Facebook Live vs. Periscope

Social and Digital Media
periscope vs facebook live streaming 06.17.16

In a world where everyone is constantly connected to each other, the demand for instant communication has never been greater. As video content becomes king, more and more Millennials and Gen Zers are ditching their old school social networks for new school video platforms. To compete with short-form video and ephemeral publishing platforms like Instagram, Vine and Snapchat, first-generation social networks such as Facebook and Twitter had to find new ways to innovate and jump on the live-video trend to keep their younger demographics from disappearing.

As the competition heats up between Facebook and Twitter in the realm of online video marketing, it’s important for social media experts to learn when and how to use live streaming technologies like Facebook Live and Periscope to authentically connect with consumers.

In December 2015, Facebook released Live, a live streaming feature that allows users to share real-time video with their family, friends and followers. Not to be outdone, in March 2015, Twitter announced its acquisition of Periscope, a live video streaming app.

The introduction of live video broadcasting to Facebook and Twitter shows that even leading first-gen social networks that continue to enjoy widespread popularity have to prepare for the future and continuously innovate in order to compete with newer social platforms.

The key differentiator between Facebook Live and Periscope is the state and fate of content. While both live streaming technologies enable marketers to humanize their brands and share video content with consumers in real-time, Facebook Live video is permanent whereas live-streamed content on Periscope lives for 24 hours, in other words, content isn’t archived and disappears after it’s shared.

Both Facebook Live and Periscope are great technologies that brands can use to share their stories with people around the world in real-time. However, Facebook Live gives brands the opportunity to “save” content to their timelines and repurpose the live-streamed video across their other social media accounts. Live also gives brand followers the ability to react to broadcasts in real-time while giving marketers the opportunity to reengage with the people who liked, commented and shared feedback on their broadcasts in the moment and at a future date.

While Periscope doesn’t allow users to watch live-streamed broadcast after 24 hours, it gives them the ability to comment in real-time in the fast-moving social media landscape. Given how the next generation of consumers have gravitated towards ephemeral content platforms such as Snapchat, the value of archived content on social networks remains to be seen.

As more and more brands begin to integrate video as a part of their digital content marketing strategy, marketers who adopt Facebook Live and Periscope to create and share live video content have unlimited opportunities to authentically appeal to the next-generation of always-connected consumers.

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