San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 15, 2013 -- Livefyre, provider of the leading real-time conversation and social curation platform, today announced that it has launched a new social native advertising group, that will help brands unify their owned, bought and earned media to power advertising campaigns. The group works directly with agencies to help develop client strategies, applications and native media integrations to reach and engage new audiences by combining social and brand content. The content is then amplified through social native ad placements on publisher partner sites, and used to socialize the brand’s own websites and mobile apps.
Livefyre can integrate these native social ads into the over 250 premium publishers that use Livefyre's social cloud platform, including AOL, CBS Interactive, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, News Corp and the Conde Nast family of magazine publications. Sankar Patel, former VP, Group Director of Digital for Carat, has joined Livefyre as VP of Native Advertising to lead the new initiative alongside Scot Gensler, Livefyre’s VP of Business Development.
A recent study by IPG Media Lab found that consumers view native ads 53% more frequently and are 13% more likely to share native ads than banners. Additionally, consumers show 18% more purchase intent after viewing native ads. Despite the clear performance benefits, many publishers find it challenging to scale their native advertising offerings, and brands find it difficult to create quality, authentic content on an ongoing basis.
“Livefyre’s new social native advertising group addresses both scalability and content creation,” said Jordan Kretchmer, Founder and CEO of Livefyre. “Because Livefyre is already integrated with a network of over 250 premium publishers, we can instantly provide them with a scalable solution. Using social curation tools and interactive apps like real-time comments, ratings, and blogs advertisers can automatically surface the highest quality conversations and content from brand advocates, and use that to promote their products without having to create content themselves.”
Livefyre Social Native Ad Solutions provides four key services to brands and agencies including social strategy, creative services, technology and distribution. Livefyre creates customized experiences to meet the specific needs of each advertiser, featuring a mix of engagement apps that include curated displays of social content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, as well as real-time comments, trending widgets, live media walls, live blogs, and live chats. Each experience can live on third party publisher sites in addition to the brand’s website, amplifying their reach. The first campaign that ran on Livefyre’s social native platform and audience extension program reached over 5 million viewers, curated 500,000 pieces of social content and had an average time-on-site of 4 minutes.
IGN, the premium gaming and entertainment website, was one of the first digital publishers to feature a Livefyre Social Native Ad campaign. "Livefyre brought us a very unique opportunity to partner more closely with Sony PlayStation during their big E3 PS4 announcements. Livefyre StreamHub let us bring all Playstation's greatest social media content from the event to the gaming masses, who don't always get to attend E3,” explained Yael Prough, Sr Sales Director for IGN.com. "Livefyre supplied the campaign strategy and native ad technology, and we worked collaboratively with them resulting in a valuable new advertising opportunity for brands."
Sankar Patel, Livefyre's VP of Native Advertising stated, “With this new offering, we want to get agencies more involved in helping brands socialize their advertising campaigns through their advocates. Most brands find it challenging to amplify earned social media to larger audiences, and it rarely reaches potential prospects and people who are not in the brand’s social fold already. We’re helping brands surface the social commentary of their advocates to extend their reach, bringing in new customers and fans. This is exceptional content that generates significantly more value for the brand, the publishers and their audiences.”
Patel comes to Livefyre from Carat USA where he served as the VP Group Director of Digital on the west coast, working on Disney Parks and Resorts, University of Phoenix, Sony PlayStation, Nokia, Redbull and Go Pro. A 12 year digital ad executive, he has also held senior media positions with agencies including Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, Grey and Universal McCann, having led digital media strategies for trendsetting brands like MINI Cooper, Priceline and Columbia Sportswear. While at BSSP, Patel’s team won the JD Powers Most Innovative Campaign Award for their work with MINI Cooper.
To learn more about Livefyre’s Social Native Ad Solutions, visit: http://www.livefyre.com/socialnativeadvertising/
About Livefyre
Livefyre helps companies engage consumers through a combination of real-time conversation, social curation and social advertising. With Livefyre, brands can integrate real-time social content into their websites, mobile apps, advertisements and television broadcasts to increase viewer engagement, boost website traffic and drive revenue. As the sixth largest network online, Livefyre is powering real-time social experiences for over 250 leading brands including American Idol, AOL, Bravo, CBS, Conde Nast, Dow Jones/WSJ, FOX Sports, Mashable, NASCAR, Showtime, Sony Playstation, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times.
Founded in 2009 with offices in San Francisco and New York, Livefyre was named one of the best places to work in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times. For more information, visit http://www.livefyre.com or follow us Twitter and Instagram at @livefyre.
Colleen McMillen, Livefyre, http://www.livefyre.com, +1 (917) 344-9360, [email protected]
Share this article