Mediaboss Marketing

Facebook focuses on idea sharing, Twitter is all about broadcasting your thoughts, Instagram prioritizes the visually interesting, and Pinterest provides storage for the content and products you love. Each social media site is designed to serve a different purpose, so we use it differently. Its no surprise, then, that well watchand expectdifferent types of video on each platform.

In this post, were going to go over how to use video marketing on each individual social media site for best results, including ideal length, file size, and best practices.

Facebook video is more flexible than other types of social media video marketing; there arent time limits that would affect most businesses, and the diverse audience means that multiple types of content will perform well.

Facebook requires that all native videos be under 45 minutes long, and less than 1.75 GB. You should almost never get anywhere close to that 45 minutes. Instead, aiming for video lengths between two and four minutes long is ideal for Facebook. This allows for enough time for you to provide value without risking losing the viewers interest. In my personal experience, Facebook Ads should be kept to a minute and a half or less.

In general, Facebook users are most likely to share content that they find extremely emotionally engagingregardless of the emotion. Whether the video makes us laugh, cry, or both, we like content that makes us feel something.

Tutorials are also extremely effective on the platform, and are frequently saved by users because they provide value. As a result, users save the videos to benefit from the knowledge later.

Other Facebook video best practices to consider include:

Twitter is all about brevity, so it makes sense that the time limit is a heck of a lot shorter than Facebooks 45 minutes. Twitter requires that all videos be under two minutes and twenty seconds (which is up from its previous 30 second maximum). Videos also must be MP4s with AAC audio, and need to be 512MB or under.

Because Twitter is all about trending topics and breaking news, videos that are share brief snippets of valuable information can flourish on this platform. This includes videos of announcements about your business or product.

Videos about (or of) your event also perform well on Twitter. Encourage attendees to create their own videos and share them with the events hashtag.

Some Twitter video best practices to keep in mind include:

You can use Instagram videos in two places: in stories, and in the apps feed. Your video must be between 3 and 60 seconds long, though I highly recommend that stories are kept to 10 seconds or lessusers want to scroll through these quickly, like Snapchat-styled content. The file size for Instagram videos must be kept under 1 GB.

A wide variety of video types work well on Instagram. This includes tutorials, emotion-evoking content, breaking news, and more. Videos that center user-generated content (UGC) also perform exceedingly well on this platform, and should be used whenever possible.

Sharing brief snippets of a live event or information on upcoming news works incredibly well in the Story Format. Even boomerang videos (an example of which is pictured below) can be exceptionally efficient in stories.

Webcast, July 19th: The Blueprint to Build Trust in a Digital World

Instagram video best practices to keep in mind include:

The last time you were on Pinterest, did you see any videos? If your feed looked anything like mine, you didnt see many. This is good news: Pinterest has a native video player, meaning that users can watch the video from the pins close-up, but not a lot of businesses are using it yet. If you do, it can be easier to stand out.

To create a video pin, youll need to have the video uploaded somewhere else online. Then, pin that page, and choose the video as the pins feature image.

Given Pinterests audience and core usage, its no surprise that DIY content and tutorials will be the highest performing content on the site. Make sure to mention what the tutorial is in the videos description, and choose a video thumbnail that will represent it well. Pinterests video best practices include:

Each social media platform offers a different user experience, so it only makes sense that users will have different responses to different kinds of videos on each. By understanding these differencesboth in terms of platform requirements and user preferenceyoull be able to more successfully adapt your videos and your marketing campaigns to each site, increasing your results along the way.

What do you think? How do you adapt your videos for each platform? Which platform do you prefer most? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

See the original post:
How to Use Video Marketing on Each Social Media Platform - Business 2 Community

Health + Tech /13 Jul 2017

Organized protests are taking place against the Trump administrations goal of dismantling net neutrality, which will enable the powerful plutocrats who rule the United States to severely limit the ability of Americans to share anti-establishment ideas and information online. The United States of America is not a democracy, nor a democratic republic, nor a representative democracy, nor a constitutional republic, nor any combination of the above. America is effectively a corporatist oligarchy, according to a Cambridge University-published study conducted by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin.

Since the Supreme Court has slowly made it legal for the billionaire class to fully control the US government by legalizing corporate lobbying and campaign funding in a way that undeniably amounts to legalized bribery (see 1976s Buckley v. Valeo, 1978s First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, and 2010s Citizens United v. FEC), America is now ruled by the wealthy and the people who serve them as surely as a monarchy is ruled by a king or queen.

Ending net neutrality in the name of letting the Magical Free Market Economics Fairy sort things out in an unregulated system, as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been advocating, only makes sense if you live in a fictional America that isnt ruled by a small group of plutocrats. Since no American lives in a country wherein ordinary citizens can influence their government in any meaningful way, this cannot possibly be the case.

The US is a nation whose entire government is ultimately answerable only to the owners of enormous multinational corporations and banks, which means that deregulating the ability of those plutocrats to control internet communications is the exact same thing as allowing state censorship. Its easy to get lost in the smaller battles and partisan politics, but when you zoom out and look at the big picture US politics can accurately be described as the slow, suffocating process of robbing the American people of power and giving it to the plutocrats while preserving the illusion of democracy. This new bid to dismantle net neutrality is just one more of the many, many steps that have been taken over many generations to allow this to happen.

Net neutrality is an obstacle for US oligarchs in that it hamstrings their ability to manipulate web traffic away from information which challenges their rule. By dismantling an independent internet, the ever-growing media conglomerates who provide internet services will be able to choke off smaller independent sites by slowing them down with an unaffordable fee for faster service, which will put fewer eyes on dissenting online media. That may be all they need to do to strangle the media revolution, which for the first time in history caused Americas unelected power establishment to completely lose control of the narrative on both ends of the political spectrum in 2016.

The internet has been causing many problems for the ruling class, who up until very recently were able to use the consolidated legacy media they own to manipulate and control the way Americans think and vote. Last year, saw a populist candidate named Bernie Sanders nearly secure the Democratic party nomination while openly using the word oligarchy on national television and speaking out against the billionaire class. Then the official preferred candidate failed to win the general election. This all happened because the American people were able to use the alternative media, social media and WikiLeaks to form their own narratives about what was happening in their country.

Now, the oligarchs were never afraid of either Sanders nor Trump; subsequent events have shown that the US power establishment has been able to push those two individuals around pretty effectively. What they feared, and continue to fear, is the way the people broke out of their corporate media brain boxes and started fighting to take power away from the oligarchs and give it back to themselves. If they lose the ability to manufacture the consent of the governed using their media propaganda machine, they will be unable to govern, and people will use their insurmountable numbers to overthrow them by whatever means.

I feel very confident telling all of my readers that no matter where you are on the political spectrum, the dismantling of net neutrality is bad for you. Go to YouTube and watch some video footage of Ajit Pai right now. Ignore his words and just watch his face, listen to his tone of voice. That is not a sincere person. You can feel it in your guts. Trust that feeling. This former Verizon lawyer isnt trying to dismantle net neutrality because he wants to help you; this former Verizon lawyer is trying to dismantle net neutrality because he wants to hurt you. He wants to take away your power and give it to the ruling class he serves.

Net neutrality was one of the very few victories the American people were able to secure for themselves prior to last year, and they need to fight for it. It will be a challenge, because the ruling elites want the internet as loyal to pro-establishment narratives as they can possibly make it, but its worth fighting for. Dont let these creeps take this away from you.

Read the rest here:
Net Neutrality: Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship - International Policy Digest (press release) (blog)

Hong Kong citizens mouth the death of Liu Xiaobo outside the Liaison Office Of The Central People's Government In The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Thursday. (New York Times photo)

BEIJING - There was media silence Thursday in China after the death of Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo was confirmed to the rest of the world.

Censors scrubbed social media and blocked internet searches for his name.

Liu was China's most influential dissident and his death has made headlines around the world.

The BBC reported that Xu Xin - a user with 31 million followers - posted a few candle emojis, which have been removed.

People often use candle emojis on Weibo to commemorate someone who has died.

A search on the popular Sina Weibo microblog brings up a message saying "according to relevant laws and policies, results for 'Liu Xiaobo' cannot be displayed".

Official Xinhua "news" agency, the country's state-controlled outlet, reported in English the death of dissident Liu, marking the first time Xinhua hac mentioned him since his hospitalisation.

But the news of the 61-year-old democracy activist's death from liver cancer while in custody remained absent from Xinhua's main Chinese service more than an hour after it was published on the English-language wire.

The urgent single-paragraph English report recalled that Liu was "convicted of subversion of state power" in 2009 but it made no mention of his Nobel prize.

Chinese authorities tightly controlled information about Liu's condition after disclosing last month that he was released on medical parole following a diagnosis of late-stage liver cancer.

The hospital where he received treatment, the First Hospital of China Medical University in the northeastern city of Shenyang, was heavily guarded and his family members had barely any contact with the outside world

Before Liu's death, fought for information control, the Associated Press reported.

From coordinated leaks of hospital surveillance video to a near-total news blackout for Chinese-language media and social media, the Chinese government's sprawling propaganda apparatus revved up efforts to contain the controversy surrounding its most prominent political dissident.

The Apple Daily's front-page photo showed Hong Kong defiance of Chinese censorship.

In an update Tuesday afternoon, the hospital treating Liu said he remains in critical condition and is now on dialysis and organ support.

Liu was convicted in 2009 of inciting subversion for his role in the "Charter 08" movement calling for political reform. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later while in prison.

Chinese media have hardly mentioned repeated calls by the US, the European Union and others for Beijing to let Liu leave on humanitarian grounds. On Tuesday, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert again urged China to parole Liu so he can receive medical care at a location of his choosing.

Chinese state media have provided extensive coverage this past week of President Xi Jinping's recent achievements, especially his travels to Russia and Germany, which they portrayed as a massive public relations triumph for China.

On Tuesday, heavily controlled state newspapers including the official People's Daily and the English-language China Daily trumpeted Xi's call to "unswervingly advance" China's judicial reform and improve the military.

Meanwhile, the daily barrage of questions about Liu fired off by the international press at foreign ministry news briefings were all excised from the ministry's published transcripts, as if they were never asked.

The few mentions of Liu in the state media's overseas-oriented English editions in recent weeks contained denouncements and tough language aimed at foreign audiences.

"It is probably out of politics that some people and forces are requesting Liu to be treated abroad," the nationalistic and Communist Party-controlled Global Times tabloid, published by the People's Daily, said in an editorial Tuesday headlined "Liu's cancer treatment mustn't be politicised."

"Today's China is stronger and more confident, and will not yield to Western pressure," it said, accusing unidentified overseas forces of "squeezing Liu for their political goals."

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated on Tuesday that China hopes other countries can "respect China's judicial sovereignty and not use such an individual case to interfere in China's domestic affairs."

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Liu's death triggers frantic Chinese censorship - Bangkok Post

Eleven years ago, Ted Owen had a dream: to persuade the Olympic planning committee in Beijing that video games belonged in the 2008 Games. The skepticism was overwhelming. And despite the best efforts of the founder of the Global Gaming League, the Olympics came and went without a game controller in sight.

Today, that dream doesnt seem so far-fetched. Several major networks, including ESPN, NBC and TBS, regularly air eSports programming. And the organizers of the Asian Games, a pan-continental multi-sport event held every four years, have confirmed eSports as a demonstration event in 2018. At the 2022 Games in Hangzhou, China, it will have full medal status.

The explosive rise of eSports in the past decade has caught many off-guard, perhaps none more than the traditional or offline sports world. Game Five of the 2017 NBA Finals the most-watched Game Five since 1998 was watched by 24.5 million people. But the 2015 world finals of online game League of Legends nabbed 36 million unique viewers, according to Riot Games.

Meanwhile, overall NFL ratings were down 9% in the 2016 regular season and fell 6% during the playoffs, according to MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson.

Thats leading networks to escalate their involvement in competitive gaming.

Its impossible to ignore the impressive growth eSports has had, both in the U.S. and globally, says Rob Simmelkjaer, senior VP of NBC Sports Ventures. We always want to be tapping into what people love and how theyre spending their time and what theyre choosing for their entertainment. For any sports media company, this is becoming an essential component of your strategy.

Ironically, while both the broadcast and gaming worlds are quick to talk about the growth of eSports, theyre still figuring out how best to capitalize on them. ESports is in its infancy and everybodys still figuring out how to crack the code, not only producing or distributing it, but creating the best value for ad sales, creating the best viewer experience, says Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer for Turner Sports. This is part of the evolutionary process of setting up something brand new.

Theres certainly big money for players. The International (a tournament for the game Dota 2) has given out more than $55 million in prize money since its launch in 2011. League of Legends has awarded more than $36 million, says Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Capital.

But on the game-publishing side, its still mostly a marketing play. While publishers Activision and Electronic Arts have launched eSports divisions, neither has made a significant contribution to earnings so far. Take-Two Interactive Software has held two eSports tournaments, with little financial return.

The tournaments we did were test cases to see if consumers would like this, and they did, says Strauss Zelnick, CEO at Take-Two. Millions of matches were played and hundreds of thousands of teams were created but in terms of the revenue created if there was revenue created, and were not sure there was it came about through brand-building. So far, all weve done in eSports is in service to building the brand and delighting consumers, it has not, so far, been in service of creating revenue.

Take-Two hopes to change that with its recently announced partnership with the NBA to form an eSports organization. Based around the companys NBA2K franchise, teams in the league will be operated by NBA franchises and will follow a tournament format similar to that of the NBA a regular season, a bracketed playoff, then a championship match. Seventeen teams have signed up so far, which will formally tip off in 2018.

A media partner has not yet been announced, but is forthcoming, says Zelnick.

Networks are a little better off than publishers when it comes to monetizing eSports. Barry says the companys eLeague has brought 10 million new viewers to the TBS network and over 25% of the viewing audience for eLeague events has been in the coveted 18-34 demographic. Across digital platforms, the companys competitive gaming league formed in conjunction with WME has racked up viewership totals of more than 3 billion minutes.

Its a native digital platform and were not trying to convert people, so to speak, says Barry. What were doing is we are executing on the digital platform to be authentic to the games and then the TBS or broadcast extension is a portal to create awareness for a casual fan or someone who is interested in eSports but doesnt know how to deep dive on the digital platform.

While watching an eSports event might be initially confusing for some viewers, network sports executives are hoping the stories that emerge in these televised tournaments prove as compelling as those that do so in offline sports or the Olympics. If people can rally around curling, goes the thinking, they can certainly become engaged in watching players battle it out in Quake, even if those viewers arent gamers.

At NBC, the companys sports group has teamed with online competitive gaming platform FaceIt and developer Psyonix to launch a tournament centered around Rocket League this summer. It will feature more than 40 hours of coverage across the groups live-streaming, VOD and linear platforms.

The finals, to be held Aug. 26-27, will be televised live on NBCSN in the U.S. and on Syfy in parts of Europe.

Were hoping well uncover some diamonds in the rough, says Simmelkjaer. Maybe there will be someone playing in one of the [smaller] regional tournaments that could end up playing at the professional level. That would make a great narrative for the end of the tournament.

But some console manufacturers are still standing on the virtual sidelines.

Nintendo games such as Super Smash Bros. and Splatoon have been used in some tournaments, including 2015s Nintendo World Championship, which was broadcast on Disney XD. But the companys holding back on professional eSports for now.

Leagues, big paydays for winners, pro players thats where I think things get a bit complicated, says Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America. From a Nintendo perspective, those are elements that are bit less interesting to us.

The storys not much different at Sony.

We are, at this point, working hard to answer [the] question: What is the best way in which a hardware-based platform can contribute to the eSports ecosystem and profit from it?, says Andrew House, global chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment. I do tend to think its a category that will possibly not generate a huge amount of profit in the near term, but over time I do think it has potential and were watching it very carefully.

Despite that occasional reticence from different sectors in the gaming community, video-game tournaments are certainly ready to make a lasting impact in the sporting world.

I had so many people tell me I was crazy, Owen says. I see [this] as a complete and utter vindication that Global Gaming League, myself and a few others at the forefront were absolutely right.

Read more:
Traditional Media Grabs for the ESports Control | Variety - Variety

BEIJING

China is trying to contain the awesome influence of social media celebrities, some of whom have tens of millions of followers that dwarf more Western media icons like Oprah Winfrey. For example, the top 10 Chinese celebrities on Internet have between 67 million and 90 million online followers.

Recent weeks have seen the closure of social media accounts of several celebrities while the Beijing Cyber Administration (BCA) shut down the accounts of 60 celebrity gossip magazines. It also asked Internet portals hosting these accounts to adopt effective measures to keep in check the problems of the embellishment of private sex scandals of celebrities, the hyping of ostentatious celebrity spending and entertainment, and catering to the poor taste of the public.

Analysts said the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) has reason to worry about the massive influence of celebrities, according to Bill Bishop, who runs the widely read The Sinocism China Newsletter.

Money and values

"The Party is really pushing hard on Socialist Core Values and very few of the popular Internet celebrities are paragons of those values," he said. "Individual media creators are much harder to control, and one of the core pillars of the CCP is propaganda and ideological control," he said.

Celebrities are an important tool for marketing and advertising, and thousands of companies depend on them to disseminate product messages. The size of Internet marketing by Chinese celebrities was estimated at $58 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $100 billion in 2018, according to Beijing-based research agency Analysus.

Many of the social media celebrities come from the world of cinema, television, and sports. But there have been a large number of upstarts who have emerged from nowhere.

Their claim to fame is their ability to raise sensitive social issues, such as the neglect suffered by some so-called "leftover women" who have not found husbands. One such celebrity is Teacher Xu, a popular internet celebrity, who runs a hugely popular account on the WeChat platform.

Almost all celebrities make sure they do not cross the government's policy line in their posts in texts and videos, said Mark Tanner, Managing Director of China Skinny, an internet based marketing company.

"Everyone in China knows that if you want to be a successful and effective voice in China, you need to toe the party line. So right to Pappi Chang to the little guys on the road, they know what to say and what not to say," he said.

Analysts say the immense popularity of these high profile individuals is itself seen as a challenge to the authorities even if they do not take up political issues. A lot of what they talk about is indirectly connected to governance issues like the environment, and this is what bothers top officials.

Censor troubles

"Celebrities happen to hold a powerful microphone to speak to society, and in CCP leaders' eyes, that alone is threatening no matter how non-political most of them may be, said Christopher Cairns, a Cornell scholar.

The government also has things to worry at the technological level, where the popularity and content production of celebrities seem to be running far ahead of the government's technical ability to control them.

"A lot of it has to do with lack of control. It is really hard for them to censure real time video. the software hardware for voice and video is just not there yet, said Jacob Cooke, CEO of Web Presence in China. And still, a lot of the system depends upon real-time monitoring. So, there are a lot of vague rules in terms of censorship including harming feelings of the Chinese people.

The censors are using other reasons to crack down on celebrities they don't like.The BCA reportedly told executives of Internet companies the new cybersecurity law required websites to not harm the reputation or privacy of individuals.

The government has said the new law is necessary for security reasons, but many analysts fear it can be used to surpress freedom of speech on the Internet.

Go here to read the rest:
China Reducing Massive Influence of Social Media Celebrities - Voice of America