TV and video viewers are able to make more choices than ever before about what they watch, where they watch it, on what device and through which channel. At the same time, many content-rich businesses are becoming video-driven. It’s one of the most impactful ways to communicate in today’s digital age. Increasingly, much of that content is now consumed through social media.

Take print news organizations such as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal for example. Both news outlets have transformed from strictly print to multimedia companies with large banks of video content and clips, often recommended to site visitors on the homepage, but widely shared and viewed on Facebook and other social sites. This is Not surprising, since Fortune reported that 67 percent of American adults rely on social media for news.

Along those same lines, traditionally print magazines such as Cosmopolitan and  Teen Vogue have started to publish more and more video content for their teenage audiences. Much of this content is accessed through social channels such as Snapchat and Facebook. According to Social Media Today, Facebook generates more than 8 billion video views per day. It’s no surprise then, that publications like Teen Vogue are reportedly abandoning its print magazines and creating 100-percent digital content.

Another trend pushing video to the forefront is the ability for viewers to participate in any experience via streaming and video. The fitness world has had this down since the 80s, right? And that trend has only exploded with streaming services Obe, providing 500+ live workout classes that viewers can take at home — much easier to work into a busy daily schedule than driving to the gym, and at a lower cost. Today, there are streaming services for Broadway shows, music festivals, tech conferences, church services and nearly any kind of event you could imagine. And many times, these live events are also being multicasted to social platforms, like Facebook, YouTube and Periscope.

Let’s take a look at high school sports. Now, thousands of viewers can watch their favorite teams on Twitter. In partnership with Adidas, Twitter will stream one game per week beginning September 7th.  This isn’t the only example of social media companies teaming up with sporting events. In 2017, Facebook live streamed 46 Mexican soccer league games including playoffs and at least 22 Major League Soccer matches, as well as events from the World Surf League, the 2017 CrossFit events and UEFA Champions League matches.

These video-driven businesses now reach their viewers wherever they are by streaming to social channels.  Luckily, Zype makes that easy.

We provide the ability for video product teams  to easily stream content across all social media channels from one place, going live with multicasting where live broadcasts are sent simultaneously to the website and social platforms. With APIs for Facebook, YouTube and Periscope, we take care of the distribution so that our customers can focus on what they are good at — creating amazing and compelling video.

To learn more about how your business may benefit from using Zype to distribute content via social media, read, “Live Multicasting: How Content Owners can Leverage the Growing Popularity of Facebook Live, Periscope, YouTube Live and More.”

How to Leverage Social Media to Connect With Your Audience

Did you watch the game last Thursday? Did you watch it on basic cable — or did you try the new space-age futuristic tech way of watching sports: live streaming on Twitter?

Being generally interested in OTT and live streams here at Zype, we were watching closely as Twitter and the NFL took a big step into trying something new. And guess what? For the most part, it went really, really well (technically).

Honestly, live streams of major events needed a win. We wrote a piece about why live streaming is so hard, where we noted some recent attempts that left a bad taste in cord cutters’ mouths. Then we wrote about the NFL/Twitter team up specifically, and whether or not it was a good business decision for the companies. It all hinged on the tech holding up and how it was implemented.

It was smooth . Not only was the stream easy to navigate to ( tnf.twitter.com or the moments section), easy to watch, and had the added benefit of not requiring a cable sign-in and being completely free, but there were ways to watch it all on your big screens, too. Twitter did a great job launching their Apple TV app just in time, and accessing the game worked just like it did on the web and mobile apps.

Beyond the normal live stream delay, the tech held up under a lot of users and on mobile networks. We saw people watching the game in the grocery store, and I had the game on my phone between my car and my house. No hiccups.

Except some issues with the ads. They skipped, stuttered, and sometimes didn’t display at all (if, for example, it was an ad that was shown on cable but the rights weren’t there on Twitter). On the tech side, it was the only area we noticed any issues that would desperately need fixed.

We also hope they curate the stream’s Twitter feed a bit better, because instead of interesting commentary it was just normal, inoffensive tweets from the masses — harmless, but boring, too.

Fewer than what people thought, but it might not be as big of an issues as some outlets are making it (the NYPost called it a “ modest success ” which is some low-key shade for sure). There was an average of 243,000 viewers per minute, with about 2.1 million viewers overall.

The problem is that they’re comparing it to the cable broadcast, which would absolutely have more viewers, that moves beyond “expected” and into a “no-brainer” territory. 14% of the average TV audience is not just good, it’s great for a first go-around. Yahoo Finance puts it best :

“ More than 90% of US households, or 112.5 million of them, have access to CBS, and with an average of 2.5 people per US household, that’s a reach of 281.25 million people. Twitter has only 62 million users in the US, since 80% of its base is outside the States. That’s a much smaller pool to reach. ”

If you remember, Yahoo had the actual first NFL stream last year and ended up with 15.2 million viewers. The numbers are still far from each other, but a lot can be explained away, once again by Yahoo Finance :

“ [...]Yahoo has 1 billion users across its platforms, and it set the game to auto-play on its homepage. Twitter didn’t do any auto-play, or even market the stream aggressively to its users. ”

Twitter paid less for 10 games than Yahoo did for one , too. $10 million vs. $20 million.

Apart from the technical hiccups, really well. The WSJ found some nice numbers :

“ Advertisers such as Bank of America Corp., Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Ford Motor Co. have bought sponsorship packages, which were priced between $1 million to $8 million. ”

Plus, factor in the fact that the ads had a 98% completion rate — meaning the viewers didn’t shut off the service during ads and the spots were able to finish the whole way through 98% of the time — means that those companies and video businesses that invested in advertising during the 10 games this seasons are going to be sitting very pretty.

In the end, it was a success no matter how you look at it. For the simple fact that the thing didn’t break or tear itself apart under the stress of that many viewers bodes well for the next 9 games. The question is, though: will those numbers grow after all the positive reviews and people hearing the tech was solid?

Only time will tell. Are you going to give it a shot?

If you already did, what did you think? Going to use Twitter again for the next game?

The Debut Of NFL On Twitter Was Smooth, But Not Entirely Without Issues

It’s been rough for a while over at Twitter:

Monthly active users has been flat for 6 quarters

Shares were down 66% before the NFL announcement (then climbed 2%)

User growth has increased for Snapchat (beating out Twitter with 150 million daily users, plus 10 BILLION daily video views) and Facebook (1.71 billion monthly active users) -- two companies that have seen a successful harness of online video

Twitter ( daily users) needed to start making bold moves to regain relevancy, so they shelled out around $10 million dollars to the NFL for 10 Thursday night games and beat out reportedly higher bids from Amazon, Yahoo! and Verizon. Facebook backed out because they couldn’t come to an agreement on ads (they reportedly wanted ALL OF THEM).

Twitter is all about engagement and breaking news. Being in the moment is Twitter’s bread and butter, and what better way to invest in that than live streaming sports? They can give the communal sports experience to more people, while getting users to use their social platform.

Showing the games from the NFL ON Twitter will compel users to USE Twitter while watching, because they’re already there anyway -- so why not tweet about it? It cannot get easier than that. Plus, this is a great way to possibly take back some of that market share lost to Facebook Live and Snapchat. NFL games were pulling in about 20+ million viewers per game last year, so having that many extra eyes and fingers on your social platform sounds like a resounding win. Yahoo! actually gave the NFL its first streaming-only shot in 2015 too, and had 15.2 million unique viewers and 33.6 million total views show up, INCLUDING a claim that 33% of the streams came from international users (the game was in London). Grabbing viewers that might not otherwise have access to games in the States is also a huge plus.

Diehard fans will always prefer to go to the stadium while others will prefer to physically be around friends and family for events, but having the option to still get a similar experience if you’re sick or just don’t feel like making an effort is entirely welcomed. Plus, without specifics as to how the streams are going to be displayed/offered on Twitter, we might even see people connecting devices to TVs and refuse to let a mobile experience be a solitary experience. Many computers have HDMI ports and Macs can make use of AirPlay mirroring, for example, and Chromecast can mirror Android devices as well as Chrome. We also know that Twitter is in talks to bring their app to Apple TV.

From the NFL’s perspective, this is also great. More people watching means more people talking, more excitement about the events, wider reach, and, of course, more eyes on advertising! Twitter is getting 15 advertising spots to sell commercials during each game under the deal (which might seem like a lot, but most broadcasts last for more than three hours -- and there’s only about 11 minutes of actual football action -- so the NFL isn’t giving up much… especially when Facebook wanted all the ad spots), which is a good way for them to make some money back from the investment and help prove that it was worth it from a monetary standpoint, not just a usage standpoint.

Granted, all of this is only good if there are no hiccups putting the NFL on Twitter , but the incentives for people to give it a shot are there! The whole thing is going to be free, without authentication (like having to sign in to your cable provider to prove you’re a paying cable subscriber), to “ the over 800 Million registered and non-registered users worldwide on the Twitter platform on mobile phones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs.“

So yes, it should prove to be a smart decision for Twitter to pay to help the NFL dip a bigger toe into streaming OTT live games! It’s a mutual understanding that cable-only broadcasts are only a piece of the puzzle nowadays, not the entire picture, and Twitter and the NFL have a great chance of winning out for those 10 games this coming season by taking a piece of that cord-cutting pie. Oh, and of course, Twitter users will win too.

According to the NYTimes, Twitter has a bunch of live streaming deals in addition to putting the NFL on Twitter. Wimbledon, CBS News, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Pac-12 Networks, with ongoing talks with Major League Soccer and PGA. They’re gambling big on live video, so stay tuned to see if it works out in their favor.

Live Streaming NFL On Twitter — Is It A Good Business Move?

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