Link
http://storyful.com
Specifications
Storyful discovers, verifies, and acquires rights to user-generated social media content – primarily video content – for newsrooms, brands, agencies, and video producers.
The platform monitors social platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Weibo in real time and identifies content based on topics, trends, or verticals worldwide.
Storyful editors can also curate content based on client needs.
Clients can easily license or embed content on websites, mobile apps, social hubs, and in other content marketing vehicles.
Cost
The basic platform starts at $5,000 per month. Brand channels that serve feeds of content based on specific categories or topics start at $15,000 per month.
Licensing cost is additional and is based on use. For example, a license for short-term use on digital channels only is typically about $2,000. A license for use in perpetuity across all channels is typically about $5,000.
User
Paul Dalessio, SVP in FleishmanHillard’s digital group, has been using Storyful since December 2014.
How do you use it?
You can log into a web-based platform and see the content Storyful finds for you. Some of my colleagues at FleishmanHillard use Storyful in this way for their clients.
I recently used Storyful for our client AT&T. In this case, I worked with a project manager and a team of Storyful reporters. After an initial conversation in which we explained our goals, the story we wanted to tell, and the type of user-generated content we were looking for, the Storyful team gathered video clips from YouTube, Facebook, and Vine and delivered options to us in a couple of hours. All the options they gave us were licensed, so our client owned the full rights to use the content however they wanted.
Once the video clips were delivered, our digital team edited the content into snackable, sharable pieces.
The Storyful team works with us every step of the way. We can pick up the phone or email them with questions or concerns and get an immediate response.
During our initial conversation with Storyful, we did share a media release form and other legal requirements dictated by AT&T’s legal department. This document was integrated into Storyful’s content licensing process along with full indemnification for FleishmanHillard and our client. This gives our legal teams peace of mind.
How does it serve your business needs?
We wanted to find a way to engage our clients’ social audiences with content that is relatable, engaging, and sharable.
Storyful gives us the ability to gather user-generated content that can help us tell a story in a way we wouldn’t be able to scale with existing agency resources.
It allows us to secure the rights to UGC and publish it on clients’ branded channels. This allows the content to be directly attributed to the brand rather than driving traffic from a branded social channel to a third-party destination.
Storyful gives us access to unique and authentic content. We want to be able to tell stories for clients in an authentic way, and we can’t do that by shooting video on a sound stage or even through man-on-the-street videos.
Rich UGC content that is light and fun helps us make an emotional connection to a client’s offering, product, or service.
AT&T recently launched Rollover Data. The challenge was to continue to engage the brand’s social communities and drive awareness during January, which was between the launch announcement and availability of the service.
Rather than getting into the technical aspects of the Rollover Data specs, AT&T wanted to build awareness of the offering and own mindshare of the term “rollover.” The brand had a legacy connection with rollover minutes, and Rollover Data was an extension of that offering. We worked with Stoyful to gather compelling UGC showcasing fun rollover activities.
Storyful delivered six licensed clips in less than 24 hours. We edited them into a montage and cut them into individual clips that we used on AT&T’s social channels along with some of the announcement messaging that tied into this fun UGC of real people or animals doing real things.
It was sharable content, and AT&T’s social audience engaged with it more than they would engage with a typical news announcement or other one-dimensional piece. These posts performed better than existing benchmarks for organic content performance over the previous six months. It led to quality engagement and increased opportunities for one-on-one and one-to-many conversations.
A team of FleishmanHillard colleagues used Storyful this year at CES. Our FH TrueIQ system powered the Consumer Electronics Association’s social media command center with the help of both Storyful and Buzz Radar.
Storyful’s listening platform identified trending content, video, and other UGC that was picking up momentum at CES and had the potential to go viral. Storyful’s platform also fed content into the command center and provided a view into content that was being shared the most and driving conversation and social engagement.
How does it integrate with your existing infrastructure from an IT standpoint?
The platform is web-based, and it integrates with nearly any CMS system.
Storyful sent us content files in whatever format we wanted.
What are the main benefits?
Storyful gives us access to a large library of content, and they’re constantly searching for new content on our behalf. It gives us additional arms and legs.
Licensing content is a heavy lift that helps us secure content appropriately for external use.
The content is unique. Nobody else has access to the content we’re using.
We get authentic UGC that can’t be replicated at the level of cost and time efficiency that Storyful provides. Authenticity helps tell relatable stories, and that’s valuable to our clients.
What are the main drawbacks?
This isn’t really a drawback of Storyful per se. When you enter the realm of UGC, you’re probably not going to find a video that exactly matches the story you’re trying to tell. So you have to be a bit more creative to connect a theme or a consumer behavior back to the story you want to tell. But that is also what makes it fun.
What would you like to see improved / added?
We would like to see deeper editorial integration with Storyful so that we can produce and distribute content on a more regular basis. We’re working on this now with the Storyful team as we integrate the platform and service across a wider array of clients.
Competitors
Percolate – web and mobile marketing software. It includes a feature for procuring user-generated content; an app for distributing marketing content; integrated publishing and paid media tools; a media library tool to sync and manage brand assets; tools to create, review, and approve content in real-time; and more.
Livefyre – offers a suite of conversation, social curation, and social advertising products that allow brands to integrate real-time social content into their websites, mobile apps, advertisements, and TV broadcasts.
