming makes the most impact.  It gives people the capability to design cost-effective, individualized content on a regular basis, as well as the ability to interact with followers at scale.  All you have to do is tap into that ready and available market.

Ways to Use Apps like Periscope, Meerkat, and Katch.me

The process is incredibly easy.  All you have to do is start a streaming video on one or both Periscope and Meerkat, and use #katch in your header or title.  That’s all there is to it.

There are some basic rules for making successful streaming content.  Have a topic in mind before you begin and don’t forget to engage with your followers.  After you finish your stream, as long as you added the hashtag or signed in, Katch.me would automatically record what you’ve streamed and publish it for you to YouTube.  Then you can download the video, splice or edit it however you like, and then it is ready to be re-uploaded to your YouTube channel.

If you are really comfortable with this kind of technology, you can add more related, in-depth information to a website, blog article, or additional video streams, and drive users directly to it.  After streaming with Meerkat, you have the capability to remotely direct people to a specific landing page with this “bonus” content.  Meerkat makes it simple for viewers with a simple button click and this is a great way to direct traffic directly to the location of your choosing.

Put Live Streaming on Your Content Calendar

If it’s possible to – and you should – make the time, it is best to stream daily.  90 minutes a day making and adding streaming content will have a positive impact on increasing your audience, keep people checking your feeds, and it gives you lots of options to use on your other social media sites.

Your content calendar is probably already chock-full of interviews, podcast, Q&A sessions, and blogging.  Rather than looking at streaming as yet another to-do, you can combine the stuff you’re already doing and use it to actually make your streaming content.   No extra work or time needed!  When you do a podcast or interviews consider streaming it to either Meerkat or Periscope (or both).  If you need quotes or stats for an article in a blog, use streaming to reach your followers and have them provides the info you’re looking for.

You can even use down time to stream and connect with your audience.  Don’t make every stream about work.  Followers want to be able to relate to you, and revealing that side of you when you are “off the clock” will give them access to a side of you that they might not typically get to see.  In a new place or really just want to show off your hometown?  Stream it and become an instant tour guide to a captivated audience.  The same thing goes for social interactions: say you are out for a beer with some friends, or watching a sporting event.  Why not stream that, too?  A good argument about who will lose or win the big game or hanging around with your friends will show your followers what you’re really about.  Showing your human side can really work to your advantage.  By giving people something unexpected occasionally, you will intrigue them and keep them coming back. The possibilities are endless and the only limit is you deciding what to stream.  Your best streams will come from the most unlikely places, so always be thinking about streaming. 

If you get caught up in your video that you forget to include #katch in the header or title, no need to worry.  As soon as you remember, drop the hashtag in your comments section and it would automatically start recording!  Just be sure to do it before the really fun stuff you want to save starts happening.

Drive Engagement with Live Streaming

Once you have the skills and familiarity to create amazing content, your confidence will grow and you move forward.  The next thing to do would be to get the necessary audience to view it.  It seems everyone in the business world is in the social media game, and it’s getting harder and harder to create worthwhile, attention-grabbing content.

Live streaming, however, is different.  If you can put out solid, entertaining and informative content, you’ll distinguish yourself and separate from the pack.  The better your offerings, the more shares you will get and get other people to join your stream.  This way, you are creating more attention and a broader audience for not only you but for your brand as well, improving your chances of success and creating new business opportunities.

Then, once you have your fantastic content streaming and lots of social broadcast or shares, you start asking for engagement.  When you know people are interested and listening to you, you can promote yourself.  Want a blog article circulated?  You have to politely encourage people to share it with friends.  Ever launched products with a digital edge to it like an eBook or app?  Tell people to check it out and purchase it.

With more upfront value you are able to generate, the more easily you would find it to drive this type of engagement.  More advice on this marketing theory is in the great book “Jab Jab Right Hook” by Cary Vaynerchuk.  You’ll find it is incredibly insightful and make you reevaluate your current social media marketing strategy.

Apps like Meerkat, Periscope, and Katch.me are easy to use for marketing your brand’s content.  Check them out and get started expanding your audience.  The results will amaze you, and you’ll be glad you did.