In the past year I have been leading a new, innovative and exciting product: empower, which is a platform that enables YouTubers and content creators to create their own mobile applications and engage with their audience on mobile. So far, we have released more than 100 YouTubers’ mobile apps.
Apps created via empower, earn revenue from various sources but among these, the most profitable one is probably app sponsorships. As of May 2016, we have started cooperating with huge global brands to generate revenue for our partners and our company. Being a product person with a background in/passion for marketing, I am so glad with the results of our campaigns and value we created for brands.
First, we began with Disney’s Lion Guard, which is a cartoon on Disney Channel. Our top gaming partner, Minecraft Evi, who has a great relationship with his followers, was at the center of this project. We created a new product feature only for this project: before, users were able to share text, photos and virtual items on application’s wall. We added video sharing next to these features. In the first step of the project, Minecraft Evi shared an announcement video on YouTube. Based on brand’s goals, he “roared” on the video and asked his fans to do the same on his application’s wall. More than 2000 roaring videos were received. Here is a sample of them:
Disney was so satisfied with the previous project, they immediately asked for a second one. This time, another YouTuber, Wolvoroth, joined Minecraft Evi. The project was promoting SupaStrikas which is also Disney Channel series. Both influencers shared videos on YouTube, asking their fans to share their selfies while watching SupaStrikas. We have received more than 5K selfies in a week. In addition, we enabled users to choose their favourite SupaStrikas character and share it as a virtual item while the YouTubers are live streaming on their mobile apps. Users sent more than 40K virtual items in a one-hour live stream broadcast!
In our third ad project, we utilized a different product function to create real-time engagement. Our apps’ survey function was a perfect fit for Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge Ad Project. We partnered with two major gamer YouTubers, Oyun Portal and Minecraft Evi. These two influencers made an announcement and told their fans that they were going to make vlog videos in two beautiful cities of Turkey, Istanbul and Bodrum. They wanted their fans to vote for their locations of choice on the mobile application and they took videos based on their fans’ responses. 18K survey responses (9.5K for Oyun Portal, 8.5K for Minecraft Evi) were received within one day. Vlogs based on users’ choices were viewed more than 600K only on YouTube.
Our partner, Minecraft Evi took a role in most of our major projects. We worked with him again for Algida and Danone in two seperate projects. Both of them were based on product selfies on application walls. In Algida’s project, users shared 6.5K ice cream sticks on applications wall. For Danone, it was as high as 12K product selfies!
I had amazing fun in both ideation and execution of these projects. I believe they are perfect examples for the power of mobile marketing & influencer marketing.
..and this is only the beginning of a new era!