Interactive Content Pioneer Apester Unveils Social Story Format For Brands and Publishers to Build Audiences and Increase Revenue

After integrating Story Strip, TV Insider, a news and entertainment website owned by NTVB Media, saw its daily revenue jump 87 percent  with an increase of nearly 30 seconds spent on the page

Apester, an interactive content engagement platform that brings storytelling innovation to brands and publishers, announced the launch of Story Strip, a social network style content viewing experience. TV insider, an entertainment and pop culture website that saw an 87 percent uplift in daily revenue after working with Apester, is the first to integrate this engaging format that brings the Story highlights experience into the open web. Story Strip gives publishers brand new monetization opportunities, and helps marketers derive valuable data insights about audience preferences, tastes, and opinions.

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For publishers, Story Strip helps build engaging content that leads to higher conversion rates, and creates a social network style of highlights and storytelling that audiences have become familiar with. Publishers can boost revenue by weaving ads into the Strip or between Story slides, and marketers can customize the Story to match their branding and foster an innovative look on their sites. Ultimately, content producers see double the time spent on the page and an increase of 80 percent in the number of Story slides read.

“Story is today’s fastest growing content medium, and the Instant Story Strip enables publishers to look and act more like a social media platform, appealing to the visual generation without the hassle of constantly maintaining story creation,” says Moti Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder at Apester. “It’s all about enhancing brand’s ability to capture audiences online, adding new monetization and conversion layers, and creating a higher circulation between articles for providing the next level of engagement on your site.”

Story Strip brings social network innovation into the domain of brands and publishers, and lets readers consume content in a social environment and navigate different articles using a swipe up call-to-action. Similar to a Story Highlights bar, readers can navigate to another article by clicking on the strip to open an immersive and responsive Story experience.

Earlier this year TV Insider, owned by one of the leading publishers of entertainment news in the U.S, tapped Apester to amplify its coverage of Comic Con. Apester rolled out the Story Strip feature across TV Insider’s pages, helping fans find and consume articles more relevant to their interests. Following the launch, Apester helped TV Insider generate an 87 percent increase in daily revenue, 44 percent growth in interactive content consumption, and a 13 to 27 second increase in time spent on the page.

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“Apester worked in tandem with us to promote our Comic-Con content, drive re-circulation, create interactive content to support our content, and then monetize it,” said Dan Criscenti, Vice President of NTVB Media. “They quickly understood our objectives and then they worked as an extension of our teams on both the editorial and business sides to make the most of our Comic-Con coverage.”

“Apester not only drove readers to our existing content in a fun way, but also came in ready with ideas that fit well into our editorial voice and strategy,” said Samantha Westfall, Digital Managing Editor at TV Insider. “They provided on-brand, engaging content that directly targeted the TV Insider audience.”

Apester offers brands and publisher dynamic story formats that give audiences a more appealing, and digestible narrative structure and content experience. The recently launched Apester Story powers narratives with text, videos, images, GIFs,  interactive buttons, emojis, quizzes, and polls. Apester is currently the only content engagement solution for marketers that grew out of publishing, facilitating storytelling for some of the best storytellers, including TIME, NBC Universal, Rolling Stone, Variety.

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