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  • UTV Stars and bindass big on digital

    UTV Stars and bindass big on digital

    MUMBAI: If one could say that digital and youngsters go hand-in-hand, then it won’t be wrong considering the amount of time youngsters spend online.

    A look around would be proof enough – almost everyone is busy with their mobiles, tablets or laptops. Therefore, for a youth channel to have an online presence is as important as breathing!

    Disney-UTVnetwork which has two channels – bindass and UTV Stars – under its banner caters largely to youngsters. And the channels are making/taking full efforts to take these brands where the youth are.

    “A strong online presence across YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and web destinations is a significant step in that direction… Our strategy is to provide our web users with constant updates on our programming and also create a platform for the youth to get together and enjoy content on Bollywood and youth oriented themes,” says Disney UTV’s COO – Digital Sameer Ganapathy.

    The number game

    Both channels – binadss and UTVStars – have a strong presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter wherein they try to give their audience something different from the rest. For example, when the IPL was on, unlike others who just give the score or the wickets which were available on all portals the channel gave its target audience behind-the-scenes insights on cricketer’s wives and how they were egging on and cheeringfor their spouses as they battled for India on the cricket pitch.

    Disney UTVs COO – Digital Sameer

    Ganapathy feels constant updates

    on the digital platforms will create

    traction among the youth

    Apart from that, the network gives importance to humorous content in its posts across genres such as technology, automobiles, Bollywood, travel, sports etc.

    On Facebook, bindass has over three million fans which lets them boast of being the most engaged youth entertainment (channels) on the social networking site in the country. As for, other networking sites, on twitter it has more than 6,600 followers and on YouTube (for which bindass creates original content) it has more than 64 million views with close to 90,000 subscribers.

    UTVStars which was launched around two years ago (Aug 2011) has 900,000 fans on Facebook, 20,000+ followers on twitter and 88 million views on YouTube with 96,000 subscribers who have access to all the shows and behind the scene videos.

    The channel’s digital team knows that all three platforms differ, but each is important in its own way as the objective it serves varies. Facebook and Twitter let them interact and engage with their fans. YouTube channels serve two purposes – the first as a destination for viewers to catch up on TV shows that might have been missed out on TV, and the second as to lure new audiences on the back of original content.

    Connecting with content

    UTV group CEO and founder chairman Ronnie Screwvala is normally known to quip: “I’m original, so I want original.” And the entire group has made that it’s mandate: hence, the initiative to create fresh original content online too. “80 per cent of the audience on YouTube is male. 

    Hence, we created a new destination for young men looking for the edge in the mating game – AXE Chickipedia, an entertaining webisodic original content series around a young guy and the funny situations he faces in the mating game! We took engagement and participation to a whole new level by giving viewers a chance to share their own mating game experiences, and the funniest ones became a Chickipedia episode. Eventually, 40 per cent of our 26 episodes were made from stories shared by our viewers themselves.” brags Sameer.

    Chickipedia has 2.1 million video views, with 60 per cent audience retention.

    Chickipedia’s success encouraged the team to come up with a new show MENtals. Launched earlier this year, it focuses on situations reqular girls in romantic relationships face – albeit with a humorous undertone.

    Music is one of the main categories which the channels focuses on.

    “Music is an important aspect of the lives of youth and particularly at bindass we have always maintained a compelling and healthy mix of shows and music. Following that philosophy, another unique proposition that we recently launched is bindass Jukebox”, says Sameer.

    The application combines the experience of Facebook with that of television viewing making it interactive. Through bindass Jukebox users are able to rank music by voting for their favorite songs listed and interact with other users as well.

    It gives users a chance to select their favourite song, dedicate the song to their friends and loved ones and most importantly watch their dedication message along with their profile image live on the channel. The playlist is created on the basis of users’ Facebook votes and is then played out on television within three hours from the time voting starts. This works well as it provides almost instant gratification to young folks, as it allows them to get peer recognition, especially when their profiles are seen on TV.

    Similarly, UTV Stars has Tia’s Request show. Users vote for their fav songs on the UTV stars Facebook page and this gets aired on the TV channel along with their dedications.

    Money matters

    When asked to explain the sources of revenue on the online platform, Sameer says, “With YouTube, monetisation occurs through run of network inventory that YouTube runs, sponsorships through show integrations as well as now with subscriptions. We are exploring subscriptions for our premium content while building audiences and viewership through ad-support both via run of network inventory monetisation as well as sponsorship integration.”

    As for Facebook and Twitter, they are yet to come up with a native monetisation model for publishers. “However, through using our engaged audience base on these platforms, we are creating transmedia properties like bindass Jukebox on Facebook as well as platforms such as sponsored tweets to monetise audiences there. We plan to increase such media properties that can be monetised,” he adds.

    One thing is clear that since youth entertainment is a dynamic genre and hence, it is important to go beyond TV and create a strong presence where young people tend to spend their time whether it is Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. And gauging from their ongoing initiatives, Bindass and UTV Stars, seem to be taking the right steps.

  • Google, Facebook corners more than half of advertising revenue spend in Asia

    Google, Facebook corners more than half of advertising revenue spend in Asia

    NEW DELHI: Google and Facebook have cornered around 60 per cent of the advertising revenue spent online in Asia, even as the online spending on commercials in India is around seven per cent.

    A study by Economist Intelligence Unit‘s (EIU) report on environment for Asia‘s Internet businesses revealed that the market is challenging as its size in Asia is still small and there are many players competing in the online advertising space.

    Monetisation through online advertising is not easy, as even big names in the global publishing industry have seen that there are simply too many players competing for same advertising dollars, the report said.

    “In Asia this is compounded by the small size of individual markets. In Malaysia and Thailand, for example, just one per cent of advertising revenue is spent online. In India, this is slightly higher at seven per cent. But of the $ 410 million being spent online, 60 per cent goes to Google and Facebook, with only the remaining 40 per cent going to other online players,” it added.

    This is mainly because Google and Facebook have the highest number of users on the internet, being the top two sites in the world.

    “Online advertising budgets, while growing, remain small and skewed towards the larger players. While e-commerce is growing rapidly, finding the winning business model remains difficult in many markets,” the EIU report said.

    Outside of North Asia, entrepreneurs report that internet users are reluctant to pay for intangible items such as content. This is particularly so when there is pirated content easily available, it added.

    However, EIU said mobile advertising is slowly gaining traction and Asia will be one of the biggest markets.

    While online advertising in Asia is forecast to grow at a modest pace (from 24 per cent of worldwide online advertising in 2010 to 26 per cent by 2015), the mobile advertising market is really taking off.

    By 2015, Asia is expected to account for one-third of the mobile advertising market globally, it said.

    Online advertising spend in India was about Rs 2,260 crore as of March 2013 and is estimated to grow to Rs 2,938 crore by 2014, while, mobile advertising is estimated to reach Rs 250 crore in 2013, a growth of 40 per cent year-on-year.

    Globally, online advertising revenue stood at USD 99 billion in 2012, which is estimated to grow at 15 per cent to USD 113.5 billion in 2013. In the case of mobile advertising, the revenues were USD 6.4 billion in 2012 and is expected to touch USD 9.7 billion in 2013.

  • US state department spends $630,000 to boost Facebook ‘likes’

    US state department spends $630,000 to boost Facebook ‘likes’

    MUMBAI: The US state department has in a bid to boost its Facebook fan base has spent USD 630,000 on its Facebook strategy. The strategy has helped the state department in increasing its Facebook followers from 100,000 to more than two million in a span of two years between 2011 and 2013.

    Describing the social media strategy, the US state department report stated, “The strategy is simple. It involves buying fans who may have once clicked on an ad or ‘liked‘ a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further.”

    Defenders of this plan argued that Facebook page discovery is difficult enough to merit the use of Facebook ads ‘to increase visibility.‘

    The US state department may be content that after its six figure investment, each of its four Facebook pages had 2.5 million fans that were acquired through advertisements and viral photos, but a funds-rich social media strategy doesn‘t necessarily mean that they‘ve acquired loyal fans. The rate of engagement would be the judge of that.

    No surprise here: Just two per cent of fans were found to be engaging with these Facebook pages, which also meant that there were few people who are actually paying attention to the U.S. state department‘s Facebook presence. And that has to sting, given that the department felt they were worth spending quite a bit of cash on.

    “Engagement on each posting varied, and most of that interaction was in the form of ‘likes.‘ Many postings had fewer than 100 comments or shares; the most popular ones had several hundred.”

    The State Department acknowledged in the report that buying fans wasn‘t a terribly worthwhile investment. Maybe that will be a lesson to everyone buying Facebook fans out there: The state department shelled out and look where it got them. Apparently you really can‘t buy popularity.

  • Tips Music crosses 2 million fans mark on Facebook

    Tips Music crosses 2 million fans mark on Facebook

    MUMBAI: Tips Music has become one of the largest entertainment brands on Facebook in India. The company‘s Facebook community crossed 2 million fans and has reported to have one of the highest engagement rates on the social network.

    Tips was one of the last to join the social media bandwagon but has surpassed their competitors in a short span of two years. The company has the largest fan following on Facebook, not only amongst the music companies, but also in the film production companies in India.

    “We‘re very excited to cross this milestone on Facebook, we appreciate all the support our fans have given us in the last few years. Our company mission has always been to give the audience quality music and films and we‘re happy to be spreading this to the digital platform. I‘m personally very active on various social mediums and enjoy having conversations with people on Facebook and Twitter,” informs Tips Industries Limited managing director Kumar Taurani.

    Tips Music, unlike its competitors, broke the trend of depending only on new music to grow their community and leveraged their rich 90s music catalogue to engage with fans. “When we started our Facebook initiative, every expert we met told us the page would only grow during the time of a new soundtrack release. The problem was, at the time we only had one film up for release and a gap of a year till the next,” says Taurani.

    Tips which has a catalogue of 25,000+ tracks, did not want to limit their Facebook promotions to 10-15 recent songs. “We developed a unique strategy where the main focus was to refresh people‘s memory with the music from our 90s catalogue while introducing the youth to classic songs they may have never heard,” says Tips Industries Limited senior VP and business head Sahas Malhotra.

    The company also started sharing its content from films like Khal Nayak, Rangeela, Imtihaan, Phool Aur Kaante and Raja Hindustani. “Our initial interaction with people was very low. This forced us to question our decision. Though music from the 60s, 70s and 80s are considered evergreen and retro cool from a young person‘s perspective, the 90s did not yet have a label.”

    Tips then started receiving messages from their fans thanking them for sharing a song they had heard 15 years ago. “People now knew where they could get the hit songs of the 90s. Our fans on Facebook then started sending pictures of a cassette, asking if the title was available digitally. This forced us to dig deeper into our catalogue and churn out compilations with songs we didn‘t even think would be popular in this day and age. We were pleasantly surprised to see the overwhelming response from the youth and it‘s a great sign to see them consuming hits from the 90s.”

    Prabhudheva‘s Ramaiya Vastavaiya starring Girish Kumar and Shruti Haasan releasing 19 July, Rajkumar Santoshi‘s Phata Poster Nikhla Hero starring Shahid Kapoor and Ileana D‘Cruz on 20 September and ‘It‘s Entertainment‘ starring Akshay Kumar and Tamannah Bhatia directed by renowned screenplay writers Sajid-Farhad releasing 28 March 2014 are the forthcoming movies of Tips Music. 

  • Banking on social media

    Banking on social media

    MUMBAI: Given the customer centric nature of banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) business, it is evident that banks need to constantly engage with their customers. And what better platform than using the digital medium that gives them the scope to interact with their customers on a regular basis.

    It is no surprise to see the banking sector using popular outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube to connect with their customers and attract new ones.
    Here‘s how two BFSI entities – SBI Life Insurance and HDFC Bank use social media

    “The digital platform is an opportunity for us. However, to unlock its potential to the maximum, it makes sense to view the possibilities holistically, rather than confining it to merely a function or limiting the scope to a single dimension. We use the digital space for customer acquisition, brand building, service and distribution,” says SBI Life Insurance vice president and head-brand corporate communication and cross sell Chandramohan Mehra.

    SBI Life Insurance which initially followed a strategy of having differentiated content on Facebook and Twitter, now with its increasing fan base is transforming it into a holistic channel. “We are now stretching the scope of social media presence to promote and facilitate online product purchase, customer education and employee and distributor recruitment,” informs Mehra.

    SBI Life is the only life insurance company to have a website in nine Indian languages. “This enables customers to understand our products and services in language they are most comfortable with, before taking a well-informed decision,” he adds. And the company is using its social media presence to draw in potential and existing customers to its own website to keep them informed about developments, products and offerings.

    The insurance company is involved in creating video content in the area of customer education and services, specifically for online visitors. “We have developed apps and games including a virtual life insurance crossword, contests on facebook, e-life insurance dictionary and tax calculator. With increasing penetration of smart phones, we have intensified our efforts on developing apps that will be relevant to both internal and external audiences,” reveals Mehra.

    The use of digital media has helped companies to collect sizable amount of data about the customer‘s needs. The challenge, however, is to make sense of it. “Based on web analytics, integrated with social customer relationship management, one of the possibilities that exists is reaching out to the relevant audience, with targeted message at the right place and time,” Mehra opines.

    SBI Life Insurance creates content for YouTube which caters to varied audiences. “While prospective customers are served through viral ads and educational videos, for existing customers we have service related videos. We engage our employees and potential agents through testimonial videos and the general public through content pertaining to awards and recent recognitions bagged by SBI Life,” informs Mehra. SBI Life Insurance, which currently has 626,272 likes (at the time of writing) on its Facebook page, feels the fans on Facebook are irrelevant if it doesn‘t engage them.

    Engagement score is one of the key metrics we closely follow and we have one of the best engagement scores in the BFSI,” says Mehra. The insurance company has launched many exciting online campaigns. “In light of the Uttarakhand tragic event, we have started speedy claim assistance on our Facebook page. This is one of our initiatives through which we are trying to reach out to our existing customers,” he informs.

    HDFC Bank also engages its customers across social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Linkedin, Google Plus, Pinterest and Foursquare. “We use updates, offers, financial awareness tips and monthly contests and applications to interact with customers on regular basis,” says a senior official from HDFC Bank. HDFC Bank currently has over 1.5 million fans on Facebook and a total of over 15,000 followers on Twitter handles.

    HDFC Bank gives financial awareness tips and hosts monthly contests to interact with customers

    “Given the customer centric nature of business, we have to ensure that we are present where our customers are and they are present on social media, voicing their views, opinions and engaging with others,” he adds. The bank posts a variety of content on various digital platforms including financial trivia, quizzes, opinion polls, offers on credit and debit cards, bank news, information about their products and services and comments around personal finance, etc.

    “Impressions are generated when viewers see and react to these posts. Updates are created specific to the kind of platform being used for communication,” reveals the senior official.

    “We use digital media to monitor customer feedback, address customer queries/complaints, communicate our products and services and derive insights on them from customers, educate customers, increase financial awareness and also do location based targeting of offers,” he adds.

    HDFC Bank, through its various social networking platforms tracks, identifies and responds to various issues highlighted by customers online. “We are one of the few banks in India which allows users to post on our Facebook page and have been recognised as the most responsive brand on Facebook in India,” he informs.

    The bank has tailored its digital content to help customers learn about their products (including offers and deals), knowledge on managing their finances and gain insights on the economy and finance.

    The digital bug has crawled into the banking sector. With the changing financial paradigm, banks have found an easy way to stay connected to its customers.

  • BSkyB suspends Facebook ads over offensive content

    BSkyB suspends Facebook ads over offensive content

    MUMBAI: British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY), the UK‘s largest pay-TV broadcaster, has cancelled its advertising on the social networking site – Facebook, after one of its ads was displayed adjacent to offensive material.

    The suspension comes after Nissan Motor‘s UK division and lender Nationwide Building Society last month halted some Facebook ads that could have appeared next to offensive content.
    In a blog post last month, Menlo Park, California-based Facebook said it would increase the accountability of the creators of content, and it would work with legal experts, to ensure its employees are adequately trained to evaluate hateful or harmful content. Facebook (FB) had $1.25 billion in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2013, about 85 per cent of its total sales.

  • Splitsvilla 6 enagages its audience with new apps

    Splitsvilla 6 enagages its audience with new apps

    MUMBAI: Love just got difficult to get. With 16 youngsters fighting with each other to not only win a show, but to also (ostensibly) find love, Splitsvilla 6 has got all the right ingredients to make the perfect youth sizzler. The latest season promises to be ‘Hotter than Hell‘ with lots of scintillating moments and breathtaking participants which are definitely pleasing to the eyes. Not to miss, are the trademark back-stabbing, hating and fighting elements adding the required spice to the tale. Splitsvilla Seaason 6 promises to have higher doses of all these and much more to sustain and increase its cult following among the young and restless.

    The tagline very aptly says ‘Hotter than Hell‘ and to make the show as hot as hell, Viacom18 has launched an interesting campaign introducing newer elements, targeting both digital and Out of Home (OOH) media. The show has been created by an in-house creative team, headed by Bhavya Sharma.

    The network has roped in Fiama De Wills, Karbonn Mobiles, Zinga and Kama Sutra as sponsors for this season. Revealing further details, MTV business head Aditya Swamy says: “We have integrated our sponsors in the show. We are giving exclusive coverage to them by having exclusive Fiama and Karbonn tasks. We also have their logo presence during the show.”

    So what‘s new? The sexy siren Sherlyn Chopra will be the all new sizzling co-host. (We thought Nikhil Chinappa was sexy enough: editor chuckles). Also, the popular ‘Break up Diary‘ segment wherein the female contestants narrated their break-up stories to introduce themselves will now also feature the male contestants. Well, ofcourse, what is more interesting than a bunch of ‘hot‘, bare-chested men talk about how they faced and ‘survived‘ heartbreak, right?

    The channel tells us that extensive research has gone into this season to better understand the pulse of the young generation. The research team, headed by Sumeli Chatterjee tried to spot the current trend. “Changes in Splitsvilla 6 have been created based on the opinion from our research group, whom we refer to as trend spotters,” says Swamy.

    After research, it was time for the right kind of promotion and what better way than to target the buzzing college campuses. MTV reached out to around 200 college campuses across India, including Kolkata, Lucknow and Chandigarh, during its pre-launch. They also hired campus ambassadors for ‘word of mouth‘ marketing. “We have promoted the show in a big way, keeping 20-30 per cent of our total advertising budget only for social and digital platforms,” informs Bhattacharya.

    It‘s the digital front where Splitsvilla aims to create the maximum buzz. “MTV Splitsvilla is the ideal product to proliferate on digital media,” says a media observer. “It‘s for young people who zoom in like bees on outlets such as Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and it‘s about relationships. Hence, it‘s good its building up itself on digital media.”

    With a humongous 2.7 million likes and 1.5 million active fans on Facebook, more than 3500 avid Twitter followers, MTVSplitsvilla 6 has managed to carve a decent online following for itself.

    But, apart from the usually explored territories of Facebook and Twitter, Splitsvilla ventures into the space of mobile apps and also includes a fan mobilising concept.

    “We have learnt a lot from MTV Roadies and have applied those lessons to Splitsvilla 6,” says MTV digital head Eklavya Bhattacharya. “What we have done within the digital space has helped us gain a lot of recognition worldwide as one of the best initiatives.”

    What more?! Remember that sweet little angel of a daughter in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai? Yes, she is Sana Saeed who was recently seen in Karan Johar‘s college flick Student of the year as a co- lead (read hot bimbo), Splitvilla 6 gets you a web show featuring ‘Sexy Sana‘ who will be analysing (read: Bitching) about all that the contestants did in the televised episode each weekend.

    Swamy adds: “Sexy Sana is an exclusively new property this season, which gives Sana‘s takes and reviews on extended videos, unedited parts and behind the scene clippings of the show.”

    Entering in the app world, the channels has added ‘I Dubba‘, which allows its 50 million viewers to not only tweet to the show on air, but also chat with fellow fans. Another interesting app is ‘Tickr 2 fame‘, which helps viewers to tweet and chat on Facebook, these conversations are shown on the show.

    The additions have helped Splitsvilla connect with its audience. “We have seen a 100 per cent rise in the response from the audience with the addition of new apps. On each show we get 300- 400 people chatting on I Dubba and 1,000 to 2,000 people tweeting on Tickr to Fame,” informs Bhattacharya.

    With five episodes already aired, let‘s wait and watch how impressive these new additions prove to be for brands Splitsvilla.

    Recap of previous seasons of Splitsvilla…

    Splitsvilla Battleground – has been the highlight of all seasons. Being one of the medium to get selected for the show, by performing a task given ‘on the spot‘, this section of Splitsvilla still engages maximum audiences.

    Audiosodes – an application though which one can listen to entire show in the voice of popular video jockey, J. Man.

    Hottie of the Day – get likes and comments on facebook.

    Urban Cupid – text articles about love relationship and break ups on facebook pages.

    Splitsvilla Prediction App – It is a proper live prediction and live betting engine for making virtual money. This is available on Vas platforms and these have been distributed to mobile
    operators across the country.

  • India sets up nationwide inspection programmes

    India sets up nationwide inspection programmes

    MUMBAI: India has launched a wide-ranging surveillance programme that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources said.

    The expanded surveillance in the world‘s most populous democracy, which the government says will help safeguard national security, has alarmed privacy advocates at a time when allegations of massive US digital snooping beyond American shores have set off a global rumpus.

    The Central Monitoring System (CMS) was announced in 2011 but there has been no public debate and the government has said little about how it will work or how it will ensure that the system is not abused.

    The government started to quietly roll the system out state by state in April this year, according to government officials. Eventually it will be able to target any of India‘s 900 million landline and mobile phone subscribers and 120 million Internet users.

    Officials said making details of the project public would limit its effectiveness as a stealthy intelligence-gathering tool.

    “Security of the country is very important. All countries have these surveillance programmes,” said a senior telecommunications ministry official, defending the need for a large-scale eavesdropping system like CMS.

    “You can see terrorists getting caught, you see crimes being stopped. You need surveillance. This is to protect you and your country,” said the official, who is directly involved in setting up the project.

    The new system will allow the government to listen to and tape phone conversations, read e-mails and text messages, monitor posts on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and track searches on Google of selected targets, according to interviews with two other officials involved in setting up the new surveillance programme, human rights activists and cyber experts.

    Security agencies will no longer need to seek a court order for surveillance or depend, as they do now, on Internet or telephone service providers to give them the data, the government officials said.

  • Reminiscing lovely Roohafza moments

    Reminiscing lovely Roohafza moments

    MUMBAI: Hamdard‘s division Roohafza launches its new activation campaign ‘My Roohafza story‘. The Brand invites its consumers to share their moments of indulgence with Roohafza. The participants stand a chance to be featured in upcoming Roohafza television commercials.

    Elaborating on the idea behind the campaign, Hamdard senior GM and head marketing Tarundeep Singh Rana says: “Millions of consumers over the last 10 decades in India have grown up with Roohafza. It‘s a brand that is very dear to Indians and everyone has their own fond memory of Roohafza. Thorough this campaign we seek to capture these stories and make them a part of the brand history.”

    The TVC is conceptualised by Triton Communication, Delhi and features actress Ragini Khanna who talks about Roohafza moments that are worth reminiscing. The brand has launched a 360 degree campaign targeting all spheres from Television, to print; from radio to Outdoor marketing across India.

    The brand is also exploring the digital platform though its official Facebook page which has already garnered 81,000 likes.

    The campaign will be phased out in two stages. The first stage allows consumers to send in their Roohafza stories through SMS, email and Facebook. The second stage involves venturing into the print media and OOH media space in order to announce the winning stories.

    Triton Communication Delhi branch head Rohit Madhusudhan says: “Roohafza is a heritage brand and every generation will have stories and memories associated with the brand. We wanted them to come out and share with us the stories they have.”

    Interestingly, one of the most popular and loved brand Maggie noodles had earlier launched a similar campaign Main Aur Meri Maggie which proved to be a mega success. Let‘s hope this campaign works wonders for Roohafza as well.

  • Facebook hits one million advertisers

    Facebook hits one million advertisers

    MUMBAI: Advertising is a form of communication for marketing. In today‘s date without using a digital platform nobody can think of promoting their product.

    Facebook has witnessed a phenomenal milestone of hitting one million active advertisers. This is the sign of advertisers adopting Facebook to promote their business.

    On this occasion, Small Business at Facebook director Dan Levy posted on the Facebook newsroom stated, “Over the past year I‘ve had the privilege of meeting and learning from many amazing business owners who use Facebook. Some have just set up their Facebook pages while others are experts who share their tips with others. I‘ve learned from companies like ministry of retail in Singapore, springwools in Ireland, and scene 75 entertainments in Ohio and many more around the world.”

    “I know business owners like these invest their hard earned money and time into running their companies. So today, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I want to say thank you to them and to the over one million businesses like them who are active advertisers. You have chosen Facebook as a partner to grow your business. We appreciate the chance to work with you, and we celebrate your success,” Levy added.

    “The more than one million active advertisers on Facebook are real people with stories that inspire us and each other. I‘d love to hear your stories. And I know you like to learn from each other. I invite you to share your stories at facebook.com/business/success, so that you can inspire more entrepreneurs to turn their passions into reality. We all start small. And whether you‘re reaching your first customer or your millionth, I‘m thankful that we‘re a part of your business,” he added concluding his blog.

    He also communicated his ‘One Million Thank Yous‘ through the post.