ITV

Category: Social Media

  • Facebook to block new political ads a week before US presidential election

    Facebook to block new political ads a week before US presidential election

    KOLKATA: Amid large criticism against misinformation and allegation of meddling in elections, Facebook has decided to block all new political advertising on its platform the week before the US general election in November. 

    However, advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before the final week and adjust the targeting for those ads, but those ads will already be published transparently in Ads Library so anyone, including fact-checkers and journalists, can scrutinize them. 

    Facebook will also remove posts with claims that people will get Covid2019 if they take part in voting. It will attach a link to authoritative information about the virus to posts that might use to discourage voting, and it is also not going to allow this kind of content in ads. Notably, other social media platforms such as Twitter and Pinterest, have already banned political ads on the services. 

    “Given the unique circumstances of this election, it's especially important that people have accurate information about the many ways to vote safely, and that Covid2019 isn't used to scare people into not exercising their right to vote,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

    For more than two years now, Facebook has been under constant pressure from authorities across many countries on antitrust and piracy issues. The data fiasco really got murkier when the cambridge analytica scandal came out for influencing 2016 US Presidential election. However, it had been alleged for the same outside US as well including Brexit. 

  • Gaming & entertainment content are emerging as major growth areas for Twitter in Asia: Maya Hari

    Gaming & entertainment content are emerging as major growth areas for Twitter in Asia: Maya Hari

    KOLKATA: It has been a while now since when the digital platforms have started reorienting their focus on the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Amid intense competition, Twitter is also tapping into the new wave of users across the market. While the California-based social media platform has been scaling its operations gradually in the region, gaming and media-entertainment are emerging as key potential segments.

    At the second phase of APOS 2020, Twitter APAC VP & managing director Maya Hari spoke about the interesting consumption behaviour which emerged this year. Twitter recorded 45 million conversations around gaming- in just the first four months of 2020 in the southeast Asia region, up nearly 50 per cent year-on-year. The predominantly millennial internet audience is preferring gaming with social interactivity more.

    The social media platform polled users at the end of the first half of this year. Nearly half of the users in Australia have two subscriptions for content but interestingly over a third of Twitter users have more than two subscriptions for entertainment content. Despite this, the users were willing to access more entertainment content. In addition to that, tweets of live videos also doubled in the first half of the year. 

    This massive upsurge is not a surprising trend because gaming and entertainment consumption has been seeing an upward trend for quite some time now. What these changed circumstances have done is the expediting of this process in a more “pronounced fashion." However, due to the absence of new film releases, TV and OTT content have seen massive consumption this year.

    “One of the big elements that we are focusing on is partnering around premium video content and this has been a consistent strategy for the past two-three years. In Asia, we have partnered with over 60 content creators including broadcasters, content rights owners across the region. Our focus has been this year has challenged as large scale sports and events have been challenged. We found that better balance in being able to drive monetisation around content has come from getting brands to double down on cultural moments or market at scale,” Hari said.

    Other social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube are also aggressively upping their focus on the region. As Hari pointed out, the experience of live videos sets Twitter apart from its foes. She termed the concurrent audience around live moments as the crown jewel of the platform. Hence, all of Twitter’s partnerships with publishers, the content providers are being driven around that pillar. The depth of fan engagement around premium video has been another key differentiator.  

    “I have been driving the region for a little over three years and it has been consistently exciting with the ability to grow and innovate. We have talked about how APAC has been a growth engine for us, even coming out of Q2, we had recovery in markets of Asia to be ahead of the world and some parts of the market were on year-on-year growth territory. So, it has been a really exciting region to lead,” Hari revealed. 

    Twitter has witnessed 37 per cent year-on-year growth on the monetizable daily active users (DAUs) in the international markets. Talking about the different regions, north Asia offers incredible growth opportunities, especially in terms of gaming. Hari mentioned that south east Asia has been very interesting in case of rapid adaptation of any product. She also added that brand marketers are willing to put their money where the mouth is. 

    “India has been a very strategic market for a while. We are constantly thinking to bring new product innovations there. We launched Fleets recently and we have seen the usage of Fleets to be very interesting. There is always something unique about that market in terms of how it adapts and embraces content,” Hari highlighted.

    Although the growth of digital platforms has been tremendous lately, Social media companies have been under pressure about the proliferation of misinformation on their platforms. Speaking on this issue, Hari emphasised that the platform is highly focused on healthy conversations both globally and regionally. According to her, the understanding of the right combination of automation, content review and human intervention could be an answer to the threat of fake information. The platform used past experiences to keep away misinformation during Covid2019 as well. “It's something we are very committed to. Its one of the largest and biggest focus for us to make sure that the health of the conversations on the platform is strong,” she signed off.

  • Facebook’s Ajit Mohan & the new world order

    Facebook’s Ajit Mohan & the new world order

    KOLKATA: The SARS Cov2 virus has drastically changed consumer behaviour. Facebook India vice-president & managing director, Ajit Mohan believes that digital influence is not just limited to online buying but offline too.

    Speaking at IAMAI's Marketing Conclave, Mohan said that digitally influenced purchases have gone up by 15-20 per cent for some of the largest consumer goods categories in India such as apparel, mobile phones, packaged consumer goods that traditionally had offline chains. Citing a study by Nielsen, he said that before the pandemic, digital marketing was one of the most effective ways to drive offline sales for Mondelez’s chocolates in kirana stores.

    “The Covid2019 pandemic has crunched a few years of consumer behaviour change into a few months and weeks. Adtech is one sector that has grown during the pandemic,” he added. 

    As the festive season nears, Mohan predicted that a huge chunk of purchases is likely to happen online. According to him, video and virtual experiences are going to be at the heart of festive buying this year.

    He also shared that voice and video calls across all Facebook apps have doubled while live from Facebook page in India has grown three times in June year-on-year. These consumer trends have led to the launch of products like Reels on Instagram and Room on Facebook.

    Speaking about the economic impact, Mohan highlighted that the pandemic is just not a public health emergency but also an economic crisis, which has particularly impacted small businesses across the country. Most of them have shut shop, some are working with reduced workforces, while others are experiencing lower sales.

    Mohan said that he believes Facebook has an important role to play in the recovery of small businesses and the economy. And a lot of its energy is focused on how it works not just with MSMEs but with the entire ecosystem that helps in rejuvenating the economy

    “It’s very clear that the fundamental behaviour of consumers is in a transition mode. And as marketers, I genuinely believe it will be a mistake on our part to look over the next few months in India as growth returns aggressively. It will also be incorrect to replicate marketing models and playbooks that are no longer relevant. The only way forward is to look at models relevant to the world that is coming out of the crisis,” he concluded. 

    (It maybe recalled that earlier this year, Facebook invested $5.9 billion for a 9.9 per cent stake in Reliance Jio Platforms. It had announced that it planned to work with the company to empower 60 million small businesses, including mom-and-pop stores in India. A little later JioMart, a joint venture between Reliance Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail (India’s largest retail chain), started to allow customers to track shipments through WhatsApp.)

  • Media must do self-regulation to tackle fake news: I&B minister Prakash Javadekar

    Media must do self-regulation to tackle fake news: I&B minister Prakash Javadekar

    KOLKATA: Fake news has become a huge issue in the age of social media. While the mass easily falls prey to it, Information and Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar called for self-regulation while publishing digital content to curb the menace.

    Addressing the delegates at the 16th Marketing Conclave organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), he said that fake news is a deadly virus, and emphasised on the importance of self-regulation.

    Terming fake news as more dangerous than paid news, the minister said that the government has taken an initiative to curb fake news by setting up a fact check team which checks and verifies information being floated in the digital medium.

    "We are definitely taking note of fake news and therefore we started one attempt in 2019 October, PIB Fact Check Unit. We have established PIB Fact Check units in all the states," Javadekar said.

    Seeking greater accountability from social media platforms, he said misinformation weakens the functioning of a democracy and there should be a calibrated approach to thwart the spread of lies and misinformation. With all villages in India set to be connected through Bharatnet, there is a greater need to educate the masses about the detection of fake news.

    Speaking about the importance of the digital medium, the minister said, “We must understand the pace with which it is growing and with the increasing number of smartphones users, digital content and advertising has become very important because of its reach and speed. Even the government has started to leverage the medium and using it to advertise.”

  • TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer steps down

    TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer steps down

    NEW DELHI: Amidst the global political ousting of TikTok, including in the US, its CEO Kevin Mayer has announced his departure from the company with a letter addressed to the employees, reported Financial Times. Vanesa Pappas, who is currently general manager of TikTok, will become the interim head. 

    Mayer had ended his 15-year-long stint with Disney to join TikTok in May this year. 

    According to reports, Mayer wrote in his letter, “In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up for. Against this backdrop, and as we expect to reach a resolution very soon, it is with a heavy heart that I wanted to let you all know that I have decided to leave the company.”

    He added, “I understand that the role that I signed up for — including running TikTok globally — will look very different as a result of the US administration's action to push for a sell-off of the US business.”

    “We appreciate that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Kevin's role would be going forward, and fully respect his decision. We thank him for his time at the company and wish him well,” TikTok said in a statement to the FT.

    Over the last few weeks, TikTok has been under tremendous pressure from the Trump administration. Donald Trump demanded that the app should be banned in the US as it poses a national security threat because of its China ownership.
     

  • ShareChat, Moj inks music licensing deal with T-Series

    ShareChat, Moj inks music licensing deal with T-Series

    KOLKATA: Social media platform ShareChat has announced its agreement with India’s largest music label, T-Series to license its music catalogue on the platforms. The collaboration would provide for an enhanced experience on ShareChat and short video platform Moj.  

    Over 180 million active users on ShareChat and Moj would now be able to explore hundreds and thousands of songs from the T-Series music library, and add to their own videos, it added.

    This is ShareChat's first partnership in the music licensing space.

    T-Series managing director Bhushan Kumar said this association sets a fresh beginning between us and the social media platforms.“This moment celebrates the contribution of great music to social media, and we commend ShareChat for respecting the copyrights. It's great to see ShareChat agree with our philosophy.”

    ShareChat director Berges Y Malu said, “Music brings out the best of emotions and nostalgia to our users as they share their creativity on our platform. Our partnership with TSeries would help our community of users to access thousands of songs from the T-series catalogue on ShareChat and Moj to express their emotions and share content in amazing new ways.”

      

  • Tips to make the best use of #hashtags on Twitter

    Tips to make the best use of #hashtags on Twitter

    When something happens in the world, it happens on Twitter, and hashtags have been collating some of the most important conversations on Twitter. A hashtag—written with a # symbol is used to index keywords or topics on Twitter. They connect Tweets that talk about the same thing in one place. As the internet gears up to celebrate the 13th birthday of the hashtag on August 23, here are   some pro-tips on Twitter hashtags. 

    How to use hashtags on Twitter: 

    ·       Just use the symbol (#) before a relevant keyword or phrase in a Tweet. 

    ·       Click on the hashtagged word in any message and all the Tweets with similar hashtags will come-up on your timeline. 

    How to ensure the hashtags you used are functional: 

    ·       A hashtag will not work as intended if there are spaces or punctuations in it. Punctuation marks ( , . ; ' ? ! etc.) will end your hashtag wherever punctuation occurs. 

    ·       A hashtag will not work with letters or numbers in front of the # symbol. The # symbol must have a space directly in front of it in order for it to show correctly in searches. If you write 123#sofun or word#sofun, your Tweets will not show in searches for the hashtag #sofun

    ·       A hashtag will not work if completely made of numbers. However, if you include letters following the numbers in the hashtag, for example, #123go, then the hashtag will work correctly.

    Fun facts about using hashtags on Twitter:

    ·       If an individual Tweets with a hashtag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find their Tweet.

    ·       Popular hashtags often emerge as  Trending Topics.

    ·       Hashtags are not case-sensitive, but adding capital letters does make them easier to read. 

    ·       Twitter recommends using no more than two hashtags per Tweet as best practice, but you may use as many hashtags in a Tweet as you like.

    So, #AreYouExcited to #BeCreativeWithHashtags on Twitter?

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  • #ConversationStarters: Women leaders share how Twitter is helping shatter gender stereotypes

    #ConversationStarters: Women leaders share how Twitter is helping shatter gender stereotypes

    Time and again, Twitter has facilitated women with an open, public space to raise their voice, leading to massive movements that have brought about ground-breaking changes in society, especially in the workplace. With movements like #MeToo, #GirlsWhoDrinkBeer and #LahuKaLagaan the service has brought forward various issues concerning women. Brands such as Uber India, Ariel, among others, have also addressed and championed women-focused causes through pioneering campaigns on the service.

    To manoeuvre this dialogue further, Twitter Marketing India (@TwitterMktgIN) hosted another episode of #ConversationStarters with Guneet Monga (@guneetm), CEO of Sikhya Entertainment, and Sairee Chahal (@Sairee), Founder and CEO, SHEROES, about how women are rallying change and breaking barriers.

    Sairee (@Sairee), who often shares recommendations of accounts to follow on Twitter, mentioned that her favourite  account is @WordWhispers and called it her happy Twitter place. “I follow tons of interesting people and Twitter is like my little oasis to find very, very interesting conversations.” she said.

    Speaking about how the pandemic has impacted women, Sairee commented that having to manage workload with household chores and the effect of the slowing economy is taking a toll on women’s lives. However, she mentioned that digital consumption has increased considerably and this will have a huge impact on a lot of women-related issues such as mobility and income generation. Entrepreneurship among women is a real deal now.

    For Guneet (@guneetm), Twitter is her medium of staying connected with the happenings of the world. “I consume news through Twitter. It allows me to filter a lot of rubbish that is thrown at us. So you can just follow people you love. I get my piece of dosage from them which is credible and which I know can be trusted. So it's almost like you have to dive into what you want rather than stuff that is just put out there for you.”

    Guneet, who has been making waves in the global film space through women-centric stories, sounded positive and optimistic regarding the role of women in her industry. “For a long time, men have run the industry. I see a power shift, a narrative shift, an equation shift. It's now cool to be a part of women led stories. Films have now ramped up in putting women stories out there.  What we collectively need to do as an industry is amplify women voices as creators and not limit them to just telling women led stories.”

    While both Sairee and Guneet agree that women have made significant strides in society as well as in work settings, they also believe that there is still a great distance to be covered for women to actualise their potential and resourcefulness. They feel digitisation, social mobility through internet access, and strong support systems from the government will catalyse this growth in the right direction. In line with this view, Twitter plays an integral role in bringing together women as a community, and allowing an open forum of discussion, debate, as well as a window into the changing dynamics of the world.

  • #WorldPhotographyDay: Twitter captures people’s love for photos

    #WorldPhotographyDay: Twitter captures people’s love for photos

    Time and again, Twitter has come to be dominated by photograph driven trends creating beautiful visual experiences – from #SareeTwitter and #JhumkaTwitter to #BirdTwitter, #BlueTwitter, and much recently #HalfFaceTwitter. In fact, earlier in July, a magnificent photograph of a black panther from the jungles of Kabini, clicked by photographer Shaaz Jung (@shaazjung), took Twitter by storm. The world through the lens of photography enthusiasts has definitely found a stronghold in conversations on Twitter – from professional photographers and budding shutterbugs to those with a knack for selfies and pretty portraits. This #WorldPhotographyDay, we bring you some picture perfect snapshots from Twitter, take a look – 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    If you’re interested in photography and want to see more of it on your Twitter timeline, you can also choose to follow ‘Photography’ as a Topic on Twitter. Twitter Topics let you follow specific subjects of your interest, allowing you to pick what you see on your timeline. Here’s how you can follow a Topic – 

    How to follow a Twitter Topic: 

    On your profile icon menu, tap More and then Topics.

    Next, tap Follow some Topics to browse by category type, such as Entertainment, Gaming, Sports, among many others. 

    From within each category and sub-category type, tap the Follow button next to the Topics you’d like to follow. 

    When finished, tap Done.

  • Mitron raises $ 5 mn led by Nexus Venture Partners

    Mitron raises $ 5 mn led by Nexus Venture Partners

    KOLKATA: Homegrown short-form video app Mitron has announced it raised $ 5 million, led by Nexus Venture Partners. 3one4 Capital and Arun Tadanki’s private syndicate on LetsVenture also participated in the latest round.

     Mitron app is a short-form social video app that allows users to create, upload, view, and share entertaining short videos. Mitron is founded by Shivank Agarwal (alumnus of IIT Roorkee) and Anish Khandelwal (alumnus of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology). Both the founders are Computer Science engineers and earlier worked together at MakeMyTrip. 

     The latest round of financing saw participation from stellar angels including Deep Kalra (Chairman, MakeMyTrip), Amrish Rau (CEO, Pine Labs),Jiten Gupta (Founder, Jupiter), Amarjit Batra (MD, Spotify India), Anand Chandrasekharan (Former Facebook, Snapdeal executive),Karan Bajwa (MD, Google Cloud, India),Radhika Ghai (Co-founder, Shopclues), Vikalp Sahni (Co-Founder and Ex-CTO at GoIbibo and Volunteer Architect at AarogyaSetu) and Shanti Mohan (Founder, LetsVenture).TK Kurien (Premji Invest),Manish Vij & Harish Bahl (Smile Group) also participated in their individual capacity.

     The company will use the new infusion of capital to accelerate its product development to increase user engagement and hire high quality talent. The company also plans to onboard a wide network of Indian content creators on the app and invest in building Mitron brand.

     Mitron founder and CEO Shivank Agarwal said, “We are thrilled to have Nexus Venture Partners join us in this journey, bringing in deep expertise of helping their portfolio companies build great products.  We are committed to building Mitron as a world-class product that is designed for Indian users, by reimagining digital entertainment and engagement.

    With more than 33 million downloads on Play Store and nine billion video views per month, Mitron has emerged as the popular choice among Indians for short-form video. We are thankful to our users for their love for Mitron”

    Mitron app was launched in Apr 2020 and achieved the 10 million download milestone even before the unprecedented ban on Chinese apps.     

    Commenting on their decision to invest in Mitron, Pratik Poddar, Principal at Nexus Venture Partners said "Shivank and Anish are product-first, deep-tech and very iterative entrepreneurs. We have been tracking them for 3 months and loved the way they have evolved their thinking around content creation, community management and video delivery. We love backing ‘product and tech-first’ entrepreneurs. We believe eventually the best product with long term thinking will win. Focus is to create a high engagement and high retention community. Then only you can be long term partners for creators."

    Anish Khandelwal, Founder & CTO, said "We have been rapidly improving our product experience and with this funding round, we plan to invest further in hiring top notch product & engineering talent that will help us build a world-class platform that can scale seamlessly”.

    Anurag Ramdasan, Head of Investments at 3one4 Capital, said, “Shivank and Anish have built an impressive product together that we decided to back when they had just launched on the Play Store. Since then, the growth of the product as well as the team has been inspiring. The differentiated, long term thinking demonstrated by the founding team has led us to continue believing in them. We are excited to continue our work with the company to help build the next evolution of video engagement out of India”

    Arun Tadanki said, “Mitron has been making rapid progress in establishing itself as the primary choice in the short-form video space and therefore, we are doubling down on our investment”

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