MoonPie’s Twitter Sass Earned Over $380K In Earned Media Value In Just Two Weeks

BY

Thanks to a considerable amount of sass over the past few weeks, the MoonPie Twitter account has earned a fair amount of attention. Witty remarks from the social media team have been directed at everyone from competitors to other brands and even singer Lana Del Rey—much to the delight of Twitter fans looking on.

It all started on August 21, the day of the solar eclipse. Like many brands, Hostess used the occasion to market its products—and MoonPie took the opportunity to make a joke out of it. Two-word responses were enough to get the internet laughing, and Time even picked up on the attention, adding momentum to the online “feud.”

The now infamous exchange wasn’t MoonPie’s first attempts at sarcasm on Twitter, but poking fun at a direct competitor made all the difference when it comes to audience engagement. Even brands jumped into the conversation, including Wendy’s—a brand famous for its snarky comments and fearless burns on social media.

MoonPie has not only poked fun at its competitor but at the very idea of what it means to market a brand on social, admitting that it wants retweets and for images to “go viral.”

When a brand gets witty on Twitter, it’s certainly entertaining and there is value in creating brand loyalty through humor. To calculate how much MoonPie would have had to spend to achieve the same kind of attention, we calculated the earned media value from the now infamous Hostess tweet all the way until September 11.

“Earned media” is the value of engagements a brand receives across channels as a result of their marketing efforts. To help quantify what the value of those engagements are worth, the Ayzenberg Group established the Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index (AEMVI) and assigned a quantifiable dollar amount for marketing gains a brand receives from a campaign or individual engagement that includes social media networks and similar digital properties. (Editor’s note: AListDaily is the publishing arm of the Ayzenberg Group. To read the updated Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index report reflecting the rapid changes in social, click here.)

Humor can be an effective way to reaching a diverse range of audiences, especially with Gen Z. A recent study by Kantar Millard Brown found that 72 percent of Gen Z said humor increases their receptivity to ads.

MoonPie is enjoying its media attention at a pivotal time for the brand, as it celebrates its 100th anniversary. Combining nostalgia and humor is attracting new followers—over 6,000 in the last three weeks alone.

A case study by Twitter found that 69 percent of users are more likely to shop with interactive brands. In the age of Rick and Morty and a meme for every occasion, today’s consumers appreciate a well-timed sense of humor that is authentic and speaks to them.

Learn everything you need to know about turning insights into data at AList Sessions, a new invite-only event series for marketers, on October 26 in Los Angeles.

Go to sessions.alistdaily.com for more info.

Ayzenberg’s Earned Media Value Index Aims To Make Measuring A Campaign’s ROI Easier

BY

(Editor’s note: AListDaily is the publishing arm of the Ayzenberg Group. To read the updated Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index report reflecting the rapid changes in social, click here.)

Marketers who have been seeking to understand the performance and value of their social campaigns and get an independent validation of their ROI had—until recently—a relatively limited set of resources to evaluate a campaign’s effectiveness. The Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index report, first released in March 2016 aimed to deliver an industry-standard rubric for marketers to measure the value of their campaigns against.

A new update to the Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index, released today, reflects the mercurial nature of the changing media landscape, with newly developed values based on a methodology which incorporates vertical pricing across various industries, predictive modeling from historical data, seasonality (how rates shift during certain times of the year) and also takes into account not just impressions, but a campaign’s influence on consumers.

The Index reflects years of paid buying experience, research and technologies that are capable of identifying cohorts, behaviors, timing and intent, as well as industry-wide feedback to create a continuously-developed resource to indicate a campaign’s real-world success.

The Index is available to brands, agencies and marketers, and is available via download or API. To download the Ayzenberg Earned Media Index, visit ayzenberg.com/emv.

Snack Brands Look For A Marketing Sack This NFL Season

BY

The NFL season officially kicks off on Thursday, signaling a new start for brands to get off the sidelines and begin their football-themed messaging, targeting fervent and frenzied fans for the fall and winter.

Brands have forever used football to sell everything from soda to soap, cars, video games and beer—you name it—in order to score with a highly engaged audience.

NFL programming occupied 10 of the top 25 most-watched prime time television programs of 2016—and fans love watching while firing off scorching hot takes on Twitter. Such Belichick-like ratings dominance—which is only projected to grow—allowed for the league to command and claim a record $3.5 billion in ad revenue last year.

Brands like PepsiCo are trying reach new and younger audiences who consume sports on the second screen just as much (if not more) than on TV screens.

PepsiCo is gamifying its line of beverage and snack products for the football season and leveraging platforms like Snapchat with the programs “They Win, You Score” and “Tostitos Lucky Bags.” The digital-first campaigns integrate interactive content and creativity in order to deliver results by allowing consumers to get an inside look at their favorite teams and participate in weekly games with the potential to win prizes like Super Bowl tickets and NFL swag.

“Gamification of NFL watching is a huge trend that we wanted to tap into,” Christina Clarke, senior director of marketing of Frito-Lay North America, told AListDaily. “We’re working even harder on making these efforts even more personal for consumers. We’ve often created large engagement programs and we will continue to do that, but having an ongoing dialogue with our consumers—especially millennials—is appealing for them and for us.”

The NFL isn’t bulletproof to millennials, which have proverbially been the plague of everything in existence. The sport is increasingly losing the demographic as well, and brands are game-planning appropriately to avoid a punt. Dawn Hudson, the NFL’s chief marketing officer, is the former CEO and president of Pepsi and might perhaps be the right executive primed for the challenge.

Clarke said both programs are unique to Snapchat—a platform the consumers they’re targeting use regularly—citing that 82 percent of millennials use Snapchat while making purchases in stores. The brand is applying gamification learnings from last year’s Doritos #MixArcade E3 activation into their two NFL programs as they continue to explore new areas of marketing technology.

“We’re always looking for the latest technology that helps us connect to our fans, but still makes business sense for the brand,” Clarke said. “With younger consumers, there has always been a sense of competitiveness and gaming, but now it’s evolved in the digital age.”

For the upcoming season, 24 league sponsors across 37 brands are activating their NFL rights with more than 40 television and 55 digital spots using 55 current or former players, according to Sports Business Daily.

Football fans are such a sought-after consumer group that Amazon is now reportedly promising that it’ll track how many viewers see sponsors’ in-game ads and then browse or buy products on its site. That means makes like Pepsi can now track to see if TV ads like “The Fun Doesn’t End Zone” starring Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown have an actual effect among consumers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHFcKh0sM4

Networks like Fox are also maximizing the millions of live eyeballs glued to TV screens each Sunday by allowing brands to get creative and test a new kind of marketing with bite-sized six-second ads.

Fresh off of a Super Bowl ad from February featuring Ernie the Elephant and Seahawks star Richard Sherman, consumer packaged goods company Wonderful Pistachios is taking another crack at their sports marketing strategy by launching “Put a Smile on Your Snackface,” the largest national campaign to date for the brand.

The snack brand, which contributed 14 percent of all snack category dollar growth last year, is again tapping Sherman and Packers linebacker Clay Matthews to appear in comedic ads throughout the season. In addition to digital efforts, it will be supported by print, in-store displays and point-of-sale material up until the Super Bowl.

“More than half of Wonderful Pistachios consumers eat pistachios while watching sports. It’s an opportunity where consumers can mindlessly graze on junk food, and Wonderful Pistachios wants to be a healthy salty snack alternative consumers feel good about when munching on during game time,” Adam Cooper, vice president of marketing for Wonderful Pistachios, told AListDaily. “Wonderful Pistachios is the fastest-growing major snack brand based on actual consumer purchase data since November 2016. This beats out major snack brands that usually dominate the snack aisle.”

The $55 million campaign for the upcoming season was made by The Wonderful Agency, its in-house creative team. Cooper said the snack company’s shift in strategy largely stems from consumers currently demanding more fresh and healthy options.

“Adapting to this can be a challenge for traditional snack companies,” he said. “This is proven by our huge growth this past year. A person has an average of 2.7 snacks per day. They are snacking more than they ever have before. In fact, there are now more snacking occasions than meal occasions each day. Eating has changed tremendously in the US.”

Cooper said the success of their Super Bowl campaign, which costs a cool $5 million for brands just to play ball for 30-seconds on TV, led to more consumers reaching for Wonderful Pistachios than ever.

It also put the company on a path to re-up its pigskin messaging and bring the newly created odd superlatives featuring Sherman and Matthew.

“More than three million new households were choosing Wonderful Pistachios and we increased the association between Wonderful Pistachios and football by 52 percent,” Cooper said. “These are clear indicators that Super Bowl was a smart marketing avenue for our brand . . . We don’t have another Super Bowl commercial planned at the moment—but never say never.”

‘Forge of Empires’ Campaign Proves Pinterest Is Strong Game Marketing Platform

BY

Mobile and web browser game developer InnoGames, which has reported strong and steady growth over the past few years, isn’t averse to experimenting with promotional campaigns.

Although the company still relies heavily on traditional social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it has made the unconventional move to the Pinterest platform—where people go to share and find ideas and “pin” them to custom boards—to promote the mobile version of Forge of Empires.

Mathias Wuerdemann, performance marketing manager at InnoGames

Pinterest attracts over 150 million active users a month, largely from people looking for inspiration or to sell their goods, and millennials use it about as much as Instagram, but marketers often overlook the fast-growing platform.

“What makes Pinterest so interesting and distinguishes it from other social networks is the high female share and the fact that shopping is a large part of the user experience,” InnoGames’ performance marketing manager Mathias Wuerdemann told AListDaily. “At InnoGames, we are constantly looking for new channels to reach untapped audiences, so Pinterest became an option due to what it offered advertisers. Unlike other networks, promoted pins last forever and continue to engage people. According to Pinterest, advertisers receive an average of 20 percent more free clicks in the month after launching a promoted pin.”

Wuerdemann added that InnoGames began creating promoted pins for Forge of Empires at the end of last year, and its decision to try Pinterest was based on a number of reasons, with the first being the platform’s growth, especially with female users.

“First, the high female share of the fast-growing social network represents a good opportunity for our upcoming mobile games, which we will target at both genders,” said Wuerdemann. “Second, we expect Pinterest to be a good addition to our Facebook campaigns to find untapped audiences. Furthermore, we assume shopping being a large part of the Pinterest UX to be a good indication for a high share of valuable players among the user base.”

Wuerdemann then went into detail about why InnoGames was tuning its campaign for both genders instead of focusing more on the predominantly female (about 81 percent) user base.

“When we launched our first campaigns on Pinterest, we decided to start with a mix of all reasonable targeting types,” Wuerdemann explained. “To establish a basis for optimization, we set up gaming related keywords, interest and act alike campaigns with a broad targeting. To our surprise, the network gave us similar performance for [both] male and female audiences despite the high share of female users. The click-through rate and conversion rate were at a comparable level, which indicates that Pinterest can be used as other networks to target potential players.”

Wuerdemann also went into detail about engaging with Pinterest users.

Forge of Empires Pinterest campaign performance over three months. (Credit: InnoGames)

“At its most basic level, Pinterest differs from other platforms due to its users’ motivation,” he said. “Advertisers need to think of how to make their product stand out. Having said that, like Facebook, Pinterest is a content-driven social network. Meaning that besides targeting the right audience, using the right creatives is crucial. If you want to decrease the [cost per click] for your campaigns, you should work on your creatives before you adjust the bids. Be aware that your campaigns compete against the content of the user’s friends, celebrities and your [business] competitors.”

According to Wuerdemann, the Pinterest campaign is paying off, and the company broke even after one month of launching it. He also explained that InnoGames scales its campaigns step-by-step instead of going all in at the start, and it is currently optimizing it toward customer lifetime value.

Ultimately, Wuerdemann believes that Pinterest is a promising social network for performance advertisers, particularly for games.

“It’s a relatively new platform with less competition than Facebook and Instagram,” said Wuerdemann. “[Also], the user behavior differs from established networks. Instead of connecting or communicating with friends, people’s motivation is to look for inspiration. In this context, recommending new games makes perfect sense, and for us, is a worthwhile platform for advertising mobile games.”

Film Marketing On Social Gets Creative And Interactive

BY

Long before they hit the big screen, films are tested by audiences on social media—where hype is born, controversies are debated and previews are shared across the world. Since engaging social media audiences goes far beyond the occasional trailer or screenshot, film marketers are getting creative with interactive content meant for sharing.

Social marketing is an important vehicle for Sony Pictures, according to Josh Greenstein, the movie studio’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution. It was the first film studio to buy advertising on Instagram, one of the first to buy ads on Facebook Messenger and first to advertise a full-length trailer on Facebook, Greenstein said on a panel at CES 2017.

Last year, it also became the first company of any type to use a Snapchat 360-degree video ad to promote Don’t Breathe.

The advantage of marketing through social media is instant feedback, for better or for worse.

“It’s about listening to the audience,” Greenstein said. “It’s about customizing content for the audience. We’re able to speak to the audience in ways that we’ve never been able to do.”

Social media games are quickly becoming the go-to marketing tactic for film and television, especially retro-themed endless runners (looping levels that don’t end unless the player fails to avoid obstacles).

To promote IT, Stephen King’s classic horror tale rebooted by New Line Cinema, players can sail Georgie’s infamous paper boat through the sewers in a 16-bit game. Points are earned for collecting red balloons—another iconic image from the book and film—all while avoiding obstacles like Pennywise the Clown. The game is available on Snapchat or can be played on the dedicated website.

Wonder Woman also got her own 16-bit game ahead of the theatrical release, challenging players to navigate Diana through No Man’s Land—a dangerous World War 1 battlefield from the film. Warner Bros. also created a Snapchat lens that places the hero’s iconic tiara on users’ heads.

Snapchat lenses have complimented many a movie release from X-Men Apocalypse to Atomic Blonde. Sponsored lenses immerse users into a film’s world, are easy to use and most importantly, encourage sharing.

Sometimes you just have to give social media users something to talk about. Ahead of its theatrical release, Legendary Films and Warner Bros. pulled out the big marketing guns for Kong: Skull Island. Giant footprints appeared around Los Angeles in March, perfect for sharing on social media. Those who tweeted “#(city)lovesKong” had the chance to win an early screening in their home town.

To help celebrate the legacy of King Kong and the film’s new characters, Legendary turned to Pinterest, where it shared images and promoted video. After seeing ads on Pinterest, men said they were 15 percent more likely to watch the movie in theaters, and 24 percent more likely to list Kong: Skull Island as their “first choice” for films to go see, according to a case study.

Inviting fans to create their own custom promotional art is another way film marketers are encouraging engagement on social media. For Atomic Blonde, users could upload their own images, pick an alias and look like a spy in the film’s theme of black, white and neon pink. For every Atomic Blonde alias image shared on social media and tagged #AtomicBlonde, Universal offered to donate $1 to the It Gets Better Foundation, supporting LGBTQ youth.

For Annabelle: Creation, fans could insert the possessed doll into existing photos or take new ones with a webcam. The images could then be downloaded and shared across social media channels.

Facebook Fights Fake News By Blocking Ads From Pages That Spread Misinformation

BY

Facebook Pages that “repeatedly” share stories that have been marked as false by third-party fact-checkers will no longer be able to buy ads on the site, the social platform announced.

While ads to promote fake news are removed from the site once flagged, Facebook has taken it one step further by punishing repeat offenders. The announcement did not specify how many offenses are considered too many, although it does say that once the pages stop sharing fake news, they may become eligible to purchase ads again in the future.

According to an official blog post by Facebook product managers Satwik Shukla and Tessa Lyons, this latest update was designed to prevent people from monetizing false information. Sensational posts—especially those politically motivated—often direct readers to a site that earns money through advertising.

Earlier this year, Facebook partnered with independent, third-party fact-checkers like Snopes, Associated Press and Fact Checkers to review flagged stories on the site. Those determined to be misinformation are marked as “disputed” and rank lower on feeds. Users are notified of the disputed status before a story can be shared. Sharing disputed stories is still possible, but Facebook hopes this warning will help deter the unintentional spread of misinformation.

According to a Pew Research Center survey from December, 64 percent of US adults said false news stories had caused a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current events and 23 percent said they have shared a fake news story whether knowingly or unknowingly.

“People told us that Related Articles gave them more context about topics and that having more context helps them make more informed decisions and about what they read and what they decide to share,” Lyons told TechCrunch. “Seeing Fact Checker’s articles in Related Articles actually helps people identify whether what they’re reading is misleading or false.”

This tactic assumes that readers will take the time to fact-check on their own, and that seeing Related Stories that all mirror the original story’s claim won’t result in confirmation bias. Of course, readers must also trust Facebook and the third-party fact-checkers as well. Those who don’t may interpret a disputed story as an intended cover-up.

Such was the case with a fabricated story about Irish slavery in the US, published by a site called Newport Buzz. A disclaimer on the site’s About page says, “If we ever do anything that resembles ‘real’ journalism, it was purely by mistake.” When Facebook marked the story as disputed, several readers took that to mean that Facebook was trying to hide the truth. The result was not fewer shares, but a whole lot more.

“A bunch of conservative groups grabbed this and said, ‘Hey, they are trying to silence this blog—share, share share,’” Christian Winthrop, the site’s editor, told The Guardian. “With Facebook trying to throttle it and say, ‘Don’t share it,’ it actually had the opposite effect.”

This was especially prevalent during the presidential election last year when hundreds of fake news stories circulated across the world. After Donald Trump was declared president, many wondered if the viral spread of fake news on Facebook contributed to the outcome—especially since these stories allegedly outperformed mainstream journalism on the social network.

Although CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that Facebook influenced the election, his company is nonetheless feeling pressure to keep hoaxes away from its readers. Forty-seven percent of teenagers name Facebook as their go-to source for news, according to a recent study by Common Sense Media.

“The bottom line is, we take misinformation seriously,” Zuckerberg said. “Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find most meaningful, and we know people want accurate information. We’ve been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously. We’ve made significant progress, but there is more work to be done.”

‘Clash Of Clans’ Celebrates Anniversary With Facebook By Turning Character Into Star

BY

Hit mobile game Clash of Clans is celebrating its fifth anniversary by recounting all the destruction its players have wrought throughout the years, and by launching a campaign where its Builder character (the one who builds the structures that are subsequently destroyed) is let loose into the world.

In the “Builder Has Left” campaign, the character leaves the Clash of Clans world—because he’s tired of having all of his structures torn down by giants and goblins—and enters ours. Game developer Supercell has even listed a job vacancy for the Builder’s post, with requirements including speaking fluent barbarian and being comfortable working hands-on with molten lava.

The Builder has already left his mark on Huntington State Beach in California, where a 12-foot statue of a giant from the game and four water cannons are there for attendees to interact with until September 3. Fans can keep track of the Builder’s adventures in the real world through social media, including an Instagram takeover and an augmented reality camera activation on Facebook, where users can dress up as the Builder for a selfie or turn the camera around to place the Builder anywhere in the real world.

“We love giving developers the platform to be creative and connect with their fans in a way that only they could dream up,” Leo Olebe, Facebook’s director of global games partnerships, told AListDaily, discussing the AR camera effect. “When Supercell came up with the idea to have the Builder leave the game as part of the fifth anniversary of Clash of Clans, we knew we had to do something for its Facebook community to be a part of that mystery. Tapping into AR made perfect sense—it gives fans a chance to bring the Builder into their own world. It’s great to see this fun character interacting in people’s worlds outside the game. People are really having fun with it.”

“The Builder’s AR debut is being promoted within the Clash of Clans app and on the game’s various social channels so players can easily access it from their phones and share their experiences,” Jessica Yuan, a brand marketer for Supercell, told AListDaily.

The Clash of Clans app notifies players through its news feed that the Builder has been sighted on Facebook. Tapping on the notification takes players to a Facebook post where the AR camera effect is promoted, and the AR effect will remain live indefinitely.

“There’s no end in sight for the Builder’s adventures on Facebook at this time,” Yuan said.

“We’ve had a great relationship with Supercell for several years—we love how Supercell is so devoted to its community,” said Olebe, discussing how the partnership between Facebook and Supercell came together. “They’re constantly coming up with fun and surprising ways to connect with their fans, and they’re willing to experiment with new tools. In fact, they’ve been an early closed beta partner for AR Studio since we launched it at F8. We’re always on board to help them tap into the power of the Facebook platform to bring something new to Facebook and Supercell’s committed fans.”

 

Brands Chase The Sun With Eclipse 2017 On Social

BY

For the first time in 99 years, the moon passed in front of the sun, engulfing a 70-mile wide strip of land stretching from Portland to South Carolina in darkness throughout the morning. The last eclipse of this magnitude occurred in 1918, so this was a never-before-seen chance for digitally active brands to work with nature to build engagement and awareness.

Food And Beverage

Nothing rouses the appetite quite like rare celestial events, so it’s no surprise that food brands like Hostess, Chiquita Banana and Krispy Kreme attempted to cash in.

In a bold statement, Hostess named its Golden CupCakes as the official snack cake of the solar eclipse, citing the unmistakable resemblance between the celestial event and their cream-filled baked good, and providing a handy reference image:

Not to be outdone, Chiquita Banana decided to brand the sun, claiming that while the rest of the country wasted time with the “total(-ly overrated) solar eclipse,” they temporarily transformed the crescent sun visible before and after the eclipse into a banana. If you missed this one, they have scheduled another transmogrification for April 8, 2024.

Krispy Kreme overshadowed the solar shadow with their exclusive product announcement—a chocolate-glazed version of their famous doughnut. The limited-edition doughnut was available during “Hot Light” hours the weekend before the eclipse and the day of, after which point, like the solar system, Krispy Kreme reverted to its normal functionality.

Corona used it fortuitous brand-name correlation by associating the company with the “corona”—the only part of the sun that was visible during the total eclipse—by releasing a handy how-to video to help their customers make a pinhole eclipse viewer out of their 12-pack boxes.

Southern Pressed Juicery, located in Greenville, South Carolina, released a special “Black Sun Lemonade” for the celestial event. Made with activated charcoal, the drink turns completely black with just a few shakes.

Hospitality

As the path of totality missed many population centers and passed through numerous sparsely populated areas, hotel and campground bookings quintupled in the area. Vacation rental giant Airbnb and camping rental website Hipcamp took advantage of the jump in the interest of pushing their services, and even mattress manufacturer Casper temporarily threw its hat into the hospitality ring.

Airbnb, partnering with National Geographic, put out a contest earlier this month to find a tenant for a special campsite in Bend, Oregon. After a night in the geodesic dome bedroom, guests flew on a private jet over the Pacific ocean to witness the eclipse as the sun rose.

Meanwhile, Hipcamp worked with NASA projections for the path of totality and set up an interactive map of campsites to best witness the full eclipse across the country.

In a stroke of cosmic fortune, Casper mattresses found a town by the name of Casper in Wyoming right in the path of totality. Working with Under Canvas, Outdoor Voices and Alamo Drafthouse, they set up a luxury tent city, featuring food, movie screenings and a private eclipse viewing.

For those lucky enough to have vacation time during the eclipse, Royal Caribbean International created a week-long eclipse extravaganza cruise, featuring ziplines, surf simulators and—most of—a performance of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler during the total eclipse itself. The performance was an abridged version of her almost six-minute ballad, as the full eclipse only lasted for two minutes and 40 seconds.

For everyone else, Lyft offered discount codes for riders in Portland, Nashville and Atlanta to metro-area viewing events.

TV

MTV, partnering with Fooji, delivered eclipse viewing glasses and “astronaut” freeze-dried ice cream to celebrate the event and promote the VMAs on August 27 to those who tweeted with the hashtag #TotalEclipseVMA and the female astronaut emoji.

Both Volvo and Mitsubishi sponsored livestreams of the eclipse on Monday morning, working with CNN and ABC, respectively.

Volvo’s coverage of the eclipse featured 4K resolution 360° cameras capturing footage at seven different points along the path of totality. The livestream event was also VR compatible.

Mitsubishi’s event involved the brand attempting to include both the solar eclipse and their new car, the Eclipse Cross, in the same photo. They were also the exclusive sponsor of Good Morning America’s eclipse coverage and provided footage of the eclipse for the show.

Toshiba, partnering with NASA, displayed the space agency’s livestream footage of the eclipse on an enormous monitor in Times Square.

 

Social, Snackable Content Is The New Strategy For TV Networks

BY

There’s a star-studded cast in the six-part event series, Waco, and audiences will see plenty of actors, including Michael Shannon, Rory Culkin, Taylor Kitsch and John Leguizamo in the promotional run-up to the show’s launch on the Paramount Network early next year.

They’ll also be able to watch mini-documentaries about the real FBI agents and surviving Branch Davidian cult members involved in that deadly standoff. Those stories, many told publicly for the first time, will fan out over digital and social media, giving insight and context to the tragic clash in digestible, shareable bits.

“To hear these opposing points of view from people who were actually there during the siege makes a drama, even an epic one, that much more interesting,” Niels Schuurmans, the network’s CMO, told AListDaily. “We think it will deepen the viewer’s connection to the show.”

The nascent network—a rebrand of Spike—is taking an approach that’s becoming de rigeur for television shows and channels trying to win over consumers who are spending more of their time with digital and social media.

But it’s not enough just to fish where the fish are, industry mavens said, by seeding trailers, traditional ads and tune-in messages on Facebook, Instagram and other high-traffic online hubs.

The promotions have to be compelling and buzz-worthy, like Paramount’s planned “60 Second Docs,” drawing in potential fans with innovative original content, sometimes with a brand sponsor attached.

These ads-as-entertainment, enticing on their own, are doing double duty, with sales pitches strong enough to pull audiences away from the very platform they’re on, be it Snapchat or Musical.ly, and direct them back to linear TV.

The content is taking many forms, from online “therapy sessions” with characters from Amazon’s Transparent, in partnership with Funny or Die, to boost the upcoming fourth season, to integrations between Disney XD’s much-anticipated revival of the ’80s hit DuckTales with kid platforms like Minecraft and Angry Birds.

TNT released several digital shorts to promote its dramas Animal Kingdom and Will that follow the series stars in their downtime. The mini-movies, dubbed “Hiatus,” “continue the social conversation about the actors” and reinforce the fact that “social is the place where word of mouth starts and hopefully grows,” said Brad Roth, principal at Stun, the agency behind the work.

Broadcast and cable networks are so enamored with heavy-hitting social media giants that they’ve doubled the amount of sponsored video they post on Facebook over the last nine months, according to ListenFirst Media.

For a cult favorite series like Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty, fan response to its animated vignettes has been massive, with nearly nine million views of a clever cross-promotion on Facebook with Alien: Covenant. Subsequent Rick and Morty episodes on the Turner-owned network have been the best-watched in the show’s history.

USA Network recently launched an online scavenger hunt that unlocked the season 3 premiere date and a teaser trailer for the hacker thriller, Mr. Robot, and Paramount Network will establish real-world social media accounts for its fictional high-school characters to hook viewers for the reboot of the black comedy, Heathers, coming in early 2018.

“We’re using social and digital to enhance the story and give fans a reason to watch,” said Schuurmans. “Billboards and tune-in messages are important and everyone still does those, but there’s a bigger opportunity to hit people with something that will engage them.”

The E! Network, in addition to creating a tongue-in-cheek PSA in which Kylie Jenner teaches her digital-centric fans how to use a television, devised a first-of-its-kind Snapchat show, “Ask Kylie,” where the star answers fan questions and features guests like her famous sisters and friends as a way to hype her series, Life of Kylie.

“The marketing playbook has changed, and you have to surround young millennial consumers in all the places they live,” said Jen Neal, E! Network’s EVP of marketing. “We want to create the kind of content that converts fans into superfans and has them sharing and evangelizing on our behalf.”

To that end, the network created Kylie-themed Snapchat filters and sticker packs, along with contests, giveaways and exclusive content accessible through social platforms. And to underline the importance of the TV show itself, Neal and her team created a pre-premiere social program called “Kylie O’Clock,” meant to train audiences to head to E! at 9 p.m. every Sunday.

“This audience has a voracious appetite for what’s happening on social,” Neal said. “If you’re not providing them something cool and interesting, they’ll move on.”

Life of Kylie, with 36 million social engagements around its debut, scored the highest ratings of the year for a docuseries with teens and women 18-34, which Neal likened to a lit match. “We need to fuel the fire even more,” she said, “and, given the audience, digital and social will continue to be the core of this campaign.”

The Current State Of Facebook

BY

With over two billion users, Facebook is the most popular social network on the planet. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s platform for connecting with friends has grown from status updates to live spectacles, chatbots and meetings in virtual reality. Fresh off its second quarter earnings report, let’s break down some of the telling numbers.

A Strong Second Quarter

Revenue in the second quarter of 2017 rose to $9.32 billion, a 45 percent increase over the same quarter in 2016. Facebook’s earnings exceeded predictions by Yahoo Finance ($9.2 billion). Facebook’s global ad revenue is expected to total $36.29 billion this year—up 35 percent from 2016—according to eMarketer, making Facebook the largest ad seller after Google.

About 87 percent of total ad sales in the last quarter was attributed to mobile ads, up from 85 percent in the first quarter of this year. Mobile remains a consistent draw for Facebook, with roughly half of its users accessing the site via mobile devices.

Zuckerberg said he expects video to be the main source of Facebook’s growth in the near future, and that the company is investing heavily in monetizing Messenger and WhatsApp.

Video First

Facebook continues its push for video. The company began testing mid-roll ads earlier this year and is preparing advertisers to adopt six-second videos similar to those employed by YouTube. Live broadcasts now make up 20 percent of video on Facebook, according to a post by Fidji Simo, Facebook’s vice president of product. Simo went on to say that the number of broadcasts has grown more than four times over the last year.

The social network is placing a heavy emphasis on gaming video content, particularly the competitive world of esports. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) developer Bluehole has partnered with Facebook to host a weekly, three-hour livestream show. The Bluehole team will showcase exclusive in-game content on the show and feature both community members and top online creators.

Meet The Faces

Seventy-nine percent of online Americans now use Facebook, according to 2016 figures from Pew Research Center. On a total population basis (accounting for Americans who do not use the internet at all), that means that 68 percent of all US adults are Facebook users, while 28 percent use Instagram.

These users not only use the site but check it often—76 percent of Americans who use Facebook said they visit the site on a daily basis, up from 70 percent in 2015.

American women are more active on the social network, Pew found—83 percent versus males at 75 percent. The largest demographic of Americans on the platform are women ages 18-to-39.

Facebook isn’t too concerned with gender, however, adapting to current views by adding 50 different gender options in the US, and 71 in the UK.

Young consumers are still very active on the social network, despite rumors to the contrary. Over half (53 percent) of millennials say Facebook is where they’re most likely to share content, according to BI Intelligence’s 2017 Digital Trust survey.

A recent study by Fluent found that 48 percent of Gen Z participants log into Facebook several times a day.