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NCAA March Madness Most Social Moments – Powered by SnappyTV Social Volume

This was one of the most unpredictable NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournaments ever with UConn and Kentucky piling up the upsets to reach last night’s championship game.  All of the unpredictability (and the big schools rising to the top) also contributed to make this the most social March Madness ever.

As we blogged about previously, the SnappyTV platform was tightly integrated into Turner Sports’ March Madness Live experience.  One of the key components they leveraged was our Social Volume product, which provides real-time data and visualizations that marry event video with social activity happening across the web and then lets you match up videos, GIFs and photos with those visualizations.

The SnappyTV Social Volume Product appeared beneath live video creating a live visualization of social activity about that game.

Using this data and clips shared in real-time on Facebook and Twitter via SnappyTV, here’s a look at the Top 5 Most Social Moments from this year’s March Madness tournament.

#5 Dayton upsets Syracuse in thrilling fashion! – 16,342 tweets/min

The University of Dayton Flyers reached the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1984 by defeating powerhouse Syracuse. The Flyers would win one more game before bowing out in the Elite Eight.

 

#4 Kentucky ends Wichita State’s perfect season in St. Louis! – 17,141 tweets/min

The Wichita St. Shockers were trying to become the first team to finish the season undefeated since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers but fell prey to the Kentucky Wildcats’ Freshman-dominated team.  The Shockers’ dreams of an undefeated season ended abruptly in the Third Round proving doubters, who cited their easy schedule, right.

 

#3 Kentucky punches its ticket to the Elite 8! – 17,528 tweets/min

One of the most anticipated games of the tournament pitted Kentucky against in-state rival, and defending champion, Louisville.  The Cardinals, who had been the darling pick in brackets across the country, ran up against the rapidly maturing Wildcats and ultimately came up short.

 

#2 Kentucky drills a 3-pointer to take the lead with 2.6 seconds to go! – 18,112 tweets/min

One of the stars of the tournament was Kentucky’s Aaron Harrison who hit three last minute three pointers in tight games that ultimately tipped the tide for the Wildcats against Louisville, Michigan and Wisconsin.  This cold-blooded three against Michigan sent Kentucky to the Final Four and sent the Wolverines home.

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#1 Mercer Dancing! – 56,887 tweets/min

The breakout star of the tournament was arguably a player who scored 0 points. How could that be you ask? Well Mercer’s Senior Guard, Kevin Canevari, created an internet sensation by performing the Nae Nae dance after the Bears’ stunning upset of Duke in the Second Round.  His moment illustrates just why March Madness is one of the most popular sporting events – because it creates human moments that resonate with sports fans and casual viewers alike.

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Why Posting Video on Facebook Matters (Hint: You'll Double Your User Engagement)

A recent study published by Quintly demonstrates that video is king when it comes to Facebook user engagement. According to the study, videos posted by Fan Pages received nearly twice the number of engagements as photos, the runner up in the study.

via Quintly

What’s more is that videos only comprise a paltry 3% of posts made by Fan Pages meaning there is a real dearth of video content being made available to social media managers for use in Facebook.

via Qunitly

Another important nugget in the recently released study is that questions do not receive a good amount of engagement, so the old best practice about prompting user interaction by asking a question does not seem to hold water when put into practice.

Key Takeaways

With Facebook investing more in video playback with new features like video auto-play and larger thumbnails, video is only going to continue to become more popular amongst Facebook users.  So the question becomes, how can I as a marketer or social media manager create more video inventory and ultimately drive more engagement amongst my fans?

Luckily SnappyTV can help with that.  Using our new Facebook Export tool, customers have started to publish content using the native Facebook Player from the SnappyTV Platform. Here are some recent examples:

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If you want to learn more about how SnappyTV can help with your video strategy on Facebook, get in touch with your SnappyTV account representative.

You can read more about this study here: http://www.quintly.com/blog/2014/03/data-analysis-which-facebook-post-type-rules-the-news-feed/

March Madness 2014 + SnappyTV = The Future of TV?

For the third consecutive year, SnappyTV has worked closely with Turner Sports on their March Madness social execution. This year, we are working with them on more fronts than ever including a deep in-app integration, social posts on Facebook and Twitter, and even helping their ad sales teams provide video affidavits to sponsors. What makes this app so unique is that the March Madness team has taken the best of the Second Screen experience and combined it with live streams to produce a single, unified experience that is like nothing seen before.

The feedback from users about the March Madness Live experience has been nothing short of phenomenal. Casual fans and tech industry luminaries alike are calling the experience the “Future of TV” and we can’t be more excited to be part of it.  We also encourage you to experience this live throughout the remainder of the NCAA tournament so you can experience this first hand.

 

In App Integration

SnappyTV’s technology has been deeply integrated into the March Madness Live app for iPhone, iPad, Android and Desktop. Users who watch games live (or even watching full game replays) have a SnappyTV generated Social Volume sound wave sitting below the main video player.  Culled from live Twitter Data, we provide the app with live Twitter statistics through our Timeline API, and their app, in turn, displays it to end users.

SnappyTV's Social Volume product shows users the current "loudness" of the social conversation around each game as it happens.

What’s more is that in addition to showing the game’s Social Volume, the March Madness Live team is also using our LiveCut Editor to curate instant video highlights, images and Tweets that appear along the sound wave.  As these assets are created (and approved by a social media manager) they appear instantly inside the experience where users can enjoy them and ultimately share them into social media.

Instant Video Highlights created using our LiveCut Editor are surfaced directly into the app, letting fans relive crucial moments and share them to their social networks.

Social Sharing to Twitter and Facebook

In addition to powering much of the social experience within the March Madness Live app, Turner Sports are also using us to post real-time highlights and our animated GIF-like Snap Reels to drive tune in and awareness of current tournament activity.

On Twitter, the team is using us as part of Twitter Amplify Campaigns with Infiniti and Coke bringing in new revenue by running these campaigns directly within Twitter as seen here:

and here:

The March Madness team is also using us to help drive tune in, using viral moments inside their Tweets and Facebook posts.

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When posting to Facebook, they are using our new Export to Facebook feature which allows you to publish MP4 files directly to your Fan Pages to take advantage of new Facebook Video features like auto-playing in the News Feed.

Bleacher Report – Live Game Coverage and Publishing to their Website

This year, we also started working with Bleacher Report, which is now a Turner Sports property.  Using our LiveCut Editor, the B/R team was including real-time highlights into their extremely popular TeamStream App.

Bleacher Report pushed live highlights directly into their Team Stream App.

Bleacher Report is also using our Ooyala connector to quickly publish clips to their website for use in articles and in their video library.

(See this on Bleacher Report)

Ad Sales Affidavits

Another unexpected, but brilliant use that the Turner team has gotten out of our platform is that their Ad Sales team is using us to provide affidavits to sponsors that their ad spots were executed on air.  Using SnappyTV for this has dramatically reduced the amount of time that their ad sales team has to spend on this activity so they can spend their time doing what they are best at – selling.

The Future is Here

We always love working with the Turner Sports team on March Madness.  They fully understand all of the various ways that our platform can help drive tune in, provide new ad inventory, and provide rapid efficiencies in producing video and other media types.  Moving video editing workflows into the cloud is what makes all of this possible because it results in huge gains in speed and opens up video editing, and the clips that are produced, to a much broader audience than what was ever possible before.

But what is more impressive is how the Turner Sports team has recognized that the line between the first screen and second screen has all but gone away. People want access to live video anywhere, anytime and on any device. And at the same time, they want to experience that video with all of the unique aspects that second screen apps have brought to the live TV watching experience. The March Madness team has proved that the future is here, and we’re just happy to be along for the ride.