starsports.com and Vodafone India to bring 'Twitter Amplify' for Indian sport fans

Starsports.com recently, in association with Vodafone India, announced they are the first broadcaster and brand advertiser to participate in the Twitter Amplify program In India. The Twitter Amplify program is developed to tap into the growing social conservations around TV programmes, especially live sports. starsports.com and Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecommunication service provider, aim to enrich the live sports experience through social media.  Sports fans will be able to experience this product during the current Indian cricket team’s England tour.

Example of Amplify Tweet: For the last 12 months, starsports.com has been shaping the digital experience for sports fans in India, most recently on IPL where nearly 30 million fans followed the tournament on the destination. Through Twitter Amplify, starsports.com now plans to enhance viewer experience across the web and mobile offering high-quality clips of sporting action directly to consumers engaged in conversations on Twitter around live games. This is likely to lead to greater engagement around live sports in social media as well as create an opportunity for fans to consume the action without leaving the conversation.

The Twitter Amplify program enables broadcasters to publish video to Twitter and then jointly monetize the premium content by creating sponsorship packages. Powered by Promoted Tweets, the program will “amplify” the reach of the video content distributed via the broadcasters’ and sponsors’ Twitter accounts.

For advertisers, Twitter Amplify provides an opportunity to tap into the social conversations on Twitter, especially on mobile devices. It also provides a multi-screen audience engagement strategy essential to satisfying users’ needs to consume content whenever or wherever they want it. “2014 is a great year for Twitter becoming the social soundtrack for television as 95% of the public social conversation around TV is happening on Twitter today, especially for live sporting events. Broadcasters and brands know that Twitter is a natural TV companion that drives audience tune-in, engagement and affinity,” said Rishi Jaitly, India Market Director, Twitter. “We look forward to working with cutting-edge broadcasters and advertisers, like STAR Sports and Vodafone, who want to tap into a compelling second screen experience We are delighted that cricket fans can now enjoy TV highlights in real-time on Twitter."

Ajit Mohan, Head of digital business, Star India, said: “We have built starsports.com as the most compelling destination for fans in India to follow sports on a mobile screen and the best platform for advertisers to reach an attractive audience on digital. This program is a new innovation for us to understand the possibilities of being present when the conversations are happening on Twitter.”

Vivek Mathur, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone India, said, “As a brand we are always looking at innovative ways of driving brand engagement and conversations on social media. Cricket (and sports in general) is one of our identified passion points and one with which Vodafone has a huge association. We are very excited to be the pioneers in launching a new social innovation in India centered around Twitter and cricket.”

Providing sports on-the-go has been central to both starsports.com and Vodafone. The telecom major this year in partnership with STAR Sports launched ‘Vodafone Sports’ with an aim to provide high-quality sports experience on the mobile platform for Vodafone users.