If you think about the media you consume—think music, movies, and tv shows—chances are you’ve used a streaming service for at least one of them. Streaming has embedded itself into our culture for the foreseeable future, and it’s not going anywhere. It’s here to stay until some other revolutionary technology comes along and turns it into Blockbuster.

Other industries are feeling the impact of streaming services and its permanency, and often there is too much focus on the negative effects of a new technology — cab drivers were up in arms at Uber and music labels were initially upset at streaming. Push-back is always the strongest against the most disruptive innovations, and streaming certainly fits into that category.

But if you take a step back and really look at the whole picture, you realize that with this disruption comes new opportunities. Opportunities to compete, opportunities to innovate, and if you play your cards right, an opportunity to benefit.

The Smart Speaker Boom

One product that can most directly attribute its upswing in sales to streaming is the smart speaker. A study done by Canalysis shows just how closely these two markets have become interdependent.

Between Echo, Google Home, and Apple Homepod, there has been a 200 per cent rise in sales in the second quarter of 2018 alone. Forty-three per cent of these smart speaker owners are using some kind of streaming service. What’s even more interesting is that 37 per cent of these users didn’t purchase any streaming services until after buying the smart speakers!

Though you can’t directly correlate one to the other, you can reasonably assume that a portion of those users purchased their smart speakers mainly for streaming.

Streaming Opportunities for Small Business

Streaming has opened the door for small businesses to be effective in communicating with both current and new clients. The public has made it clear that they prefer video over any other form of content and over 80 per cent would rather watch a video than read a social post. And if you’re giving super behind-the-scenes type content, that number jumps to 87 per cent. That’s a pretty loud statement from potential users.

There are lots of opportunities for small businesses to use this bump in streaming to their advantage. Find podcasts that appeal to your customers and reach out to join as a guest or advertiser. Or better yet, start your own podcast! If your business is in the ecommerce or dropshipping space, think about what products people will need in addition to smart speakers—headphones and accessories come to mind, but there are lots of options. Staying on top of and cpitalizing on business trends is a great way to ensure your product or service stays relevant for years to come.