Tagboard Blog

On November 17 last year, Instagram announced a new permissions review process for new and existing apps on the Instagram for Developers blog. All existing apps were told they had until June 1, 2016 to submit for review before being transitioned to sandbox mode. Tagboard went through all the steps requested, received full approval, and we are already fully functioning on the new API. As a result, our platform and clients will be unaffected by these changes that are affecting the majority of the market.

Tagboard has been a trusted Instagram and Facebook partner since 2012, and the Tagboard platform has been used to power over 10 billion impressions of photos published to Instagram. Our customers use Tagboard to showcase hand-selected posts in places like stadiums, on digital billboards, in digital social hubs and apps, and on television, all over the world.

We share Instagram’s commitment to improve people’s control over their content, and applaud Instagram’s efforts to set up a more sustainable environment built around authentic experiences.

With over 645K interactions across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the Premios Billboards de la Música Latina 2016 was the most socially engaged show in Telemundo history. The official hashtag, #Billboards2016, trended worldwide on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

As innovative partners with Telemundo, we wanted to create a benchmark for what traditional shows can do to embrace the growth of other social platforms, and in turn increase the reach and tune-in of their audiences across key demographics.

"A partnership only works if we are working together on the new creative ideas… what is the next big thing that people are going to get excited about, and what's going to make my show look different?" said Gustavo Granados, Telemundo's V.P of Digital Specials and Realities. "Through our partnership with Tagboard, we managed to speak directly with Snapchat."

Telemundo is among the top 3 most social broadcasting networks in the U.S. with a total of 43.7m interactions in April 2016 alone (stats covering Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr).

As a highlight of the partnership, we worked closely with the Telemundo team, to ensure they were the first broadcast network to integrate Snapchat at an awards show. Team Telemundo's official Snapchat Story presented on a real-time display on a specially-designed set, demonstrating the team’s active involvement in real-time social media, and their commitment to community engagement.

To add to this, Telemundo’s goal was to bring Facebook audiences closer to the event by including a 'show within a show' moment. This was achieved with Tagboard’s Facebook Live feature used directly within the live main show. Another first for a national awards show.  

The social conversation started early to help fuel the live show tune-in with the team utilizing real-time hashtag voting and the Tagboard lower third on the Red Carpet as the stars arrived.

The record-breaking wasn’t limited to social interactions: mobile usage also grew by 135%, with 87% of users accessing Billboards content via a mobile device.*

Working in partnership with the right partners in social broadcasting allows the industry to embrace the growing changes across the digital spectrum and capitalize on these changes in a safe and content enhancing way. Understanding your audiences is key; Telemundo does. We couldn’t be more proud to be innovative partners with Telemundo and can’t wait for what’s to come in the future.

Today Facebook released a major update to Facebook Live, introducing new features that give people more ways to create, share and personalize live video, along with new places for people to discover live videos.

Facebook chose Tagboard to power a dynamic and interactive social hub to showcase the day’s amazing live videos to the world during the 24-hour live event. The Facebook Live website features an embedded and customized tagboard which utilizes our patented technology to seamlessly aggregate curated content based on the #24Live hashtag.

This partnership goes beyond a single launch page, though. Facebook Live is integrated directly into the Tagboard platform, enabling thousands of Tagboard clients around the globe to re-display live content on websites, at events, and in live television broadcasts using Tagboard’s beautiful display visualizations.

Here at Tagboard, we have focused on connecting communities together through the social networks that they love, and this new integration will allow them to connect together in the most dynamic way possible: in real-time, through live video.

A few weeks ago at SXSW music and technology festival, Facebook collaborated with Tagboard to launch a premium portal for artists to use Facebook Live to share exclusive content with their fans through the SXSW website.

Fans of musicians were able to see a dynamic live feed of Facebook Live content from a music festival all in one place. The portal allowed artists to communicate with fans across the globe during the music festival and conference, hosted in Austin, Texas.

The Facebook Live integration on Tagboard will help brands, event organizers, media companies, and sporting teams instantly syndicate live video to be seen by their community at all touch points.

The use cases we envision with Facebook Live and Tagboard will lead to new and unique ways of connecting with audiences. From stadiums, to news desks, you will see Facebook Live content bringing a new and fresh perspective to audiences like they have not seen before. We think this is going to be great for communities of all sizes.

We’d love to hear what you think! Please let us know what you think via Facebook or Twitter! If you have any questions about Facebook Live and the Tagboard platform, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Sincerely,

For as long as we can remember, folks have talked about what a “small world” we live in. Today this feeling is amplified thanks to the amazing technologies that keep us connected. To us, social media is all about creating more and more of those connections. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that Tagboard is expanding to Europe.

Our newest office in England is in good company, joining others from around the world—Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and of course our headquarters here in Redmond, Washington. As a worldwide leader in social aggregation and display technology, we’re excited to share that the global Social TV champion Tom Bowers has been hired to head the UK office. With an immediate focus to expand the success of the media division to the European market, as well as increasing the sports and brand footprint, we’re excited for all of the great things to come as we settle in across the pond.

Here at Tagboard, we are proud to have technology that helps fuel social conversation around live events. We’ve been widely used in Europe, including partnerships with the BBC, who used Tagboard technology to announce the results of the Scottish Independence Referendum vote before any other news entity worldwide. Sports teams like the Everton Football Club along with brands like Audi have utilized our technology to build fan engagement and customer loyalty around strategic campaigns. We’ve seen triple digit growth over the last year and a strong interest from the European market—so, ask and you shall receive!

Bowers will bring a unique view of successful social engagement campaigns that will help strengthen Tagboard’s expert offerings. Bowers has worked with shows like The Brit Awards to implement the first regulated global social vote, as well as championing the first wave of socially dynamic TV advertising in the UK. He has conceptualised innovative social TV experiences and strategies with leading media companies and broadcasters including BskyB, ITV, Channel 4, BT Sport, 4Music, MTV, RTE, Canal+, TF1 and ZDF.  

Western Europe and the UK have always been an important part of our global strategy, and now we are going to be able to invest directly into those markets with local talent, relationships and support. I couldn’t be more excited about having Tom Bowers join the Tagboard team. Those that are in the industry know how talented he is, and his passion and vision for Social TV and social display will help us continue to stay on the cutting edge in this competitive market.

The puck dropped on a new NHL season this past week in Calgary. The official NHL season-opening celebration included a free concert that featured Fitz and the Tantrums as well as a live viewing party of the Calgary Flames’ home opener against the Vancouver Canucks.

Calgary is ready for a concert with @FitzAndTantrums followed by some @NHLFlames season opening hockey. #NHLFaceOff pic.twitter.com/fFGK76cA3j

— NHL (@NHL)

October 8, 2015

#NHLFaceOff was a wildly successful event, trending nationally in Canada as well as a few major US cities (Chicago and New York City).

Twitter introduced a brand new Hockey emoji in honor of the season. Beginning on October 6th and lasting for one week, seven different hockey-themed Twitter emojis will appear in your Tweets when you use #NHLFaceOff.

Hockey is back! Join the @NHL conversation w/ #NHLFaceOff as the puck drops on a new season: https://t.co/4MxJQWEztB pic.twitter.com/Mz94BcaItH

— Twitter (@twitter)

October 8, 2015

A few major brands joined in the social conversation as well! Here are a few example tweets that we thought were successful.

Every team needs an enforcer. #NHLFaceOff pic.twitter.com/CtgzCBHP8A

— Mercedes-Benz USA (@MBUSA)

October 7, 2015

We've certainly got hockey fever, who else is ready for the return of @NHL?! http://t.co/eoidderCiV #NHLFaceOff https://t.co/WQQyErTirE

— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster)

October 7, 2015

Exactly 24 hours to puck drop! Start your season now with our new @NHL Upper Deck trading cards. #NHLFaceOff #Hockey pic.twitter.com/yOYudL0L3d

— Tim Hortons (@TimHortons)

October 6, 2015

Feels like sweater weather...the kind of sweater with a number on the back. #NHL16 #NHLFaceOff pic.twitter.com/umKcKepcNH

— Labatt Bear (@LabattUSA)

October 7, 2015

One of the most exciting things about this event was that fans were getting involved in the conversation no matter where they were located. They joined the conversation from their couches at home, from the front row of the concert, and up against the glass at the game. We were honored that the #NHLFaceOff was #PoweredByTagboard and are looking forward to the rest of the NHL season!

Ok, I'm retweeting my own retweet, but this was just too cool! On the digital board at #NHLFaceOff #PuckDrop pic.twitter.com/xU7cbBREhp

— StephanieShaughnessy (@SShaughnessy)

We heard your feedback and we are making it even easier to send great social content directly to your tagboards.Tagboard for Google Chrome is an easy solution that allows you to feature posts and manage your tagboards directly from whatever social network you’re currently on (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Youtube).

Because we encourage our customers to do their social listening wherever they feel most comfortable, we created a solution that travels with you wherever you go (on the internet at least).

We’re committed to continue making your workflow and experience easier, faster, better, stronger (you get the idea). You’ll find everything you need to know to be successful with this new tool on our support site.

We’re excited to announce that today we partnered with Eventbrite, the worldwide leader in private event ticketing and management software. The Tagboard extension for Eventbrite went live this morning and we are excited to provide event planners everywhere a turnkey way to integrate social media with their events.

Eventbrite, the self-service platform is the front-runner in event space helping event organizers of all kinds to sell more tickets through robust technology and promotional tools, totaling $3.5 billion in gross ticket sales since they launched in 2006. The company and it’s team are passionate about teaming up with the best in class and have chosen Tagboard to be their social media display go-to team for their event organizers. This is a big day for the Tagboard team as we start on this journey with such a great company. Our united mission of helping impact the users and make their event organization easier has begun.

What does this mean for you the event organizer? This offer is a no-brainer, easy way to add a strategic hashtag campaign to your event. Your two favorite event products are now combined into one unified platform so you can engage with event goers before, during and after the event. Now, the power of Tagboard is built right into your event dashboard.

As fate would have it, this event technology partnerships started at a technology event. The Innovation Conference held by the Pac-12 Networks and 49ers utilized Eventbrite to organize ticket sales and Tagboard to fuel the conversation on screens throughout Levis Stadium. We were speaking on the topic of executing hashtag campaigns for live events and discussed the success that we’d been having helping event organizers, sporting teams and media companies globally. The moment the panel ended, I hadn’t even gathered all of my things when someone approached me and introduced himself. It was Kevin Hartz, the CEO of Eventbrite. The very next morning I found myself in his office in San Francisco discussing the integration we are now celebrating.

Shortly after that initial meeting, we hit the ground running. Our teams have been working on a product integration for the last few months that brings the capabilities of Tagboard’s social discovery and display tools to the Eventbrite platform. That brings us to today, announcing the launch of the Tagboard extension for Eventbrite.

Why utilize hashtags for your event? Live events and social media have a natural symbiotic relationship. Events cause increased social activity, and increased social activity motivates more interest in events. In fact, Eventbrite found that each post about an event drives an average of 35 visits to the event registration page, and an increase of $5.30 in ticket sales per post [Eventbrite Study].

Additionally, hashtags are perfect for events because they empower attendees to join together in a unified conversation which goes far beyond the walls of the event itself. We like to say, “every event has a hashtag, and every hashtag needs a tagboard.”

Now, with the Tagboard extension, event organizers are able to create, moderate, and track their tagboard directly from Eventbrite’s management dashboard. It’s a centralized view of the real-time social story surrounding an event.

We’re excited to continue innovating solutions, breaking down communication boundaries, and bringing people closer together. The Tagboard extension for Eventbrite is just the latest step in our journey… I look forward to sharing many more in the future.

The Tagboard Extension for Eventbrite is available in the Eventbrite Spectrum. Let us know if you’d like more information.

Thanks for being on this ride and sharing this day and announcement with us. We’d love to hear from you once you try the extension.

—Josh Decker

CEO, Tagboard 

Social TV is Easier Than Ever with Tagboard’s New App for Hootsuite

We started Tagboard with one simple mission: provide tools to people to engage with and build their communities. Today, with the introduction of our new app for Hootsuite, we’re making it easier than ever to do just that -- especially for media companies, sports teams and brands.

The Tagboard app for Hootsuite brings tight integration between Hootsuite’s amazing social relationship platform, and Tagboard’s innovative, real-time social display technology. With just a few clicks, an operator -- whether producer, graphics operator, or even talent -- can discover, curate, and display the very best user generated content, all within seconds of it being posted to a social media network.

Tagboard and Hootsuite partnered together, along with Gannett, a media company that owns over 30 television stations and over a thousand news publications, to design the app. The result is a seamless, streamlined experience that, while on the surface appears simple, harnesses the collaborative efforts of decades of industry experience and insider knowledge.

“We focused on removing unnecessary steps and making sure the workflow was as easy and optimized as possible,” said Jenni Hogan, Tagboard’s Chief Media Officer. “We know how to build mission-critical tools, and understand that in cases like breaking news, seconds matter.”

Easy. Safe. Fast.

Those are the words we continue to hear customers use as they describe Tagboard’s products and features. With the Tagboard App for Hootsuite, it’s now easier than ever to quickly integrate social media into broadcast media in a safe and beautiful way.

Vegas, baby! Tagboard has touched down in the “City of Lights” to take part in the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Show, an electronics media showcase focused on the creation, management and delivery of content across all platforms. We are excited to have a booth in SPROCKIT, home to a select group of 30 companies chosen based on their “potential to influence the media, entertainment and technology markets." Here’s more information about our booth. Several key members of our team are here, and we’d love to show you how our tools can quickly and easily empower your brand to feature great social media content on websites, broadcast TV and large displays.

If you’re at the event or following along, be sure to share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media networks using #NABShow. And don’t forget to vote Tagboard for the Best of Sprockit Awards. Simply text "18" to 87057 up to five times from any one device—finally, an excuse to dust off that old Nokia cell phone.

We’re big sports fans at Tagboard. Giving teams the tools to amplify the voice of their fans in stadiums, on websites and throughout the social media space is an exciting, gratifying opportunity. We’re fortunate to have a long list of sports teams using our technology, and now, we’re thrilled to announce the addition of Samurai Japan, the national baseball team of Japan, to our client roster.

It was the most watched show in U.S. television history, topping a long list of, well, past Super Bowls. Over 114 million viewers tuned in to watch the Patriots literally and figuratively snatch victory from defeat this past Sunday, and advertisers paid a pretty penny for a moment in the spotlight. With some spending as much as $4.5 million for just 30 seconds of airtime, it would only make sense for advertisers to search for ways to find added value. And if our analysis of the commercials airing during the Super Bowl are any indication, advertisers agree that the hashtag is the best solution. With the rise of the second screen, particularly during sporting events, it makes sense. Viewers are already tweeting, Instagramming and Facebooking their thoughts on both the game itself and the commercials (a highlight of every Super Bowl Sunday). By inserting a hashtag into the spot, advertisers are simply telling the audience where they can participate in a conversation around their campaign. It’s a clear call to action, and when executed correctly, it could lead to additional exposure in the social space, perhaps even trending, as we saw with several campaign hashtags on Sunday.

But who did it best? What can we learn? Let’s take a look at some key thoughts and takeaways...

Shown above: Tagboard’s “Presentation Mode” for broadcast and live display

This week, Tagboard participated in a significant moment in the United Kingdom’s history, partnering with the BBC in its coverage of Scotland’s Independence Referendum. Tagboard's powerful social media tools enabled the BBC to include the voice of its audience in a 14-hour live coverage of this historic event, displaying selected social content onscreen throughout the broadcast. When the UK Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted about the outcome of the vote, Tagboard’s technology empowered BBC Scotland to be the first in the world to show the historic Tweet. The BBC is, without question, one of the most respected news organizations in the world, and Tagboard could not have been more honored to be an integral part of the BBC's coverage of this monumental event.

The Tagboard team has been hard at work, building out more powerful tools for our users. We are excited to announce that we have now officially pushed out a fresh design and more than a dozen new features for new and existing users/clients.

You might wonder what is new so we’ll give you some details on what has been upgraded and revised.

More Free Features

Tagboard is now offering basic embedding and curation to all users (for free). This is targeted for power users, bloggers and communities. Features include:

Basic embedding

Moderation tools include featuring up to 50 posts

WordPress plugin now available

Pro Account:

Create 3 tagboards/hashtag conversations

Moderation tools include: Post Featuring and Post/User Blocking

Enterprise Account:

More powerful admin interface

New Live Mode display options and controls, including a new Grid and Lower Third layouts

New "curator" tool for high velocity curation/moderation

We couldn’t be more thrilled about this: the “godfather of the hashtag”, Chris Messina, has joined Tagboard as an advisor.

Chris sent a tweet out in 2007 suggesting the hashtag as a way for groups to connect through Twitter.

Since then, the hashtag has gone mainstream — used all over the world, on every social network, in pop culture, in media, in marketing, and even verbally. He is considered an industry authority and thought leader, appearing on TV several times to discuss the hashtag and industry trends, and has been written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, and numerous other publications.

Chris has also worked at Google, and acted as a tireless open web advocate. He has been involved with successful startups including Urban Airship and Secret, among others. His decision to join the Tagboard team is a huge vote of confidence for us, as we have been pioneering hashtag-based content aggregation since 2011.

“Our belief is that the hashtag can’t be owned. It’s at the heart of how we have built our service. Chris has been a strong influencer on that — even long before we founded the company” Josh Decker, our CEO, said. “His focus on adding value to users and communities is perfectly aligned with who we are as people, and as a company. I couldn’t be more proud or excited to now have him as a member of our team!”

For his part, Chris had this to say: “I’m super enthusiastic about the Tagboard team and their efforts to realize the potential of the hashtag to unite conversations across social media platforms. They really get it. They see that no one can own a hashtag, but are building best-of-breed tools to take advantage of the extraordinary cross-pollinating intent of hashtagging behavior. If the hashtag is the new URL, Tagboard is building the next generation’s browser.”  

Amazon today announced that you can add items to your Amazon cart simply by using the hashtag #AmazonCart in a tweet with a product link. We think it is #awesome. Commerce should be happening through social media but has thus far been hampered by security, privacy, and scaling concerns. But now, with the widespread use of the hashtag, companies like Amazon are finding ways of overcoming these challenges. This is just the beginning. #AmazonCart is leading the way for how to do commerce on social media. By building on the hashtag, Amazon is making it easier, more convenient, and faster for people to buy the things they want at the moment of discovery. And while we love how this makes Twitter more useful, we can't wait until this kind of convenience is available across all channels (e.g. Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). Cheers to Amazon for improving commerce in social media, one hashtag at a time!

A crowd of 79,238 watched the University of Connecticut Huskies defeat the University of Kentucky Wildcats last night, setting an attendance record for the NCAA championship game. Saturday’s attendance for the semifinal games was slightly higher at 79,444. These games combined reached an attendance 158,682, the highest #FinalFour weekend attendance ever.

Tagboard was honored when presented with the opportunity to power the #FinalFour social conversation at AT&T Stadium, on screens that proved the saying “everything is bigger in Texas”.  Home to the Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium has two colossal screens which ran 160 feet across and 72 feet tall; measurements that made them almost twice the size of the Final Four basketball court below.

#TexasBig — Tagboard's live social media feed on AT&T Stadium's huge screens for the NCAA Final Four tournament.