Building a Live Streaming Strategy From Scratch
A practical 2015 guide to getting started with Periscope and Meerkat, both launched in March that year, for businesses new to live video.
Two apps changed live video for ordinary businesses in a single month. Meerkat launched at SXSW in early March 2015 and spread fast among the marketing and tech crowd already gathered in Austin. Twitter responded within weeks by launching its own app, Periscope, and quickly restricted Meerkat’s access to Twitter’s social graph, a move that shifted momentum firmly toward Periscope almost overnight. For a business figuring out where to start, here’s a realistic build plan.
Step 1: Pick one platform, not both. Periscope had the advantage of Twitter’s existing follow graph, meaning new broadcasts could surface to people who already followed you there. Meerkat still had a passionate early-adopter audience, but a lot of that promise depended on Twitter integration it had just lost. Unless you have a reason to test both, start with Periscope.
Step 2: Choose a format that needs to be live. Live streaming only works when “happening right now” adds something a pre-recorded video wouldn’t. A live Q&A, a product launch, a behind-the-scenes look at how something gets made, these justify the format. A scripted announcement you could have filmed and edited doesn’t.
Step 3: Promote the broadcast before it starts. Unlike a video you upload once, a live stream’s biggest audience is the one watching in the moment; replays got far less attention in 2015 than the live broadcast itself. Post about it on your other channels an hour or a day ahead, with a specific time, not just “going live soon.”
Step 4: Plan to engage with comments in real time. Viewers can comment and “heart” a stream as it happens, and the businesses that did well treated this as a live conversation, reading questions aloud and responding, not a monologue with an audience watching silently.
Step 5: Keep it short and have a clear start and end. Fifteen to twenty minutes was a realistic target. Open with a quick explanation of what viewers are about to see, since people join mid-stream and need context immediately, and close with a clear next step.
Step 6: Save what worked and repeat it. Both apps let broadcasts be replayed for a limited window afterward. Note which formats got the most live viewers and comments, and build your next broadcast around that instead of guessing again from scratch.
Step 7: Set expectations internally. Live streaming in 2015 was new enough that mistakes on camera, dead air, a dropped connection, were part of the format’s appeal rather than a disaster. Don’t let perfectionism stop the team from starting.
The technology here was brand new, but the underlying discipline wasn’t: know why you’re going live, tell people it’s happening, show up and pay attention to what your specific audience responds to.
