Summary:
Zach Spuckler is a 22 year old entrepreneur who has unlocked the formula to grow your business on Periscope. In this episode he reveals how he used Periscope marketing to go from zero to six figures in sales in just one year. This interview is packed with actionable tips and strategies that you can start applying today!
Links:
- Microphone recommendation: smartLav+
- To find Zach on Periscope: Heart, Soul & Hustle
- To find out more about Zach’s training programs: Heartsoulhustle.com/class
Transcription Episode 71: From Broke Student to Six Figures Online Using Periscope Marketing With Zach Spuckler
Welcome to the Project Ignite podcast, a podcast designed to skip the hype, skip all that B.S., and just give you real, actionable tips and strategies from real digital entrepreneurs to help you grow your business and income on the Internet.
This is your host, Derek Gehl.
Today we’re going to be diving deep into what is a pretty hot topic these days in the world of digital marketing, and that is live streaming and Periscope marketing.
I’m looking forward to today’s interview because our guest today is a pretty interesting young entrepreneur who went from being a student to right into a six-figure digital business in just one year.
One of the primary drivers of that was Periscope marketing, and so we’re going to dig into how he did that so you can walk away with some good tips and Periscope marketing strategy.
Without further ado, I’d like to welcome Zach Spuckler to the show.
Zach, thank you for being here.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Awesome. Before we get started, take a few minutes and expand on my introduction and more specifically, share your journey as an entrepreneur. I mean, you went from student to success online pretty quickly. Walk us through that.
Yeah. It’s funny, because when people ask me about my story I always say I really did make my first dollar online when I was twelve, and I remember that because I had to borrow my dad’s social security number and do all the business as him so that I could get a W-9 at the end of the year. I remember doing that and I had done all kinds of stuff.
I did freelance work and when I was first getting started, there used to be this thing called pay-to-click advertising. It’s actually still around, where it’s very similar to what we think of in the digital marketing side as Facebook ads, but essentially all of these big companies that do digital marketing pay money to get people who are trying to make money to click on their ads.
It’s this very vicious cycle, but I managed to make some money doing that. From there it kind of expanded out and I have investigated all kinds of things.
I’ve done niche sites that I have flipped and sold, I’ve done SEO, I’ve done freelance, I’ve done direct sales, and I wouldn’t say that any have been quite as profitable or rise-to-success as fast as this one has, but a lot of my past websites do every once in awhile kick me back a check.
Every once in awhile I get a Clickbank payment for something that I did years ago. I still, generally speaking, get a weekly paycheck from my direct sales business, albeit a small paycheck. It does send me cash every once in awhile.
I’ve kind of been online and studying business and marketing for closer to ten years, which always sounds funny because I’m twenty-two, but I’ve been doing it for about ten years. I’ve just been studying the industry.
Over the past three years, I kind of shifted my perspective because I’d always done what I consider kind of external work on someone else’s business as a free agent. I was doing that pay-to-click, I was doing the freelance, I was doing stuff like that, and I kind of realized …
At the time I was making one to two cents a word, which that was a big deal when I was just starting college. I was making twenty bucks an hour to work for my dorm room, which was cool, but I was like, “If they’re paying me twenty bucks an hour, they’re making more than twenty bucks an hour. Maybe I should look into the other side.”
I started to explore things like Facebook ads and webinars and I started plugging that into my direct sales business which ended up being a really amazing playground for all kinds of stuff.
Back in the early days, I actually was learning Facebook ads and I ran a Facebook ad, and I ended up getting people to schedule a time to chat with me and I was selling products for my direct sales business. At the time, I didn’t really realize that I had essentially done a sales funnel.
Over time I kind of stepped out the sandbox of somebody else’s products and I started working on some other stuff. Since then it’s kind of grown and just been a really awesome project.
What does your business look like today? What is it? What are you doing?
Yeah, so right now I’m really in the digital course business and what had happened was … When I first started this business, I actually started as a virtual assistant for about three to six months. I don’t know the exact timeframe on it, but I started as a virtual assistant because I was very strategic and I knew enough about business, I knew enough about digital marketing that I could go assist someone with their business and I could charge a reasonable rate.
My goal at that time was to make about five hundred dollars a month to invest in my business. In a weird way, the way my business has grown has been: I’ve always been very transparent about what I do and I’ve transferred it over.
I did that, knowing that I wanted to run Facebook ads for people and I was essentially just kind of doing some grunt work to get my name out there and I ended up working with some really awesome entrepreneurs.
One is Kimra Luna. We’ve become really amazing friends and we’ve since done joint ventures together and all kinds of amazing stuff. We’ve each been guest experts in each other’s program, but that’s how I originally started.
That’s something that’s always been really important to me because a lot of people kind of skip over that piece where they’re like, “Well, you started as a broke college kid and you did nothing.” I’m like, “Well, that’s true, but I started this side business as a way to influx the cash to run Facebook ads, to do webinars, and do those kinds of things.”
I started to invest that money in, and when Periscope came about, it was live streaming. Even at that time I was still a nobody but I had a little bit of cash in the bank to make things happen. It wasn’t a ton but it was enough that I was kind of ready to invest in.
I just went all in with live streaming and Periscope marketing, and I had a thousand dollars within a couple of weeks. Within four weeks I was just killing the game and I essentially said, “I’m going to do a webinar and I’m going to show people how I’m doing what I’m doing marketing with Periscope.”
I guess that that’s always been part of my brand, is that I was never like: “Let me teach you how to make a million dollars with live streaming in three days.” I was very much like: “Hey, here’s what I figured out. I can package it up and give it you.”
At the time I think it was a thousand dollars a week. That was my big sell. I’m was like, “I’m making like a thousand bucks a week doing Periscope marketing so if you want to learn how to do that, join the program.”
Then the program grew and then that grew into a six-figure Periscope marketing program, which grew into a multi six-figure Periscope marketing business, and we brought in other programs and were going into big launches and the team expanded.
So it’s been a very organic journey in that we have relied very heavily on live streaming and Periscope marketing and we also run Facebook ads things like that, but I’ve always just come from a standpoint of I try something, I implement it.
If it works, I share it. If it doesn’t work, I share that, too. When something works really, really well, I package it up. I put it into a very approachable system. We pretty it up and we sell it.
Brilliant. Now let’s dive into what’s been working well for you with the live streaming and Periscope marketing.
Before we jump into it, though, let’s just make sure all of our listeners are on the same page because live streaming, it is still relatively new. I mean, some of the platforms have been around for a little while but just for the listeners, define what live streaming is.
Yeah, so live streaming is really just leveraging the power of live video. Live video has been around for a really long time, but what’s different with live streaming now in the context that it’s being used in social media is that a lot of live streaming is being done via mobile devices: iPhones, Androids, all that good stuff.
The two real core live streaming platforms are Periscope and Facebook Live. You’re probably familiar with Facebook Live, because if you’re listening to this there’s like a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance you’re on Facebook.
Periscope marketing is essentially … I wouldn’t say comparable in terms of the logistics, but comparable in terms of the application to Facebook Live but as a standalone platform.
Very similar to how Instagram’s a standalone image platform, even though you can post images on Facebook. I see those as a very similar parallel.
What’s happening with Periscope marketing and live streaming now is that prior to this, it took a lot of work to do live streaming. You had to set up a live video, you had to have the software. Even with Google Hangouts on air that have been around for gosh, it feels like several years now or maybe it is. You don’t do Google Hangouts on air.
You still had to set up the page, install it on your website and get chat, and now you can literally log in with Twitter or Facebook and you’re instantly going live to anyone.
It’s a little bit of a double-edged sword because Periscope marketing is just like any other social media. It still requires some marketing, but it’s really never been easier to build that instant connection. Because it is you in an unfiltered, unscripted setting, people get a very real glimpse at how you operate.
You know, things are going to slip out. You’re going to make a fool out of yourself at least once. You’re going to forget your words. That’s kind of what people are looking for. We’ve seen this trend in marketing over the past several years that people want to work with personal brands. They want to work with people.
It’s why influence or marketing is so prevalent even though we don’t hear about it, because we don’t necessarily consider ourselves influencers but there’s a reason people like Kim Kardashian are being paid amazing amounts of money to put something on their Instagram. Because people want what people have.
People don’t want to buy products anymore, they want people, and they want to have that connection with people. That’s what live streaming’s really bringing to the game.
The two platforms that you’re spending your time with, Periscope marketing and Facebook right now. Is there more benefits to one than the other? Are you splitting your time evenly?
Yeah, so I don’t really split my time evenly and truthfully, a lot of my audience is on Periscope because that’s where I built it up using Periscope marketing.
I don’t do a ton of Facebook Live, so this is what I always tell people. This is one of the few things in my business that I’m kind of like a double-edged sword about because I don’t spend a ton of time on Facebook Live, but I really understand the platform.
If I’m going live on Facebook, I’m either growing my list, growing my bottom line, or doing something that’s ultimately going to result in a return on investment. Right?
With Facebook Live, my intention is if I’m going live on Facebook, I’m probably making money. If I’m going live marketing with Periscope, I’m doing it to engage my audience. Very comparable to how you post on Facebook every day to keep your audience engaged. Right?
I show up on Periscope almost every single day. I’ve actually been on there for over a year and I’ve actually taken time off the last two weeks to just recharge a little bit, but for the first year I was on there Periscope marketing I missed less than two weeks collectively or somewhere right around there.
About two weeks collectively over fifty-two weeks. I showed up fifty weeks out of fifty-two, give or take a couple of days.
Wow, okay. That’s a lot.
Yeah.
The question I have, then, is what are you talking about? How are you leveraging Periscope marketing to grow business? How’s that following growing? Right? To hear somebody talk every day on Periscope, do you find it’s the same people coming? Different people? Give us the lowdown.
Yeah, so there’s a few different things in there with Periscope marketing. As far as what to talk about … I always talk about what’s relevant, what my audience wants, and we have been really strategic in that I plugged my Periscope into a Facebook group.
I have a Facebook group of about five thousand people. At any time I can kind of get finger on the pulse of my community. I can go right now, poll my group, ask them what they want me to talk about, and have content ready to go.
Very similar, we’ve surveyed my audience and … I should step back just a little bit a say …
The objection I always hear is: “Well, I don’t have a big Facebook group” or “I don’t have enough people to survey” or “I don’t know what to do”. That’s okay, because I didn’t have that on day one, either, but you build it up over time.
Start with something that you know really, really well. Whatever that is.
When I started with Periscope marketing, I wasn’t talking about Periscope and that’s something that made it a lot easier to sell my course. I was selling Facebook apps, and I used to do done-for-you Facebook ad services. That’s what I was selling via Periscope marketing.
That’s the first thing. In terms of what to talk about, talk about what you know, build the audience, and then the audience will essentially tell you what it is they want to hear.
As far as how I’m actually profiting from it, we say that there’s three profit centers to Periscope marketing. You have money that you make directly on the platforms. I can go live and say “go buy my thing” and I can make money, and I do that all the time.
There’s also passive income or indirect income where I say “join me on my list” and then I have funnels set up to sell my products on the back end.
Then there’s a third way, which is I can go live, get people on the phone and close them into high ticket products.
I use all three with Periscope marketing, all three work incredibly well, and we’ve sold a good chunk of change every kind of way. That’s the three ways that we make money.
The question is always: “How much can you make with Periscope marketing?” The highest ticket product we’ve ever sold from someone who’s seen me on Periscope is a five thousand dollar coaching package, so I’ve never gone beyond the five thousand dollar mark, but I can tell you that I know …
Someone who found me on Periscope connected with us, we got on the phone, we closed that deal, and that was a five thousand dollar client. Paid in full. You can get a really sizable payment or a really sizable customer base or a really sizable actual price tag with the platform. That’s what’s so powerful about Periscope marketing versus other platforms.
Ways to bring new people in using Periscope marketing
Then the third piece is: How do you bring new people in using Periscope marketing? This is something that’s kind of changing. The first year there was very easy, very low barrier to entry and it wasn’t really as hard to kind of become an up-and-comer.
Now, I wouldn’t say that it’s hard now. I mean, I still get great attendance in my Periscopes. The truth is, I say that it’s very parallel to the Facebook organic algorithm.
Anybody who’s been online for more than maybe two years probably remembers that Facebook did this big update to pages. Suddenly you got this amazing organic reach. Everybody who liked your page was seeing your content. Then virtually overnight it went down to an average of six percent.
This was the battle cry heard across the Internet: “Facebook’s dead. Don’t market on Facebook. Facebook is going away.” Right?
That’s what everybody said. The strategic people who stuck around worked through the wall, their pages went up. They instituted advertising, they instituted additional measures, and they brought more money in than everybody else who was crying wolf, so to speak.
I say that there’s a very similar thing happening with Periscope marketing right now.
Unfortunately, I’m not psychic, so I can’t predict if it’ll rebound the same way or if it won’t rebound the same way, but this is what I tell people. You’re now going to have to organically market yourself on the platform, and the best way to do that is to plug into other people’s broadcasts and connect with those people and engage in other broadcasts.
That’s how I built my following up from the early days using Periscope marketing. I just engaged with other people.
That still works with Periscope marketing. It’s always worked, it’s probably going to continue to work, but because the platform’s a year old there’s nothing intrinsically exciting about following somebody new. Right?
I call it like that, that new excitement. That bubble isn’t necessarily burst but it’s definitely pushing. Now what you’re going to have to do is continue that structure but …
Luckily for me this is what I’ve said from day one so it doesn’t change too, too much but I like to give that little preface, is that: anybody listening who’s like, “Well, it feels different” … Well, it probably is different because it’s not new and exciting anymore. You now have to plug it into your existing marketing channels.
You now have to tell people who follow you on Instagram: “Hey, I’m going to go on Periscope.”
You now have to invite your list to join you live on Periscope. You’re going to have to post it on Facebook or take your content and put it on YouTube.
I have one person I’ve worked with who, they take their Periscope content, they put it on YouTube and that’s been just a massive source of revenue for them. It’s literally growing their business expansively, and they just connected two platforms. Very similar to how Facebook is where now you can’t just post on Facebook every day and get popular.
You have to plug it into marketing channels. You have to do the same thing with Periscope.
That’s kind of how you can build going forward but again, the way that I started and a way that still works because I have new testimonials and new case studies all the time from our programs, is you simply show up, you go into somebody else’s broadcast in a very comparable niche to you, you engage with them, and people will follow you because you’re an engaging person.
That’s, again, something else that makes Periscope marketing unique, is that people are following people. They’re not following brands.
Okay. Yeah, you answered that question there. I had that question written down.
Engaging using Periscope marketing is going out, finding other interesting people on Periscope that have a following, engaging, and then you’re going to grab followers from there.Now, if somebody starts with Periscope marketing … It’s not just build on Periscope and it’s going to grow. It’s set up your Periscope, engage with others, but then use these other channels to drive people back to Periscope, as well.
Here’s the question I have, is what’s your success like of saying: “Hey guys on Facebook, I’m over here on Periscope”? Do you find that they’re pretty willing to move over and use that platform?
Yeah, so that’s a really good question. I mean, it really just depends on the audience but personally, I really don’t do that a lot. I don’t have to do that too much because … This is one of those things where it kind of sucks that now I’m a little more popular, that I don’t always get ground floor access.
Luckily, I have a lot of good friends and I have a lot of students who do have ground floor access, so I get to see what’s working but I don’t necessarily get to experience it in that same light.
3 Ways to Drive Traffic to Periscope
For me, what I find is most effective … There’s really three ways that we’re always driving new traffic to our Periscope.
Number one: consistency on the platform is ridiculously important. If you show up every day, even if you have an audience of twenty people, realize that Bob may not share you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but then on Thursday he is in the mood to share it out. Now you get access to his hundred followers.
Okay? That’s the first thing, where you consistently show up and it does grow the platform.
The second thing is: all of our indoctrination emails, which is … It’s an Internet marketing term that I just threw out there. Also called the welcome email or the first email somebody gets when they sign up from anything for us, says, “Hey, don’t forget to follow us on Periscope.”
Anybody who’s a new lead has the potential to come connect with us on the platform.
Then the third way that we’re doing it is I do that organic marketing, but I’m very selective about it.
The reason I’m really selective about it is: I guarantee for a fact that almost everybody listening to this … That’s a bold statement so now I hope I’m right. I’m pretty confident that you know or are connected to somebody who’s a marketer online or who’s running their business online, and it constantly feels like you’re seeing one of two things.
They’re always live on Facebook, always, day after day. No other content, just going live, or they’re constantly inviting you to follow them. That was Periscope marketing for a long time: “Oh, make sure you follow me on Periscope.”
We’re seeing that a lot with Snapchat now, too, where people are like: “Follow me on Snapchat. Follow me on Snapchat. Follow me on Snapchat.” I think it’s okay to a point to promote that, but what we do is a little different.
I say if you tell people to follow you every single day, that’s white noise. You might not be a white noise on day one or day seven but by day thirty, I’ve stopped listening to you.
With the way Facebook algorithms work and now even Instagram algorithm, if I start to ignore you I start to not see you. You don’t want to be ignored on any social platform.
What we do is we’re strategic with our Periscope marketing. I’ll bring in guest experts to my Periscope from time to time or I’ll do a really big Periscope or I’ll do a five-day challenge on Periscope.
I’ll create a reason for it to be good to promote it on another social platform, but if I’m just constantly throwing out “follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me,” that’s white noise and that’s not ultimately going to result in followers.
If you’re unsure that that’s true or you would second guess that, the invitation I’ll throw you to review is: there’s a really good chance that you’ve created a freebie for your business or if you’ve created a freebie for your business.
You create it, you get all excited, you post it on your page and you get like two opt-ins. You post it again tomorrow and you post it again in a week.
It will never gain that momentum because it’s the same content. You have to be bringing in new people, and you have to be creating reasons for them to want to join.
It’s why the top marketers don’t post “get my freebie” twenty-four-seven. They post really good content, and that content is designed to specifically move you through a marketing track and, in our case, we just put Periscope on the marketing track and move people through it.
Right. Okay. I don’t know how to phrase this. What’s the future of Periscope marketing in your eyes? Where are they going with advertising? I mean, right now it’s pretty much all free. They don’t, as far as I know, have an ad platform or any way to monetize it. Where is Periscope marketing going?
Yeah, so right now they don’t have an advertising platform, though they are directly connected to Twitter and Twitter does have an advertising platform.
As it sits right now, I don’t really know what the future of Periscope marketing holds in terms of profitability or what they’re looking to do for profits, but the truth is they’re backed by one of the largest social companies in the world.
If you’ve been around the live streaming game for more than a year now, which would be almost since its inception, so to speak, you would have seen Meerkat.
Meerkat was an original live streaming platform. A lot of people were like, “Meerkat’s going to beat Periscope. Meerkat’s going to beat Periscope.” I put my money on Periscope because it was backed by Twitter.
It’s one of those things where … I don’t have insider information. You know what I mean? I don’t know what they’re doing, but what I can tell you is they’re not making money right now, as far as we know, on the front end or from what you see on the front end.
They’re okay to invest money in. That’s the first thing. A company that’s willing to invest is a company to pay attention to.
The second thing is they’re ridiculously responsive to their audience. They’re constantly updating the app. They’re constantly making changes and they’re doing it based on what their customers want.
That’s another really important thing to watch for. If a company is responsive and reactive to the marketplace, that’s a really good sign for them.
Now the third thing is, from a purely statistical standpoint, their user base continues to grow. If they’re responsive, reactive, they’re backed by a big company and they’re continuing to grow, then there’s no reason not to spend your time there.
The last thing I tell people is: let’s just put it on the table. Let’s say Periscope marketing is dying right now. It’s going off the market. They’re eventually going to close their doors, right? They’re still insanely profitable.
Somebody said that to me the other day. I think it was about a month ago they said, “I think Periscope is dying.” I said, “It’s the most profitable death of any social platform I’ve ever seen.” Even if I’m wrong.
Don’t necessarily neglect because it feels like, well, maybe Facebook Live is better. The last thing I always say is remember when … again, this is way back but for a while on Facebook you used to be able to post a photo with a link on it, and it would get this ridiculous reach. Because it wasn’t technically a link, it was a photo.
For I want to say a month or two months, this was the strategy. Everybody touted this. Post a photo with a link, you’ll get insane reach, and then it went away. Then everybody was like: “Well, now links don’t get reach.”
I see, again, a very similar parallel to Periscope marketing strategy. Yeah, what worked nine months ago might not work the exact same way. It now requires a little bit of additional effort or change or things like that, but that’s kind of where I see it.
They’re a reactive company, they’re a responsive company, they’re a growing company, so I’m going to continue to bet on them to continue. I also know Facebook Live works, so I’m not going to fully neglect that either.
Maybe once every one to two weeks I pop on Facebook Live, I share something, I run it as an ad, and I continue to grow my business.
Got it. Okay, so let’s shift gears now and talk a little bit about the actual episodes themselves.
You’re doing a ton of episodes. One of the questions that pops up a lot when we start talking about this is: How long should an episode be? What’s a format look like? Should you be doing it in the same place every time or should you be in different places? What’s been most effective for you with Periscope marketing?
Yeah, so in terms of length, I always say about five to ten minutes of content is a good place to be but then I stick around until people stop talking.
If you’ve ever kind of studied Internet marketing or you’re kind of new to the game, you’ll almost inevitably find some step by step epic blog post, freebie, webinar, etc. that says “survey your potential audience” or “speak to your potential audience” or “make your ideal customer avatar”. Right?
We hear that everywhere. One of the reasons that Periscope marketing was so vital to our profitability, and I promise I didn’t forget the question because I know this feels a little off topic, but the reason it was so vital is that we did really short bursts of content. Five to ten minutes, but then we stuck around while people talked to us.
You would be amazed at the things people will tell you in Periscope or Facebook Live right there on a video. They’ll tell you, “Hey, my biggest struggle is this” or “I can’t figure this out” or “I don’t know how to do this” or “Will you do a training on this.”What I started doing was just making notes and writing things down and paying attention to what questions I was continuously getting asked.
When I started paying attention to those questions, I was able to create content directly related to them.
What you want to do is show up every day, have really concise content, but that doesn’t mean that you have concise broadcasts or that you have a concise time that you’re there. It just means you put the content out fast. You want to give people that opportunity to tell you what they want.
Right. In every episode, is there some kind of … Let’s call it a branding exercise or a call to action or something along those lines.
Yeah, so we always have a call to action, and what I say is: you should never be going live without a reason.
Anytime that I go live … If you’ve seen me recently I’ve been a little off about this, because I’m actually in a recharging season so I’m not pushing too heavy on any of my promotion right now.
When I’m promoting or when I’m in a season of promotion or when I’m growing my business actively, we always have a call to action and so I teach my students: if you’re going live, there better be a reason. Is it to get people on a webinar? Is it to fill your list? Is it to get people on your freebie? Why are you actually going live?
You always want to have a really strong, succinct, and short call to action.
By short, I don’t mean the actual call to action. I mean the path that they take. One thing that a lot of people neglect when it comes to live streaming is most people are watching you from a mobile device, and so if it’s hard to take action on their mobile device, they just won’t do it.
You need a really short in length that’s really easy to remember, links directly to a mobile friendly page, and instantly moves them into your funnel.
Yeah, there always needs to be a call to action when you’re using as a promotional tool. The reason I gave you that little caveat about how I haven’t done that a ton recently is I think it’s very comparable to Facebook.
We hear that all the time: post with intention, but that doesn’t always mean the intention is not just to garner engagement. Right? You don’t always have to push them to a list, push them to a promotion. You do always want to give them something, even if the call to action is “share this out”, “Tweet this out”, “tell your friends”. Give them something to do to keep them engaged.
Got it. Okay, so last topic related to Periscope marketing strategy would be actual setup equipment, stuff to get started. I mean, what do you need asides from a mobile phone? Are you setting up lighting? Are you in effectively a little home studio? How do you do this?
Yeah, so as far as the actual setup goes, I just use my phone most of the time.
I don’t really stress over lighting too much. I know that some people are really big on the lighting, but I’m not too big on that. I think that ultimately the draw of the platform is that it’s very low key, very down to earth, very approachable. If I go crazy over-producing that content, then I’m not as approachable anymore.
It works out for me because I don’t have to put a ton of time and effort into shooting a quick video.
First things first. If you’re trying to figure out what equipment you need, all you need is a smartphone. Now, if you want to step your game up, can get a lavalier mic. smartLav+ is a really good one that you can get. I think it’s seventy bucks on Amazon. The price fluctuates a little bit.
It updates your audio quality to just be a little higher. It gives it a little upgrade. The other thing is: if you put on a microphone, it instantly creates what I call the authority effect.
I know the few people on Periscope who speak into a professional microphone even though it’s not plugged in. It just makes you look like an authority. I’ve done it too, and it’s a really good strategy because somebody who invested in that just is immediately perceived as more authority.
Very subtle things that you can do, but I personally don’t use that too much. As far as where to do it or what to do it against, like backdrop, I would say make sure it’s clean. I wouldn’t do it if your house is your disaster.
I’ve seen some people, I’m like, “Don’t know that I would’ve went live without cleaning out the background a little bit.”
Do it somewhere where it’s good, it’s decent lighting. I try to have semi-nice lighting, but the only place that I really stress over is I sit near a nice window. If you sit near a window where the light comes in, not in direct sunlight, you’ll have perfect lighting.
It’s natural light. I used to do food photography. That’s the best kind of light you can get, is natural light. That’s what I use most of the time.
Okay, actually one more question after this. Once you’re done the episode, what do you do with that content? Are you repurposing it? Are you leveraging it anywhere else?
Yeah, so this is one part where … We share that you can leverage. We have people that leverage on YouTube. I personally don’t leverage my content too frequently in that capacity. What I normally do is may take the concept or the content and do something else with it, but I very, very rarely repurpose the video.
Now, that being said, I know people who repurpose the video and get tens of thousands of views on YouTube. It’s an incredibly effective tool. It’s just something that … It’s not a priority in my business right at this time.
What I like to do is take that content. Sometimes we put it into paid products, so if I do a really amazing Periscope or amazing series, I can package it up and sell it. We’ve done it before. I can package it up and give it as a fast-acting bonus. We’ve done that before.
Then you can also take the physical content or … Not physical. I guess I should say “intangible”.
Let’s say I talk about five ways to grow your Periscope following. I have my five key points, then I’m going to get a ton of feedback from my audience. Based on my content and their feedback, I can go write a blog post, or I can go do another live stream a week later, or I can take that and turn it into a Facebook post that directly answers all their questions and inherently gives it a higher value.
That’s how I prefer to leverage my Periscope marketing content. There’s nothing wrong with leveraging it directly. The only thing I’ll caution you about when it comes to repurposing your content from either Periscope or Facebook: remember that people on YouTube and even Facebook are not there for live interaction, and they’re not there to watch a thirty minute video.
If you take this Periscope and when you repurpose it, if you don’t actually record it from the screen which is a whole other process, the video going to save to your phone as just you talking to yourself with no comments, no context. I always say, “If you take a thirty minute video of you yelling at yourself like a schizophrenic, it’s not going to age your brand.”
You need to be really strategic about what Periscope marketing you’re repurposing so even when we do repurpose, I either structure my content, the actual delivery of it, very intentionally so that it can be repurposed very clean, or I deliver content very solid for five minutes and I’ll take that five minute chunk and repurpose it. You have to be strategic.
It’s kind of like … We hear all the time that you shouldn’t just take your Instagram photo and throw it on Twitter, then throw it on Pinterest, and put it on Facebook. Take care in treating the platforms with respect and treating them in the way that they’re designed to be used, or ultimately you’re just throwing crap at the wall and hoping it sticks.
Yeah. For sure. As far as capturing video on Periscope, are there any services or any tools that you use to actually capture the full effect, not just you but actually the comments, stuff like that?
Yeah, if you want to capture the full effect the easiest way to do it is to Periscope near your computer. Plug it in. If you have a Mac, Quicktime will do it. I believe Quicktime will do it for Windows, as well. That’s how we do it. I just plug my phone in, hit the record button on my computer, and it’ll actually capture the screen from the iPhone.
Fantastic. Speaking of YouTube, because I know a lot of people repurpose put on YouTube, what do you think the future holds for YouTube and live streaming? Because I got to think that’s on the roadmap soon.
They just recently announced that it’s coming very soon, so there’s going to be something called … I believe it’s Google Connect, which is actually through YouTube because YouTube is a Google company now.
There actually is going to be another live streaming person coming to the game. It’s already been rolled out. Now it’s back to me and I have to talk about it for a second.
They just rolled it out to some influencers. Very similar to what Facebook did with their live streaming, they’re rolling it out to influencers first, getting feedback on it, and then they’re going to roll it out to the general public, assuming that it kind of continues.
Based on the way live streaming’s going now, there’s probably a really good chance it’s going to roll out to the public.
They’re going to have something coming to the game, too. My kind of prediction, if I could be so bold, is that it’s probably going to be more in the benefit of SEO and structured videos and you’re going to be able to go live in the capacity that … When you go live on Periscope or Facebook, you’re not retaining a lot of this kind of residual effect.
You don’t get the residual effect and with YouTube you do get the residual effect on videos. I think that that’s probably where they’re going to come into the game and be a little bit stronger, but you’re also, again, it’s not a platform designed for live interaction.
They have all kinds of things that they bring to the game, advantages, disadvantages, and I think over time we’re kind of going to see that these platforms all come together in a very strategic way.
To me at this stage of the game, it’s not worth panicking or jumping ship to one or the other. It’s not even really worth trying to straddle a line in every space.
It’s about finding what speaks to you, what speaks to your business, and then just going all in on at least one of them. So many people kind of freak out, like “do I have to be here, do I have to be there”.
When Twitter added video, it didn’t run YouTube out of business. When YouTube added cards to their videos, it didn’t run Twitter cards out of business and when Instagram added sixty second videos, it didn’t kill videos on Twitter. Don’t assume that someone has to win. Understand that audiences will evolve and change and it’s always been like that.
There’s people who will tell you right now that Twitter is dead, and there’s people I know who make a living on Twitter. Keep an open mind. Know that the best thing you can do in the live streaming world is just pay attention to the big blogs, pay attention to the podcasts, pay attention to what the influencers are doing, and watch what’s working and try it for your business.
Now, as far as demographics go when choosing a platform, I’ve got to think that Periscope probably skews a little bit towards a more younger, cutting edge demographic than, say, Facebook which reaches sort of all demographics. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, so actually the demographic on Periscope tends to be older.
Really?
Yeah. It tends to be thirty plus.
Okay. That’s so funny. I was going to say, “What’s older for you, though?” You’re only … Would you say twenty-two?
It’s the thirty-five plus range. I always forget the demographic numbers but I think it’s thirty-five to forty-five and forty-five to fifty-four. I always mix them up, but that kind of twenty year range the last time I looked which was, in fairness, a couple of months ago.
Yeah.
The last time I looked into the demographics, that’s kind of where the numbers were at.
Okay.
It does tend to not be an older generation. The younger generation, meaning the Millennials that you would expect to be there, they are not the majority there. They’re actually the minority.
Interesting.
It works really well for those that are not targeting the minority.
Ha, okay. I would’ve put it a bit younger than that, but that’s really interesting. All right, so awesome information on Periscope marketing. Fantastic. Now, where can people find out more about what you’re doing with Periscope marketing?
Yeah, so if you want to find out more about us, of course you can follow me over on Periscope. It’s Heart, Soul, Hustle, but if you want to learn more about live streaming and Periscope marketing and you really want to figure out how to implement live streaming in your business, we have a free training that we do. Heartsoulhustle.com/class.
It’s a free training class that we have where we walk you through how to build up your following on Periscope, how to get people engaged with you using Periscope marketing. We give you an exact sales script that you can actually use on Periscope and/or Facebook Live to really get people interested.
You get to see an exact breakdown of how I did 10K in my first thirty days with Periscope marketing, and we give you a way to implement that live streaming into your business. If you’re a digital business that’s growing your list, growing your bottom line and trying to use live streaming or Periscope marketing to do it, Heartsoulhustle.com/class will have a free training for you there.
Awesome. Love it. Fantastic. Zach, thank you so much for just unconditionally sharing so much valuable information on live streaming and Periscope marketing strategy: tips, strategies, specifics. I love that. I appreciate you being here and I really know our listeners do, as well.
Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Awesome. Fantastic.
All right everyone, that was entrepreneur and Periscope marketing expert Zach Spuckler and, as always, any links that Zach mentioned in the interview will be included in the show notes along with an entire transcript of this episode and you can find all of those at projectignite.com/podcast.
Also, don’t forget. If you haven’t done so already, you can automatically have every future episode of this podcast automatically delivered to your smartphone or device. For Apple devices, iTunes is the place. If you’re on Android, check out Stitcher or Soundcloud. We’re there, as well.
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Now it’s time to take all of the live streaming and Periscope marketing tips, tools, and strategies that Zach has shared with us today and apply that final essential ingredient to making them work for you.
That ingredient is action, so go forth, take action, apply what you’ve learned, and stay tuned for more info-packed episodes of the Project Ignite podcast.
This is your host, Derek Gehl, signing off.