ITV

Category: Social Media

  • Content makes social media influencers popular

    Content makes social media influencers popular

    MUMBAI: A session on young media influencers was held on day 2 of FICCI FRAMES,the global media and entertainment conclave. These media influencers are being used by brands to promote their brands through social media. These infleuncers have a huge following on their social media platforms.

    "I think earlier it was about the fact that if you are a celebrity, there should be a mystery around it. Now your celebrity status has everything to do with your relatability to the people." Said Rohan Joshi.

    "I think when it comes to sponsorship and collaboration, brands come to us depending on the age group of our audience and if that matches up to their brand value." Srishti

    Actor Gaurav Gera, popular on social media for his characters like Chutki and Shopkeeper, said: "I think we are like TV channels. You know where we have subscribers and steady audience like the way TV channels have. We are primarily making videos to entertain and to engage with people." 

    Talking about maintaining consistency of the content, Prajakta Koli, a YouTuber known as MostlySane, said: "It has to be a full-time job. We have to be in search of content and there is no day off for us. Especially, in our initial days, when we are doing everything — writing, performing, editing. But then, once you get a strong connection with the audience, you just go on."

    Have the digital influencers got their dues?

    "I was having a conversation with someone who was saying how much budget is allotted for digital marketing, and the amount was massive. It tells us how the whole ballgame of marketing has changed. Whereas they want a Bollywood star for his/her reach, they also want a social media influencer for its relatability factor."

  • Facebook teams up with Indian music labels

    Facebook teams up with Indian music labels

    MUMBAI: Facebook today, announced partnerships with top music labels including T-Series Music, Zee Music Company and Yash Raj Films, licensing their music for use in social experiences such as videos, messages, stories and other creative content on Facebook and Instagram. 

    Music has always occupied a central place in the imagination of Indians and also, an incredible vehicle to express emotion. At Facebook, we have been partnering with the music community around the world to bring music into the ways people can share moments and express themselves on Facebook. 

    Starting today, people in India can include hundreds of thousands of licensed Indian music in the videos and posts they share on Facebook, making their moments more meaningful and personal. Through these partnerships, users can include their favorite tracks from popular films including the latest hits like Apna Time Aayega from Gully Boy, Aankh Marey from Simmba, Swag Se Swagat from Tiger Zinda Hai, as well as regional hits like Lahore by Guru Randhawa, Zingaat from Sairat plus old classics like Bas Ek Sanam Chaahiye from Aashiqui.

    Commenting on the development, Bhushan Kumar, T- Series chairman and managing director said, “We're living at a time when we're talking to one another from across the globe using audio-visual language. One video with music and lyrics connects with billions across India and the planet. There's nothing more to be said. And where do they connect? Social Media. So, the idea to officially make available rights of Bollywood songs, which can be heard in every corner of the globe, to Facebook users so they can express their feelings through their posts, memes and messages with added masala and tadka, is an inevitable stroke of genius. Now, just say it with a Bollywood song. Even better, make it a T-Series song!”

    Neeraj Kalyan, T-Series President and Digital head of the music major added, “When Facebook came to us with this idea of users adding licensed music to their videos and photos, it was music to our ears. We knew this is the next logical step in the T-Series growth story. Bollywood music is loved by all, so why not use it to communicate your thoughts and feelings? We have one of the largest catalog of songs and T-Series, today, is India's leading music label, digitally. Today's digitally savvy consumers are ultra-creative and it will be interesting to see how they re-purpose our music and videos to say what they want the world to hear."

    Commenting on the association, Anurag Bedi, Business Head, Zee Music Company said “We are excited to partner with Facebook to introduce newer ways for users to express themselves with music. By such associations, it is our endeavor to bring innovative musical experiences from across the globe to our social media savvy audiences.” 

    Anand Gurnani, Vice President – Digital, Yash Raj Films said, “For a nation that has music and cinema firmly ingrained in its soul, our association with Facebook offers a chance for audiences to experiment and express themselves through music and share the same with their friends. This further strengthens our approach of community building using music as an enable.”

    Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India said “Music has always been a powerful medium of expression. We are excited about partnering with the music industry in India and the idea that people here will be now be able to include music in their videos on Facebook and Instagram, opening up more options for more ways to express and sharing memories with friends and family.”

  • Facebook reaffirms commitment to India’s startup ecosystem, sets up Facebook Hubs across 9 cities

    Facebook reaffirms commitment to India’s startup ecosystem, sets up Facebook Hubs across 9 cities

    MUMBAI: Facebook today, launched Facebook Hubs with a vision to further enable India's startup ecosystem. Announced last year at Facebook India Startup Day, Facebook has partnered with 91springboard, for a yearlong program, which will include co working community hosting, planning and organizing structured activities like learning and skill development programs for startups and entrepreneurs to help scale their businesses.

    Facebook Hubs will help foster innovation and support for the community, by hosting mentor hours and trainings, workshops, roundtable discussions across 20 locations in nine cities including Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Navi Mumbai and Goa .

    Satyajeet Singh, Head of Product Partnerships, Facebook India and South Asia said “Facebook Hubs stem from our mission to provide startups with the infrastructure, mentorship and support they need to grow and scale their operations ethically and sustainably. We have already worked with hundreds of startups through our various programs and by teaming up with 91springboard we hope to reach out to more, to fuel India’s startup ecosystem with a vision to build businesses of tomorrow.”

    “Facebook Hubs are in line with our vision of developing robust, sustainable programs, conducive places and meaningful partnerships with relevant ecosystem partners to boost India’s dynamic startup engine and enable it to provide a further push to India's entrepreneurial zeal.” he added.

    Facebook Hubs will be part of a global network for training and mentoring facilities for startups, developers, SMBs, creators, and job seekers. Designed as catalysts to facilitate community learning, Facebook Hubs are part of Facebook's vision to empower innovators everywhere to drive economic growth, build robust ecosystems, and create social value.

    Anand Vemuri, CEO, 91springboard said “We are truly proud and delighted to join forces with Facebook. India has some incredible things happening in the startup ecosystem and our partnership to enable Facebook Hubs will provide entrepreneurs access to knowledge, tools and resources that will give them a massive competitive edge.”

  • Google rolls out AR effect tools for YouTube Stories

    Google rolls out AR effect tools for YouTube Stories

    MUMBAI: With the overwhelming popularity of Stories feature on social media platforms, the companies are leaving no stones unturned to make it more attractive. Now, Google is rolling out support for its advanced Augmented Reality (AR) effect tools for YouTube Stories while its rival Facebook and Instagram already support AR filters for Stories on their platforms.

    The new feature will allow users to add animated masks, glasses, 3D hats and more such objects to their selfies. "To make all this possible, we employ machine learning (ML) to infer approximate 3D surface geometry to enable visual effects and ML pipeline for Selfie AR," Google Artificial Intelligence research engineers Artsiom Ablavatski and Ivan Grishchenko wrote in a blog post on Saturday.

    "That way we can grow our dataset to increasingly challenging cases, such as grimaces, oblique angle and occlusions. Dataset augmentation techniques also expanded the available ground truth data, developing model resilience to artefacts like camera imperfections or extreme lighting conditions," the post added.

    The company has also claimed that it will use improved "anchoring" process with the new AR effects to make them look more real and responsive. According to the post, it uses a unique set of technologies "that can track the highly dynamic surface geometry across every smile, frown or smirk."

    However, YouTube Stories is not available to every user yet as the tech giant launched the feature last year but only to creators with more than 10k subscribers.

  • Twitter India hosts week-long celebrations to mark International Women’s Day

    Twitter India hosts week-long celebrations to mark International Women’s Day

    MUMBAI: From #EqualPay to #MeToo, a single Tweet has the potential to turn into a worldwide movement, with women across geographies uniting in solidarity and attempting to bring about positive changes. This International Women’s Day, Twitter India is kicking off a week-long celebration of women, starting with honouring 50 rising women achievers  at the #WebWonderWomen (WWW) event in partnership with the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development and human rights organization Breakthrough, in order to share their stories and ignite dialogues that aim to empower women across the country.

    Twitter is also introducing a custom emoji to add colour to the global conversation around International Women’s Day 2019. People in India and across the world can join the celebration and Tweet with the emoji using the hashtags #नारीशक्ति, #हमसेहैहिम्मत, #महिलादिवस,, #IWD2019, #InternationalWomensDay and #SheInspiresMe. The golden emoji is the gender symbol for females and an ode to the modern woman who is courageous and expressive. The emoji will be active from 7th March until the end of the month.

    Tweet with #IWD2019, #InternationalWomensDay and #SheInspiresMe to activate the special emoji

    #WebWonderWomen Awards

    Earlier this year, Twitter India in partnership with the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development and human rights organization Breakthrough launched the #WebWonderWomen (WWW) campaign. With an objective to elevate women’s voices, celebrating impacts both big and small, and giving a platform for social change, the campaign called out to people to nominate their favourite Indian woman achiever with her Twitter @handle anywhere in the world.

    The campaign received over 300+ inspiring entries across the following categories: Health/Fitness Community, Media, Literature, Art, Sports, Tech/STEM, Travel, Business, Legal/Policy, Governmental, Entertainment, Fashion/Beauty, Finance, Food, Environment. Shortlisting 50 entries through public voting and jury selection, Twitter felicitated these women at the #WebWonderWomen (WWW) event on March 6th, 2019. Here are the finalists:

    These finalists will further be invited to present their work to Smt. Maneka Gandhi, Minister of Women and Child Development, wherein they would get a chance to narrate their journeys and how they have been using Twitter for Good. They will also get a chance to be a part of a specially curated workshop on social media skills by Breakthrough and will be profiled and featured in Q&As with Twitter India.

    #SheInspiresMe Digital Mentorship series with Women leaders

    Additionally, Twitter will join hands with ELLE India (@ELLEINDIA) to co-host a day-long series of digital mentorship sessions with women leaders. The series of 20-minute interactive videos will be live-streamed from @ELLEINDIA all day on March 7, and can be attended exclusively on Twitter. The video series will feature women achievers at the very top of their game sharing their trade secrets and hard-won wisdom with users, and dialoguing with them. Women leaders across fields including educationist Neerja Birla (@NeerjaBirla), restaurateur Gauri Devidayal (@gauridetails), illustrator and poet Priyanka Paul (@artwhoring), actors Kubbra Sait (@kubbrasait) and Maanvi Gagroo (@maanvigagroo), director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari (@ashwinyiyer) and internet sensation Prajakta Koli (@iamMostlySane) will present learning sessions for women in the workforce and also address questions on how women can tackle issues in the workplace, sourced through Twitter. People can interact with speakers by tagging them and using the hashtag #SheInspiresMe to get their questions answered.

    Speaking about the initiative, Supriya Dravid, editor-in-chief of ELLE India said, “ELLE is all about celebrating inspiring women who make us believe in the importance of colouring outside the lines. We are so thrilled to partner with Twitter this Women’s Day. Through our collective initiative, we hope that we will be able to get an insight on how they destroy stereotypes and zoom way past glass ceilings to create their own silver linings. The force is and will always be female.”

    In addition, Twitter will be hosting a panel of women leaders in the technology and media industry, in association with @SheThePeopleTV to discuss women empowerment and leadership in the digital era. The session will be live streamed on Twitter and will feature Upasana Taku, Co-founder, MobiKwik; Kavita Devi, Co-founder and Digital head, Khabar Lahariya, and Nishtha Sathyam, UN Women’s Deputy Representative; the panel will be moderated by Shaili Chopra of @SheThePeopleTV. The panel will talk about how media and tech innovation can help increase and amplify women's voices.

    Join the International Women’s Day conversation and spotlight the women who inspire you with the hashtag #SheInspiresMe, and Twitter India will review and add them to the list where relevant

  • Youth engagement initiative #PowerOf18 unveils latest research findings on youth in Tamil Nadu

    Youth engagement initiative #PowerOf18 unveils latest research findings on youth in Tamil Nadu

    MUMBAI: Twitter is about serving the public conversation, highlighting what’s happening in the world and enabling people to talk about it right now. As part of its youth engagement initiative #PowerOf18, Twitter India unveils new research findings today specific to the youth sentiment in Tamil Nadu on social media and the elections at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. Panellists Sudarshan Ramabadran (@sudarshanr108), Senior Research Fellow and Administrative Head, Center for Soft Power, India Foundation and Convenor, Tamil Nadu Young Thinkers Forum, and Arun Krishnamurthy (@ArunEFI), Indian environmental activist with Environmentalist Foundation India, join Twitter at the #PowerOf18 college dialogue session, sharing their perspective on what it means to turn 18 and the importance of voting in the upcoming elections.

    Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/ACJIndia/status/1103206766290976769?s=19

    Survey findings

    Twitter is where people can serve the public conversation; two in three (66.9%) of the youth on Twitter in Tamil Nadu surveyed believe that they are contributing to the public debate by posting on the platform. More than half (58.4%) of the Twitter users surveyed will actively engage with and raise concerns to the government on issues that affect them or their community, versus 30.8% of those not on the platform. In addition, 57.8% of the youth in Tamil Nadu surveyed use Twitter to express their opinions and be heard, while 56% will use Twitter to gather support for a cause or movement.

    Across the board, the population in India is politically active and the survey finds on average 98% of Tamil Nadu youth indicate that they would vote in the upcoming elections. This is the highest proportion of youth voter interest in comparison with all other states surveyed in the country. In comparison, Twitter users (99.4%) surveyed were more likely than those not on the platform (94.9%) to vote in the upcoming elections.

    Over 85% of Tamil Nadu youth surveyed will turn to social media to find out what’s happening in India and around the world, according to the study’s findings. The rising importance of social media for information consumption is reinforced as Tamil Nadu youth surveyed rank social media platforms as the most important source for understanding what’s happening in India and around the world, in comparison to all other mediums including newspapers, TV, and public events. 

    This study[1] is part of a larger nationwide survey conducted with 4,274 youth respondents from India between 24 September – 19 October 2018. The survey methodology qualifies the respondents as minimally secondary literate, aged between 18 – 35 years old. India is expected to have 34.33% share of youth (15 – 34 years old) in total population by 2020, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.

    University Dialogues

    Beyond the survey results, Twitter India invited Sudarshan Ramabadran, Senior Research Fellow and Administrative Head, Center for Soft Power, India Foundation and Convenor, Tamil Nadu Young Thinkers Forum, and Arun Krishnamurthy, Indian environmental activist with Environmentalist Foundation India to join in a panel discussion about the power of youth today and the importance of expressing their voice through voting, to be a part of the #PowerOf18 Dialogue sessions. The sharing session saw:

    Embeddable Tweet link:https://twitter.com/Rish_Bhat/status/1103276451384553472

    Embeddable Tweet link: https://twitter.com/Rish_Bhat/status/1103264045778391040

    Embeddable Tweet Link: https://twitter.com/ThatUnitedLady/status/1103241662678032386

    Embeddable Tweet Link: https://twitter.com/pusharma53/status/1103268657730187265

    Embeddable Tweet Link:https://twitter.com/Rish_Bhat/status/1103253300109991936

    Embeddable Tweet link: https://twitter.com/sick_smasher/status/1103243738917339138

    Embeddable Tweet link: https://twitter.com/LilMissMathew/status/1103240545265082373

    #PowerOf18 Content Curation Partners

    In order to effectively represent the diversity of issues, Twitter India has also identified key content partners to curate useful electoral information and offer different perspectives that will help the youth of India who are getting ready to vote see every side of the public conversation. Some of these partners include fact-checker @BOOM_Live, BBC India’s regional handles @BBCTamil, @BBCNewsPunjabi, among others.

    Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1097471168917860352

    Embeddable Tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1096301303112785920

    The #PowerOf18 campaign is aimed at encouraging more youth in India to participate in civic engagement, understand the significance of their right to vote and contribute to public debate on Twitter. The campaign launch is marked by an emoji activated by the hashtag #PowerOf18 available now until June 2019.

    Follow #PowerOf18 and @TwitterIndia to be a part of the conversation and community.

  • Indian political parties focus on FB ads before election

    Indian political parties focus on FB ads before election

    MUMBAI: All political parties have started taking digital seriously and are spending on Facebook ads before the upcoming elections. The social media giant has revealed some data on ad spends of political parties for the month of February. According to a report by The Economic Times, BJP and its affiliates made up for over 50 per cent of the total spend. Congress and its affiliates came third, behind regional parties. BJP is miles ahead of the rest in political ad spend on Facebook.

    BJP and its affiliates spent Rs 2.37 crore in February on Facebook ads. Regional parties spent about Rs 19.8 lakh, while Congress and its affiliates spent around Rs 10.6 lakh. 

    Among regional parties, the big spenders were Biju Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, Telugu Desam Party, YSR Congress Party and Shiv Sena. 

    The social media will account for 20-25 per cent of the party’s total ad spend by the time campaigning is over. Facebook and its photo-sharing platform Instagram are expected to corner a significant chunk of BJP’s social media ad budget, party leaders said. 

    Government departments such as MyGov and campaigns like Digital India have spent over Rs 35 lakh on Facebook, the data revealed. 

    Facebook has begun instituting what it claims are stricter rules for political advertisements before the model code of conduct for the 2019 general election kicks in. All Facebook ads related to Indian politics now have to abide by the company’s authorisation process launched in December. Political advertisements have to display details of their publishers and funders. 

    The social media company’s political ad portal archives all Indian political ads along with audience demographics and funding details for seven years. Facebook, according to business intelligence portal Statista, had over 294 million monthly active users in India as of October 2018. 

    Among the prominent Facebook ads is an official BJP campaign through a page called ‘Bharat Ke Mann Ki Baat’, for which the party spend Rs 1.1 crore in February. The advertiser disclaimer on the page carries the address of the party’s office on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in New Delhi. There’s also a Facebook page called ‘Nation With Namo’, which has spent over Rs 60 lakh in February.

  • Internet user growth in India touches 566 mn

    Internet user growth in India touches 566 mn

    MUMBAI: India’s internet user growth continues with the estimated number reaching 566 million as of December 2018. Kantar IMRB today revealed the data in its ICUBE 2018 report on digital adoption and usage trends in India. The report also predicted double-digit growth in 2019 as well leading to 627 million users by the end of this calendar year.

    493 million Indians, 88 per cent of the total user base, are regular users, having accessed internet in the last 30 days. According to the report, 293 million active internet users reside in urban India and there are 200 million active users in rural India. 97 per cent of users use mobile phone as one of the devices to access the internet.

    Interestingly, rural India is now on the driver seat of this growth story. Rural India registered a 35 per cent growth in internet users over the past year while urban India witnessed 7 per cent growth reaching 315 million users in 2018. Currently, there are 251 million internet users in rural India that is expected to reach 290 million by the end of 2019.

    “The internet is transforming the way consumers and marketers interact with each other in today’s digital world. Kantar IMRB’s ICUBE, which has tracked the digital evolution in India for last 20 years, provides key measurement metrics necessary for planning any digital marketing or communication initiative. ICUBE continues to provide government, policy makers, digital businesses, marketers and communication specialists the intelligence necessary to stay on top of the developments across different facets of digital platforms and services,” Kantar South Asia CEO Preeti Reddy said.

    The gender digital divide is now reducing as the Kantar ICUBE 2018 reports that women today comprise 42 per cent of total internet users. Female users are not merely present on the internet but equally active on digital platforms.

    “The latest edition of Kantar IMRB ICUBE report shows that today the digital base in India is growing by over 75 million users each year – as much as the entire population of Germany! It is fascinating to note that the digital revolution is now sweeping small towns and villages perhaps driven by increased accessibility at affordable data costs. What is also particularly interesting, is the increase in the usage of digital in rural India, where more than two-thirds of active internet users are now accessing the internet daily to meet their entertainment and communication needs. Marketers have a big opportunity today where they can use digital to reach their consumers – both in urban and rural India,” Kantar IMRB media and digital managing director Hemant Mehta commented.

  • Facebook to launch much-awaited ‘Clear History’ tool later this year

    Facebook to launch much-awaited ‘Clear History’ tool later this year

    MUMBAI: While social media giant Facebook promised to prioritise user data privacy amid widespread controversy, the company is going to launch its much-awaited privacy tool titled 'Clear History' later this year. This new feature would enable users to delete their information collected by Facebook through third-party apps and websites.

    The step has been taken at a time when Facebook is under scrutiny by regulators as well as facing backlash worldwide for lack of data security. Following Cambridge Analytica scandal, the feature was announced in May 2018.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the tool as a "simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook—what a user has clicked on, what websites they visited etc". Facebook's chief financial officer David Wehner revealed that the Clear History tool was in development and could be expected to launch later this at the Morgan Stanley, Media and Telecom Conference in Barcelona.

    Wehner said the new feature would give Facebook headwinds affecting its ability to target users with adverts. "We want to make sure this works the way it should for everyone on Facebook, which is taking longer than expected," the social media giant said according to media reports.

    "In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want. We're building a version of this for Facebook too," Zuckerberg wrote earlier in a personal post on Facebook after the announcement.

  • Twitter sports partnership APAC head Aneesh Madani quits

    Twitter sports partnership APAC head Aneesh Madani quits

    MUMBAI: Twitter head of sports partnerships- Asia Pacific Aneesh Surender Madani has put down his papers after working for over five years. He started his journey in November 2013 heading the sports partnership for the Indian market.

    He announced this development on Twitter saying, “It’s time for the next adventure! @Twitter, you will always have my heart. #LoveWhereYouWorked,” he wrote in the post.

    Prior to this, he was the senior manager, Neo Sports Broadcast for around seven months. He also had stints with Nimbus Communication. He worked with Leo Burnett India as a brand strategy associate.