O Canada Live

• Trends
• March 10, 2016
• by Sally Ann Rivera

Social media darling and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (#PMJT) is currently frolicking in Washington (instead of with pandas) for the first Canadian state visit in 19 years. Appropriately, @JustinTrudeau turned to Periscope to livestream his press conference with President Barack Obama.

If you didn’t happen to catch the press conference on Periscope, there’s always the White House on Snapchat. The government social media account gleefully shared snaps throughout the visit with a dose of humor that made me do a double take.

Gone are the days of CSPAN—and even CNN—as the way to keep up with political remarks. While the traditional media outlets still streamed the remarks, and dutifully sent their reporters, the public took a front-row view from their phones.

Five takeaways from this choice:

1. It makes sense. We are a mobile-first society and carry our phones with us everywhere. Periscope and Snapchat are both mobile apps.
    
2. As always, the lesson for our clients is to ask: “Who’s my audience?” Go where they are and communicate in the language they’re speaking. The viewing demographic skews younger for Periscope and Snapchat.
3. Getting good at video (our perennial cry) is not enough. You must get good at live and mobile video. The good news is that you can embrace your natural flaws and use your authentic voice, because mobile video will capture them anyway. Overly produced is out, real is in.
    
4. Your voters (or potential customers and clients) get a voice. During Trudeau’s Periscope livestream, the screen flashed with hearts (showing viewers “liked” the video) and displayed running commentary from viewers.
    
5. Politicians around the world can rejoice because social media is actually helping to make politics cool again. And, if you want to win over the voters, policy may mean little if no one thinks you’re cool. Or, as we like to hark: likeability is key.