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MUMBAI:
Star has announced that its English general entertanment channel
Star World and English movie channel Star Movies have gone
from strength to strength on Facebook in their attempts to
target the youth.
The channels, Star said, have an online community of over
335,000 fans on Facebook on the last count, leaving behind
their competition and some of the news and broadcast portals
by a superlative margin. This is the result of an aggressive
social media strategy that engages users in a dialogue around
their diverse content on a continued basis.
Star
India GM, senior VP, English Channels Saurabh Yagnik said,
“Our goal was to create innovative ways to engage our
viewers with our content across multiple screens and platforms.
People have grown increasingly accustomed to a number of these
platforms – be it their ipod, TV, mobile or laptops and
so on. Our strategic focus on establishing a stronger presence
in the social media space has catapulted Star Movies &
Star World into a higher user engagement stratum. We are dedicated
& focused to create a digital impact as much as our efforts
directed towards our television channels. Using this approach
we have managed to reach and engage the English content consuming
audience in India and build such a large community around
them.”
The
two Star channels take the engagement of their online viewers
very seriously. If their viewers are available on Facebook
post midnight, they reach out to them accordingly. There are
alert mechanisms and customised video promos for online usage
only that inform viewers about missed and upcoming episodes
and specials. Channel fans from Facebook are invited to their
office on a regular basis for interactions and debates to
better their bouquet of offerings on television and online.
The
channels have not only witnessed an increase in fan base over
the last few months but the total number of monthly active
users have also gone up to 1,82,114. Every month an average
of 12,000 and 30,000 new fans get added to the Star World
and Movies fan pages respectively, Yagnik said.
This
is facilitated by various tools of engagement ranging from
contests to developing a number of unique applications for
its users.
“Changes in our Programming and Content selection strategy
seem to have paid great dividends too. We will soon be launching
a special Viewer Partner Programme to engage our Facebook
fans as our council of advisors on a month on month basis.
We are hopeful that it will further yield results on our viewership
as well. Our next step would be to grow this community further
by devising more innovative engagement tools,” Yagnik
said.
Some
of the contests initiated for Star World include ‘The
Be Like Betty Contest’, where fans could create their
own magazine cover to win a 3 month internship with Elle magazine.
A “Crack The Code Contest” was initiated with the
launch of a new show, Burn Notice, thus increasing the levels
of interaction. On 26h January’11, fans were also given
the right to vote for their favourite shows they would like
to watch on television, thus heavily increasing participation
on their FB page.
The
Star Movies page has also hosted a number of applications
and contests on Facebook. Some of the examples are, The Opening
Night – giving away latest movie tickets and merchandise
as well as video previews of the latest theatrical releases;
The Dynamite Decade on Star Movies, showcased a number of
applications on the Facebook page, including reminders of
favourite movies from the Decade, coupled with games increasing
interactivity. Showcasing the Oscars also brought fans alive
through trivia applications and Predict & Win contests
– with an eye on the Grand prize of the chance to win
a trip to the 2012 Oscars in LA.
Yagnik
said both the Star channels listen, respond and interact with
their fans on Facebook, increasing participation and dominating
both the digital space as well as the English entertainment
space. The channels expect the numbers to grow even more with
initiatives like Torrentz where more and more fresh international
content will be brought to fans in India at the same time
as their global counterparts.
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