TBS partners with Steller for Facebook instant article push
VaynerMedia through Steller, a mobile-first storytelling app, has partnered with Turner Broadcasting System to create its beta update. With this update, brands can publish their Steller stories to Facebook in the form of instant articles.
TBS partners with Steller for Facebook instant article push around "People of Earth"
Through this partnership, TBS was the first brand to publish instant articles that promoted the season finale of its show about a support group for alien abductees, “People of Earth.” Starting this past Friday, TBS posted three instant articles around the finale.
"We’re always looking for new platform opportunities to extend TV storylines onto social media, which is why we identified Steller as the right partner for TBS’ People of Earth season finale campaign,” said Matt Seigel, senior vice president, head of VaynerMedia Los Angeles.
The content which are diary entries from one of the show’s characters is completely fiction. Traditionally, instant articles have been created by traditional publishers to distribute journalism. TBS’ content looks different with a grey background and videos that auto play.
“We’ve tested various formats for video storytelling for TBS but we never had a chance to storytell in a written format to truly engage with our show’s fans,” Seigel said. “Throughout the course of the season, we heard People of Earth fans say on social media that they enjoyed Don’s character. Steller’s Instant Articles integration allowed us to publish compelling and engaging written content directly on Facebook from Don’s POV for super fans to take time to read and enjoy in feed. We’re looking forward to ideating around how Steller can be used in future campaigns for our clients."
Steller gives its storytellers the opportunity to create engaging and immersive content that loads instantly onto Facebook. The content can include photos and videos, drawings, maps, as well as custom branded styles and filters.
"Throughout Steller's history, customers have always asked us how they could deliver better, more engaging content to customers on Facebook,” said Peter Denton, vice president of marketing, Steller,” The problem is, the creation of this content with legacy tools is often-times custom and expensive, creating a lot of obstacles for teams to meet the demand of their audience. Thus, combined with Instant Article's performance benefits (10x faster than the mobile web), Steller saves brands significant time and money by allowing them to use our tool to easily create beautiful and engaging content for Facebook without additional resources or modifications to in-house CMS systems. Now brands can focus on the creativity of their content, not the development of it."
VaynerMedia sees Steller as an extension outside of the TV viewing experience that leverages the mobile-first nature of TBS viewers’ consumption habits.