SnapStream Blog

10 Tips: Live-Tweeting Award Shows

February 11 2016 by Rachel Abbott

Who will win "best post" on Twitter & Facebook?

During the #Grammys and the #Oscars, who will win best post of the night on Twitter & Facebook?

That's really the big question (right up there with, is Leonardo DiCaprio finally going to win his first Oscar?)

Award show season is here, and people are using Twitter & Facebook as the primary sources to experience these events.

We've seen this through the eyes of our customers who are live-tweeting GIFs and clips from TV with SnapStream.

Best reaction of the night goes to...

A great example—during this year's Golden Globes, when Leo won best reaction of the night. (Not to mention, he won Best Actor in The Revenant. Let's really hope he gets that Oscar though!!)

Twitter went wild over the Vine / GIF of Leo "throwing shade" at Lady Gaga as she brushed past him. It was a nanosecond of a glance, but it blew up online and escalated into all kinds of #LEOVSGAGA memes.

If you weren't tuning into social, you missed out on some funny stuff. Not just, oh some funny sidebar conversation. You may have missed, really, the best moments of the entire show. Which brings us to the next point...

Twitter's no longer the "sidebar," it's the main event

After the 2015 VMAs, The New York Times reported viewership dropping to 9.8 million viewers. But it wasn't a fail. Not by any means. It was the most tweeted-about (nonsporting) event ever: 2.2 million people sent 21.4 million tweets. So, what does this tell us?

Come award show night, there's a huge opportunity for social media publishers / personalities to frame the conversation on Twitter & Facebook. How can you win the best post of the night?

Here's 10 tips for winning the most retweets & likes

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1. Ready your "war room"

  • Set up your social media war room for success. Order take-out. Stock up on energy drinks.
  • Get all hands on deck to live-tweet and post to Facebook for every big moment of the night (and the seemingly not-so-big moments, too.)
  • Write the official hashtag and all the A-list celebs @usernames for Twitter & Facebook on the white board in your conference room. Even though it's a live show, you'll be ready for anything.

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2. Social Content Strategy

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  • Tweets are shorter, more frequent posts.
  • The lifespan of engagement with content on Twitter is a flash in the pan.
  • Go with witty one-liners. Short bursts of information. Real time. Quick. (Comedians are naturals at this.)
  • Avoid "@" at the beginning of the tweet, so it's not a direct tweet.

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  • Use Facebook for storytelling (longer form posts and longer videos.)
  • Content is more evergreen / lasts longer.
  • Post next-day award show recaps, with a link to a full article or recap video about the big moments of the night.
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3. Watch TV for memes

  • Keep your eyes peeled for "GIF gold" — the most subtle moments make the best GIFs.
  • Look for quick glances, facial expressions & hand gestures. Imagine how they'll loop as a GIF.
  • Award shows are all about capturing the stars' reactions / interactions in the audience.
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4. Visual content wins

  • Pictures are worth 1000 words. Twitter only gives you 140 characters, so visuals add a lot.
  • Immersive content will always be more engaging than plain text.
  • Tweets with GIFS/photos get 313% more engagement (via Twitter).
  • Facebook posts with photos get 53% more likes than text posts (via Kissmetrics).

5. Upload native videos

  • Between April 2015 and November 2015, the amount of average daily video views on Facebook doubled from 4 billion video views per day to 8 billion (via TechCrunch).
  • We live in an autoplay world... Native videos autoplay and get the best engagement.
  • That's why SnapStream's integration with Twitter & Facebook uploads native video.
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6. Video + overlay text

  • Overlaying text on your videos is the winning formula to get lots of views and engagement.
  • Facebook lets you include an SRT file (transcript) with your video upload. SnapStream includes the closed captioning automatically with all video uploads to Facebook.
  • You can also overlay text in post production, which is how NowThis has achieved so much Facebook growth (see video example below). In May 2014 they had 1 million video views and as of May 2015, they grew to 200 million video views.
  • If you do this in your video publishing activities, you'll be ahead of the game.
nowthis-goldenglobes.png

7. Use tags & hashtags

  • Every award show has a hashtag onscreen. Use it! Without it, your tweet or Facebook post might get lost in the mix.
  • SnapStream's auto-complete helps you tag the right handles and hashtags, similar to posting from Twitter or Facebook directly.
  • Tweets with #hashtags get 16% more retweets, because they get more visibility (via Twitter.)

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8. Be the first to post

  • Award shows are live events. Be ready to react quickly. You don't know what's going to happen.
  • Share TV moments as close to real-time as possible. There's a happy medium between fast & accurate.
  • Award shows are covered by many organizations, so you can frame the conversation by being the first to post or comment. (If you ain't first, you're last.)
  • The account @YrBFF was on the ball during the 2015 Grammys, altering the shadow behind Katy Perry to look like Left Shark. (Only critique is, no hashtag on the tweet!)

9. Have fun with it

  • Twitter is the new social water cooler. It's the place to joke around and poke fun.
  • Make your posts funny. Everyone loves a silly face. Everyone looks funny blinking. 2X or 3X the speed for an extra funny effect on loop.
  • Like when Miley Cyrus looked less than thrilled during Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off" at the VMAs.

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10. Make it a conversation

  • A lot of tweets and Facebook posts are one-way dialogues. Break through the noise by tagging others to make it a two-way conversation.
  • Direct reply to others. Have a real-time conversation.

Want to make awesome GIFs for Twitter?

Check out snapstream.com/socialtv to learn more.



Upload TV to Facebook... with Closed Captions

January 29 2016 by Rakesh

Update (February 11, 2016): If you doubted what I wrote below about how captions on native Facebook videos improved performance, see today's news that Facebook is now offering free automatic captioning of "brand" videos.

Did you know you can upload captions with your Facebook native video uploads?

This is a big deal and something you should always do... why? Well, apart from making your Facebook videos more accessible, it'll also increase the video views and engagement on your Facebook native video uploads.

How's that? Well, we live in a world of autoplay video. When someone scrolls through their Facebook news feed videos autoplay-- which is to say, it shows the moving picture but without any sound.  And if you upload a closed captioning file with your native video upload, Facebook autoplays the video with closed captioning display turned on.

This is a major key 🔑!!  With captioning display turned on, your autoplayed native video is more likely to draw in a viewer because the video can be experienced without audio. Here's an example of the Daily Show (a SnapStream customer) doing this on their Facebook native videos:

image1_1.png

(separate question, but what was I doing up at 3:38am when I took this screenshot??)

So how can you upload closed captioning with your Facebook videos?

Facebook has this article on how to add captions to your uploaded videos (it involves uploading something called a SubRip file or an SRT file).

But if you're uploading TV clips to Facebook using SnapStream 7.0, you'll be happy to know we automatically passthrough the closed captioning.  So you don't have to do anything else-- it's just there.  Here's a screenshot of this in action:

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If you want to learn more about how SnapStream makes it easy for social media managers to upload TV clips to Facebook (and Twitter), check out the SnapStream social TV features page.

Top 5 Tweets with SnapStream

November 18 2015 by Rachel Abbott

The Jaguars are one of SnapStream's many social media success stories unfolding in real time. With every live-tweet, our customers from Politics, Sports and Entertainment are hitting it out of the park! (twitterHeart.pngs for all of you)

1. accessHollywood.png

@AccessHollywood aced the #VMAs (4,000 retweets & likes)


2. The_Daily_Show_with_Trevor_Noah.png

@TheDailyShow crushed the #CNNDebate (3,000+ retweets & likes)


3. funnyDieLogo.jpg

@FunnyorDie slams it in the #GOPDebate (1,600+ retweets & likes)


4. politicoLogo.jpg

@Politico wins the #GOPDebate (1,100+ retweets + likes)


5. nfloncbs.jpeg

@NFLonCBS scored big in #NEvsNYG (1,000+ retweets & likes)



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Want to make awesome GIFs for Twitter?

Check out snapstream.com/socialtv to learn more.



New SnapStream 6.4: Share TV Moments on Twitter and Facebook

November 04 2014 by Jennifer Miller

Boost Social TV Ratings with SnapStream

Social media + TV go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Don’t believe us? Check out this Twitter Media Blog detailing stats from the recent social media storm caused by the Syfy Network’s “Sharknado 2: The Second One.”

The newly released SnapStream 6.4 makes it easy to engage with your fans/viewers through social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook. It's so quick to post images, TV clips and animated GIFs, because you can "do it yourself," without help from video production or anyone else.

Tweets and TV, Side by Side

Inside SnapStream, for the first time, you can watch the broadcast of any TV show AND what viewers are live-tweeting about it, side by side, in one window through our "Tweets Tab."

Live-tweet your TV show

Tweets are automatically categorized so our "Tweets Tab" automatically works for 200+ US channels. Just pull up a national TV show and you'll see tweets about that show, from the Twitter firehose, displayed side by side with the show itself.

And to make it easy to find the right TV moment, you can click on any tweet to "snap" to that moment in the broadcast. From there you can reply to an individual tweet with a TV screenshot, animated GIF or video clip.

With our "Tweets Tab," you can engage people watching your TV show with unprecedented efficiency -- there isn't a better way to "engage your follower's followers."

And live-tweeting does wonders to boost follower growth and to build a strong social audience for your TV show, according to a recent Twitter study.

Share TV Clips, Screenshots and Animated GIFs to Your Social Media Audience

Here's how SnapStream can help your TV show maximize engagement on Twitter and Facebook for every minute of your broadcast, to boost viewership and Nielsen Social TV Ratings.

Tweet and Reply on Twitter

Did you know that simply adding an image to your tweet can double your engagement rate? SnapStream 6.4 gives you a quick, seamless tool for replying to tweets with embedded TV clips, images or animated GIFs.

Reply to tweets with TV clips, screenshots and animated GIFs

This allows you to engage your viewers and fans in a one-to-one fashion, in real time, with the actual TV moments they're talking about. Tweet, rinse and repeat to amplify 100s of engagements into 1000s.

The clips you create for Twitter are stored in SnapStream’s cloud forever (no limits on storage!) and the images and animated GIFs are stored directly on Twitter.

Add a caption to any TV screenshot

Create viral buzz with memes! SnapStream 6.4 allows you to overlay text onto any TV screenshot, so you can add a meme-like photo caption or a message to drive more followers.

We support multiple Twitter accounts per user and users can easily and securely add their own accounts without the need for an administrator to be involved.

 Post Directly to Facebook

Ensure viewers will come back for more by capitalizing on your content’s ability to keep viewers hooked between episodes. SnapStream 6.4 allows you to compose Facebook posts directly inside of SnapStream that contain screenshot images or even TV clips directly from the show.

Post to Facebook

With all the content you'll be posting, you might be curious where those videos and images will be stored. All media content is natively embedded and hosted on Facebook.

With SnapStream 6.4, you can publish content directly to your Facebook Page. Are you managing multiple Facebook pages? SnapStream supports multiple Facebook accounts, so you can securely manage all of your Facebook Pages from a single SnapStream log-in.

Create and Share Animated GIFs

GIFs are at the heart of many Internet memes and viral phenomenon. SnapStream makes it easy to create and share animated GIFs on the Web and to social sites like Twitter and Tumblr. It’s one of SnapStream’s essential tools for repurposing your show’s content and engaging fans online.

SnapStream 6.4 makes it easy to adjust frame rate and speed so you can highlight those awesome sports moments (or bloopers) with slow motion. In this case, we had fun speeding up this SNL clip with Kristen Wiig, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake!

Create animated GIFs out of TV clips

 

Ready to see SnapStream 6.4 in action?

Webinar: Boost Social TV Ratings with SnapStream

Date/Time: Tuesday, November 18 at 3 p.m. EST / Noon PST

For: TV Shows and Broadcasters

Webinar: Share TV to Twitter and Facebook

Date: Wednesday, November 19

Pick a Time: Noon EST / 9 a.m. PST or 3 p.m. EST /noon PST

For: All Organizations

How can I upgrade to 6.4?

For current customers: To schedule your free upgrade* to 6.4, contact SnapStream’s support team via the Enterprise Support Form or via email at support@snapstream.com.

For new users: Contact one of our Sales Engineers to start the conversation about your TV monitoring needs. Email: sales@snapstream.com. Phone: 1-877-762-7787

*All software upgrades are free for current SnapStream customers who have a valid support contract and meet the hardware pre-requisites.

What is SnapStream? There's an unlimited amount of video content out there: 24/7 news channels, breaking news events, sports, talk shows, awards galas, entertainment shows, and so much more.

SnapStream makes a real-time news and media search engine that makes it fast and easy to find the video moments that support our customers telling great stories.

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