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Tag: Twitter

  • ESPN re-ups with Twitter Amplify for college football

    ESPN re-ups with Twitter Amplify for college football

    MUMBAI: Television networks and publishers are really getting on board with Twitter Amplify.

    In the second development of its kind during the last few days, ESPN will quickly deliver college football highlights from numerous games this season – which kicks off this weekend—through its Twitter handle and via the social-TV Amplify platform. ESPN will run the same highlights across its Web and mobile app properties.
    In all cases, an eight-second pre-roll ad for Verizon Wireless will appear as part of a larger “#DidYouSeeThat” campaign for the telecom that will include spots on ESPN channels during the full college season.

    It’s the second year in which ESPN and Twitter have partnered for the Amplify program. The deal is probably a thing of beauty – the ability to focus on single games via the living room flat-screen TV while getting snippets galore of other contests on your laptop, tablet or smartphone.

    Twitter Amplify head Glenn Brown said, “Programs like this are a win-win-win for everyone involved. Brands get new opportunities to reach consumers, networks can distribute their content across multiple platforms and generate new revenues, and users get amazing content from the best plays happening in college football.”

    Earlier this week, Twitter debuted a similar agreement with the United States Tennis Association for the US Open, where the tourney is relaying top video highlights via the social site.

    In that example, Heineken has bought the exclusive sponsorship for the event, which runs through 8 September.

  • Gozoop executes #BurgsMeetUp for food bloggers and Twitter influencers

    Gozoop executes #BurgsMeetUp for food bloggers and Twitter influencers

    MUMBAI: Gozoop, which recently acquired Red Digital and won the social media mandate of the gourmet burger chain, Burgs, carried out a successful bloggers meet for the brand. The bloggers meet was carried out at the Andheri outlet in Mumbai.

     

    Gozoop had invited 30 renowned food bloggers and Twitter influencers to come down at the outlet and make their own burgers. The bloggers were offered a variety of ingredients and sauces to make their own burgers. The primary objective behind the activity was to reach out to a wider audience through these influencers and to give them a one-of-a-kind chance to make their own burgers.

     

    The event was simultaneously promoted across social media too. The twitter campaign was carried out using the hashtag #BurgsMeetUp, where they posted live updates from the meet along with pictures of the delicious burgers they made.

     

    Commenting on the event, Gozoop MD and co-founder Ahmed Naqvi said, “Social media is rapidly growing and becoming an interactive medium across sectors. With Burgs recently entering in India, they wanted to create awareness about their outlets and give the food enthusiasts a firsthand experience of the burger. We received an overwhelming response from the bloggers and influencers who enjoyed participating in the bloggers meet and had a great time making awesome burgers.”

     

    Commenting on the same Burgs India CEO Subroto Mukherjee added, “A bloggers meet is something we are very keen on doing as we receive a lot of feedback on what is trending and what consumers love. This will really help in taking the brand Burgs to the evoked set and thus influence consumer preferences.”

     

    Overall the bloggers made 24 types of burgers and the winner of this blogger meet was @BhookaJanta whose, burger “Bhooka Janta Bomb” will be available at all Burgs outlet this week.

  • SkyHub innovates for LG Smartphone

    SkyHub innovates for LG Smartphone

    NEW DELHI: SkyHub, the digital creative and technology firm, brought about a change in the Indian marketing scenario with the introduction of a unique social media campaign. Embracing the social medium of Vine and Instagram, SkyHub conceptualised an engaging online campaign for the launch of LG smart phone the G Pro in the country.

    LG is the first Indian marketer to effectively use the innovative medium for their consumer engagement strategy. With a series of Vines made around the G Pro Smartphone, incorporating wacky animations, social issues and traditional Indian artforms the campaign with the hashtag #ImaginationbeGins gained massive traction on Twitter and other social networks when launched.

    Talking about the social media strategy SkyHub CEO Jay Chauhan said, “Besides the creatives we also delivered social media analytics and marketing insights to measure the performance of the G Pro campaign. Our metrics showed the Vines were delivering high engagement ‘WOW’ moments whereas the Instagrams with their longer 16 sec limit simulated a more TVC style ‘piece to camera’ messaging for the audiences and worked best for quick bursts of handset specific info”. 

    Delighted by the response received for the campaign LG Mobile head marketing Amit Gujral said, “We knew we had to leapfrog the competition to reach our consumers in innovative and enjoyable ways in order to deliver an exciting and talked about campaign that resonated with our consumers. So the messaging around the G Pro was augmented using Vines, a unique medium never used before by marketers in India.”

    He further added, “SkyHub was highly innovative, metric driven and clear about the KPI’s they were delivering. Most importantly the SkyHub team’s thinking was like a creative agency but they delivered swiftly and efficiently like a news organisation.”

    Online medium being touted as the most popular way to share information, Vine and Instagram look set to play an important role for Indian marketers. The popularity of both Vine and Instagram is rapidly increasing with a study by UnrulyMedia.com showing branded Vines being four times likely to be shared than video advertising on other platforms.

  • Facebook forges ahead with Mobile Rich Media ads via PointRoll agreement

    Facebook forges ahead with Mobile Rich Media ads via PointRoll agreement

    MUMBAI: Mobile advertising represented roughly 41 per cent of Facebook’s ad revenue during Q2-2013, and the social media giant appears to have its sights set even higher. Facebook and Gannett-owned PointRoll are expected to soon announce an agreement that will bring more rich media ads to Facebook’s mobile News Feed.

     

    In June, Online Media Daily reported that rich mobile ads are more engaging on social-networking sites compared to the same ads on regular mobile sites. The article cited data from Celtra, and wrote that “rich media ads running in the Facebook and Twitter apps had an interaction rate of 55.2 per cent, four times that of the same ads on standard mobile sites. Time spent interacting with ads was nearly double in social media, with an average of 53 seconds versus 32 seconds on other sites.”

     

    Rich media ads on Facebook’s app already exist, but PointRoll VP of digital innovation and product strategy Todd Pasternack argued that PointRoll’s history is what will set their offering apart. “We’ve been doing this for 13-plus years,” he asserted.

     

    PointRoll CEO Mario Diez said: “What’s different about the Facebook mobile environment is that if the brands build the right type of engagement, and it is served within an environment that people are used to engaging with and interacting with, we see really good performance of the media.”

     

    Pasternack added: “What’s great about this is that it maintains the feel of Facebook.”

    While both Diez and Pasternack seemed to beat around the bush, Facebook didn’t shy away from using the word “native” when talking about the agreement. Facebook PMD Program partner manager Anurag Gulati said: “Facebook’s native format and large photo ads in News Feed – the most engaging part of Facebook – set our mobile ads apart.”

     

    “Mobile rich media lets brands create ad experiences that allow for multiple levels of content in one placement: videos, games, shares, etc.” he added.

     

    Because the Facebook Exchange (FBX) isn’t available on the app yet, all of the mobile rich media ads are the result of direct buys through Facebook’s platform for mobile News Feed.

     

    PointRoll and Facebook have an existing relationship on desktop, and Pasternack indicated that this agreement is part of Facebook’s mobile-first strategy.”We’ve been right there with them as they shift to mobile to make sure we would help support that strategy,” he said.

  • Now, Shah Rukh Khan is just a phone call away

    Now, Shah Rukh Khan is just a phone call away

    MUMBAI: In this era of social engagement with audiences and fans alike Bollywood’s King Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, takes one step ahead to reach out to his fans and become the first celeb to enable all his Indian fans to ‘Dial to follow him on Twitter’.

    Riding on the success of Chennai Express, in response to the love and affection shown by his fans worldwide SRK announced a groundbreaking global integration with Twitter India and ZipDial in which everyone living in India can follow and engage with him on Twitter via SMS.

    Effective immediately, anyone with a mobile phone in India can follow @iamsrk on Twitter by dialing (or giving a missed call) at 09015500555. The experience works for 100 per cent of mobile users in India on any phone, any operator network and is completely free, irrespective of whether they have a Twitter account or data-enabled phone.

    On calling the number this is the text message that is received – Thanks for dialing. Enjoy my Tweets by SMS. To reply to me or see my photos, just follow me on Twitter. Love, Shah Rukh Khan; followed by his latest tweet.

    Commenting on the integration, Shah Rukh Khan said, “I have always believed in the power of technology and use it in various ways to further my connection with my audience. In recent years, Twitter has been a magical place for me to engage with my fans. I hope all my fans in India will avail this new service to connect with me. I thank ZipDial and Twitter India for helping me inaugurate this innovation and help bring together my entire national audience who don’t access Twitter. Very soon I hope to also expand this to multiple countries, languages and platforms.”

    Twitter’s India market director Rishi Jaitly said, “Twitter is the world’s leading real time information network where hundreds of millions of people follow the people and organisations that interest them. In India, Twitter among other things brings our users closer to their favourite stars and icons. We are pleased to see Shah Rukh Khan and ZipDial use the Twitter platform in this way.”

  • YouTube’s founders challenge Vine and Instagram with new video app

    YouTube’s founders challenge Vine and Instagram with new video app

    MUMBAI: After months of teasing, the wait is finally over: Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who brought forth the video-sharing site YouTube, are taking the wraps off their newest project, a video creation app called MixBit.

    Versions for Apple mobile devices and the Web are already live, and an Android version is due in coming weeks.

    On the surface, MixBit resembles two other leading video apps, Twitter’s Vine and Facebook’s Instagram. As with those apps, users press and hold the screen of their smartphone to record video. Instagram users can capture up to 15 seconds of video, a bit longer than Vine’s six-second maximum. MixBit allows 16 seconds.

    But as the name suggests, MixBit is all about mixing and editing video. Both the app and a related website, MixBit.com, are aimed at making it easy to clip and stitch together snippets of videos. Simple tools built into the app allow users to edit each 16-second clip and combine up to 256 clips into an hour long video. The final product can then be shared on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or the MixBit website.

    Think of it as “shoot, mix and share.” You don’t even have to do the shooting – the MixBit site allows anyone to snip and remix any publicly shared video content.

    In fact Hurley said encouraging users to remix other people’s videos to create new works is the principal goal of the service, which is the first big product to emerge from Avos Systems, the start-up he co-founded with Chen two years ago. (The company has received funding from the venture arm of Google, which bought YouTube, as well as from Innovation Works, Madrone Capital and New Enterprise Associates.)

    “The whole purpose of MixBit is to reuse the content within the system,” Hurley said in an interview. “I really want to focus on great stories that people can tell.”

    The ability to create those more complex video stories could give MixBit an edge, at least momentarily, over Vine and Instagram, which are growing rapidly. Vine has no editing tools and Instagram introduced rudimentary ones recently.

    But one crucial decision by Avos is likely to hold it back: the app is totally anonymous and communal. Users cannot post their videos under a name, and they cannot comment on each other’s work.

    Showing off is a big part of modern internet culture. The competition to create popular videos helped build YouTube into the powerful force that it now is, and it propels social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

  • Social networks stepping up efforts to get TV ad budgets

    Social networks stepping up efforts to get TV ad budgets

    NEW DELHI: Facebook and Twitter are stepping up their efforts to increase their share of the global TV ad budget as technical developments begin to enable advertisers to target people who use digital devices while watching television.

    A report in The Financial Times quoted by CASBAA says the two social network giants have been rolling out a number of initiatives over the summer in a bid to earn more from global TV ad spend, which is expected to be worth $205 billion this year.

    Facebook has launched a campaign, dubbed Reach for the Beach, to highlight the fact that holiday makers take their mobile phones with them while leaving their TVs at home.

    Recent research from eMarketer has shown that the amount of time people in the United States spend consuming digital media will overtake the hours they spend watching TV for the first time this year.

    Facebook vice president of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson said that today mobile has overtaken TV to become “the primary screen”, although she didn‘t expect TV and Facebook to be locked in rivalry. “I think we‘re at a stage where the conversation is really TV plus Facebook,” she said.

    The company has commissioned a study from Nielsen, the market research firm, which found that more people aged 18 to 24 used Facebook than any of the four major US TV networks between 8pm to 11pm during weekdays.

    It is currently developing 15-second video ads that can replay TV ads on Facebook and plans to launch the initiative in October. It is also working on the means by which ads on Facebook could be linked to a TV show in real time.

    Twitter, meanwhile, has formed partnerships with media companies to monitor what people tweet while watching TV and it expects to use the information to help target ads on Twitter.

    Twitter chief revenue officer Adam Bain said, “We often have thought about Twitter plus TV, but we are now thinking about Twitter Times TV.”

    However, advertisers are weighing up the pros and cons of linking in their offerings to the social networks.

    Razorfish senior vice president Joe Mele has cautioned whether consumers would want to receive ads while tweeting, for example, about the presidential debates or the Super Bowl.

    He said, “There is a question about whether or not just because you are watching something on TV means you want that same experience on a different device.”

  • Ministry of Information and Broadcasting introduces ‘New Media Wing’

    Ministry of Information and Broadcasting introduces ‘New Media Wing’

    NEW DELHI: Almost a year after guidelines were framed for the use of social media by government agencies and citizen engagement for e-governance projects, the proposal for establishing a ‘New Media Wing’ in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for publicising its initiatives through multiple social media platforms has received the official nod.

     

    The move has come even as the government is gearing itself for the general elections next year. Both All India Radio and Doordarshan launched its new series yesterday to highlight the initiatives of the government.

     

    According to the proposal approved by the union cabinet, the new wing to be headed by a joint secretary level officer would address the communication and dissemination requirements of the government on social media platforms. The wing would integrate the communication tools horizontally and vertically through various social media platforms.

     

    The proposal for establishment of new media wing has been drawn on the basis of the experience of the initiative undertaken by the ministry recently, on a pilot basis to position itself on the social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

     

    The administrative and operational support will be provided by a unit under the ministry – the Research Reference and Training Division – which would be the new wing.

     

    The expenditure for establishing the wing and the recurring expenditure thereon would cost the exchequer an amount of Rs 22.5 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan (1012-17) which has been approved by the cabinet committee for economic affairs under the development communication and information dissemination plan scheme of the ministry.

     

    In August last year, the government had issued framework and guidelines to enable the various agencies to create and implement their own strategy for the use of social media. The document was to help them to make an informed choice about the objective, platforms, resources, etc. to meet the requirement of interaction with their varied stakeholders.

     

    The official statement had then said, “As more and more projects are getting implemented, an increasing need has been felt for wider and deeper participation of an engagement with all stakeholders to ensure that citizen centricity is maintained in all projects. There is now a consensus that citizen participation and civic engagement are the building blocks for good governance and e-governance is a critical component of good governance.

     

    It had added that, “Media is transforming the way in which people connect with each other and the manner in which information is shared and distributed. While at a personal level, the uptake and usage of social media is gaining rapid popularity, use and utility of such media for official purpose remain ambiguous. Many apprehensions remain including, but not limited to, issues related to authorisation to speak on behalf of department/ agency, technologies and platform to be used for communication, scope of engagement, creating synergies between different channels of communication, compliance with existing legislations etc.”

  • Despite losses, NDTV reports improved operational performance for Q1-2014

    Despite losses, NDTV reports improved operational performance for Q1-2014

    BENGALURU: Despite the fact that the first quarter is seasonally the worst quarter, and one-time expenses related to the re-launch of NDTV Profit, New Delhi Television Networks Limited (NDTV) has reported an improved operation performance for Q1-2014.

     

    NDTV’s consolidated net loss for Q1-2014 at Rs 24.04 crore was 7.9 per cent lower than the consolidated loss of Rs 26.09 crore for Q1-2013. The company had reported a consolidated profit of Rs 27.81 crore in Q4-2013 and a consolidated profit of Rs 19.1 crore for FY-2013.

     

    Consolidated income from operations of Rs 102.4 crore for Q1-2014 was slightly lower (by 4.1 per cent) as compared to the Rs 106.83 crore for Q1-2013 and substantially lower (45.1 per cent lower) than the Rs 186.56 crore for Q4-2013.

     

    Total consolidated expense was Rs 125.75 crore for Q1-2014, lower by 5.1 per cent as compared to Rs 132.56 crore for Q1-2013 and 21.8 per cent lower than the Rs 160.90 crore for Q4-2013.

     

    NDTV’s consolidated production expense at Rs 24.11 crore for Q1-2014 was lower by 12.1 per cent as compared to the production expense of Rs 27.42 crore for Q1-2013 and 39.9 per cent lower than the Rs 40.12 crore for Q4-2013.

     

    NDTV spent Rs 21.57 crore towards marketing, distribution and promotional expenses, 37.7 per cent lower than the Rs 34.65 crore for Q1-2013 and almost half (50.6 per cent of the total marketing, distribution and promotional expenses) of the Rs 42.63 crore in Q4-2013.

     

    NDTV’s consolidated operating and administrative expense for Q1-2014 at Rs 28.58 crore was 7.2 per cent more than the Rs 26.65 crore for Q1-2013, but 4.8 per cent lower than the Rs 30.01 crore for Q4-2013.

     

    NDTV’s Profit / (Loss) from ordinary activities before finance cost and exceptional Items for Q1-2014 at Rs (-14.74) crore was 13.6 per cent lower than the Rs (-17.05) crore for Q1-2013. NDTV reported a profit / from ordinary activities before finance cost and exceptional items of Rs 14.65 crore for Q4-2013.

     

    NDTV’s finance costs for Q1-2014 at Rs 4.65 crore was substantially lower by 31.5 per cent as compared to the Rs 6.79 crore for Q1-2013 and lower by 24 per cent as compared to the Rs 6.12 crore for Q4-2013.

     

    NDTV says that traditionally, the April to June quarter is seasonally unfavourable for the media industry. This has been exacerbated by the economic downturn. Further, some of the benefits of Phase I and Phase II Digitisation – substantial reduction in carriage fees and significant increase in subscription revenues – are yet to fully accrue.

     

    NDTV group CEO Vikram Chandra said, “We are excited at the imminent re-launch of NDTV Profit. We are working on a unique concept. A business channel only attracts viewership in the day, when the markets are open. The relaunched channel will cover markets during the day, and high viewership programming in the evening. This enables us to tap into two prime-time bands.”

     

    NDTV is the first Indian company to have 1 million followers on Twitter.

  • Omron India’s BMB social media campaign brings in huge fan base

    Omron India’s BMB social media campaign brings in huge fan base

    NEW DELHI: Omron which deals in automation, home healthcare and sensing and control technology has successfully concluded its social media campaign focusing on the company‘s association with the blockbuster Bhaag Milkha Bhaag as the Technology Partner.

    The campaign, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, witnessed huge amount of participation and a significant enhancement in engagement level contributing towards the brand awareness and recognition in India. It was a key highlight of the association which was also promoted via TVCs, hoardings and online advertisements.

    The Facebook campaign motivated people to participate in the “Inspiring tomorrow” contest by sharing inspirational stories of their lives on the Omron page.

    In sync with the movie‘s theme of courage and conviction, the contest was rolled-out few days before the movie release. Before it went live, Omron ran a teaser with captivating messages to draw attention and create excitement around the contest.

    This was followed by inviting the participants to share their real life stories which were then made visible for votes/likes. On the Basis of the number of votes, participants found their positions in the leaderboard and the first three winners were rewarded with exciting Omron hampers.

    The contest resulted in addition of 30,665 fans increasing traction from 114,868 to 145,533 in a span of two weeks. The ‘no. of people talking about‘ went up from 400 to 17,338 during the same period.

    Omron India debuted on Twitter during the same campaign and promoted the Inspiring Tomorrow contest by inviting fans on its Facebook page to tweet their inspirational stories using#MyInspiration. Three winners were selected on the basis of the maximum tweets. The campaign reached out to 4805 audience and gained 30 new followers in just three hours. @OmronIndiaTwitter handle, which is 22 days old now, has 60 followers and 88 tweets.