If you’ve been keeping up with the “Great Live-Streaming Video App Race,” then you know that the new live-streaming apps for smartphones are competing with one another, fighting for dominance to pave the way for a new era of digital communication.
The apps allow anyone to video record anything and stream it in real time from their smartphone. Yep, anything. Throwing a weekend party with coworkers and friends? Why not stream it to friends that can’t make it, or to the voyeur public.
The Meerkat and Periscope apps will allow you to do just that. Companies, such as Red Bull and Mountain Dew, are already using Periscope to engage with audiences. It’s an exciting tool that could completely change our perception, if it hasn’t already, of live-streaming video, especially when it’s conveniently accessible from our purses or pockets. However, like most everything good in life, the apps do have drawbacks. Copyright infringement, anyone? Live streaming a Taylor Swift concert, for example, would seem to raise a few red flags.
But that’s not to say it can’t be used responsibly, and ethically. Which makes me wonder, as companies strive to become more transparent to gain employee and customer trust, how will they balance new technology to their advantage without overreacting and perceiving it as a threat to brand reputation?
Opportunities Lost
Last month, Royal Bank of Scotland Chairman Rory Cullinan sent several private Snapchat images of himself at a board meeting to his daughter, depicting how he was “not a fan of board meetings.” His daughter, a student at Durham University, thought it would be funny to share with the world by posting these private pictures to Instagram.
What seemed like a typical father-daughter moment in the digital age turned into something quite adverse. In just a few short weeks following the shared images, Rory Cullinan stepped down from his six-year position as Chairman.
Now, you might be thinking that sharing private Snapchat pictures while at work was not the smartest move. And you’re probably right. However, there’s something very human and endearing about the conversation between a father, who is also a top-level executive, and his daughter.
It shows a real side to executives, which many people don’t get to see. It reminds us, hey, that person is just like you and me. This is something companies strive to accomplish in this day and age – to show employees and customers that they’re people, too, and that you can trust them.
But when Cullinan’s daughter decided to share the pictures on Instagram, it seemed that company didn’t want that kind of transparency. Still, the fact is companies can’t really control how transparent they want to be — there are too many unpredictable variables, given the amount of technology available at everyone’s fingertips. People, all of us have become the media. Despite this, the Royal Bank of Scotland was hell-bent on protecting their image.
And that’s really a shame.
Post-crisis, the financial services industry is regarded as one of the stuffiest and least customer focused across the board. Perhaps the bank could have used this as an opportunity to show positive transparency and gain employee and customer trust. For example, the bank could have retweeted the Snapchat image with something like, “We attend boring meetings so your mobile banking isn’t boring.” Maybe even gain some customer trust. Instead, we’re left with a pressured, unfortunate resignation.
Do the old rules still apply today where technology takes communications and transparency out of the companies’ hands?
Yes, maybe his daughter should have kept those private images between herself and her dad. After all, your digital footprint isn’t in sand, it’s in cement. But when sharing videos, statuses, and pictures are, for the most part, a socially acceptable norm in 2015, it’s kind of difficult to see how far of a line Cullinan really did cross.
Redrawing The Fine Line
As Meerkat and Persicope pave the way for live-streaming apps, more and more companies will have to adapt to these changes in technology by rewriting their company policies or by finding ways to embrace them and engage customers and their own employees.
And if the recent Royal Bank of Scotland fiasco is an indicator of anything, it’s that companies haven’t yet figured out how transparent they want to appear in the public’s eye, even if they can’t completely control it. The internet never forgets. Clearly it is a challenge for large and regulated companies. They are still struggling with social media today.
With that being said, I think companies have to find the right balance. They have to be able to bend new technology to their will. This notion can be scary for leaders and companies everywhere. But so was uploading a video to YouTube for the first time not so long ago.
What do you think?