5 Things I Royally Screwed on My First Periscope

Periscope is LIVE.  There is a lot of pressure there and it’s fast moving.  People are tuning in, other people are commenting, and others are “hearting.”  That tiny phone screen is doing a lot of shit while you’re talking... live.  I did my first Periscope last Wednesday on my most recent (at the time) blog post, “How to Keep Readers from Falling out of Love with Your Blog.”  It didn’t go badly.  People actually tuned in, commented, liked, and watched the replay.  I’d say – small success.  However, after watching the replay, I realized some musts that I have to do for next time.  You might as well learn from my mistakes, so here we go.

1. Use a headset – I thought I had my headphones in my car, but I only had ones without a mic.  Next time, I’ll be using my Bluetooth.  The sound quality could have been better.  Plus, there was ambient noise because I filmed my Periscope outside.  A headset could avoid that outside noise – or at least reduce it.
2. Lack of Intro – I said something along the lines of, “Sarah here!” Like anybody knows who the ef Sarah is.  Next time, I’ll say something with more substance, perhaps naming what I do or who I am.  That would be nice, right?  I think I’ll say something along the lines of, “Sarah from Sarah Smirks:  The Marketing Mama Blog, here.  I’m going to talk about my latest blog post “___.”  Better, yes?
3. Interact with Commenters – Everything is going so fast that it’s hard to notice the comments coming in.  On top of that, I was wearing polarized sunglasses, so I could barely even see my screen.  Next time, I will interact more with my live viewers.  
4. Mention a CTA – My call to action (or CTA) should have been, “Hey, if you found this helpful, go to my website www.sarahsmirks.com to get a more in depth look on this topic – and please share!”  Instead, I said, “Okay, thanks – bye!”  That really does nothing for my site traffic.  I did get a couple new Twitter followers though.
5. Mention your blog – I don’t think I mentioned my blog once.  That’s kind of important.  I’ll just leave it at that.

Summary:

Learn from my mistakes and plan out your Periscope.  Have a headset available, an intro already in your head, a CTA in mind, promote your site, and – of course – interact with your viewers.

You can find me on Periscope at @mama_marketer.

The fun thing about Periscope is that it is so new, we’re learning together.  No one is a Periscope rock star yet.  Have you done a Periscope before?  What did you learn?