So you’ve read our blog posts about what periscope is, understanding periscope icons and a beginners guide to periscope and now you’re ready to do your first periscope broadcast. How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous? – That’s normal!

We did our first ever periscope broadcast a few weeks ago now and we felt the best way to do it was not to tell anyone; just do it and people can join if they want. Twitter automatically sends a tweet from your account and it will list the title of your periscope broadcast and say you’re live now so you will find that your followers will get involved and watch you – but if you state in your title it’s your first broadcast people will be more understanding.

Before going live check your view, pop your phone on it’s stand and then go to camera and check the angle and background. Some broadcasters have a white board behind them while others stick for a plain background. We just broadcast from the office so the background is the office wall.

When that’s sorted think of your title, as you click on the 3rd icon within the periscope app you will need to type in a title. Aim for an overall title, add that Q&As are welcome and put hashtags for the topic(s) that you are covering.

The broadcast will start by facing away from you, where your camera is. You need to make sure you can see the screen so you can respond to questions. The best way of starting a periscope broadcast is holding up a flyer or business card that shows your logo or shows what you will be talking about. Then double click the screen and the camera will come onto you and you’re ready to go.

It’s a good idea to have some notes to the side that cover the main topics because as your broadcast gets busy you can lose your trail of thought. Just short bullet points that can help you get back on track easily are perfect.

As you broadcast you will see people joining the conversation, always try and say Hello to them and welcome them to your broadcast. After every 5-10 new people that join reiterate who you are, what you’re talking about and run through the bullet points again so everyone can be up to speed.

You will be asked questions during the broadcast so try and answer them as you go along – that’s the great thing about it being a live feed. However, when you record the live feed (which your mobile device will do automatically) the questions will not pop up so read the question and thank the person for asking the question and then answer it. This will make more sense if / when people watch it back later.

If you get lots of hearts up the right side of the screen this is people saying that they like / agree with what you are saying so thank people for those hearts.

At the end of your broadcast answer any questions, thank everyone for joining you, give them your website address or Twitter account so they can connect with you or ask any other questions and then swipe down at the top of the screen and click to end the broadcast.

You’ll then be given the option to save the video to your photos, click yes and then share it on You Tube and Facebook – it really is that simple!