Marketing Firm’s Talk Program Channels Brands

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These days, digital networks such as Maker Studios, Fullscreen Inc. and AwesomenessTV aren’t the only tech companies producing online videos. Messaging app maker Snapchat and e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. have also jumped into content production, trying to give consumers even more ways to engage with brands.

A brand-new entrant in the space is Santa Monica’s FameBit Inc., an online marketing platform where brands such as L’Oreal and Adidas and subscription retailer Dollar Shave Club solicit popular creators on YouTube, Vine, Instagram and Snapchat to make videos promoting their products.

Last week, FameBit launched its first digital program, “FilterFreeTV,” an uncensored talk show featuring a panel of five social media influencers with a combined 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube alone.

While some influencer-marketing firms focus only on working with the most famous creators and biggest brands, FameBit is focused on the long-tail approach, letting small and midsize brands in on the action and finding creators with smaller, yet devoted followings in specific verticals. The company currently works with about 13,000 creators and more than 3,000 brands.

FameBit co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Agnes Kozera said the company’s push into original content is designed to help creators further monetize their audience and grow subscribers.

“We hope the show will draw people to their YouTube channels,” said Kozera, who noted that the company is planning to produce more shows.

Episodes of the series will only be available on the “FilterFreeTV” app and carry a cost of $2 each or $20 for a full season of 15 shows. The creators will split the download revenue with FameBit, though Kozera declined to disclose terms.

Behind-the-scenes footage of the series, in which hosts discuss a wide range of topics from dating to drugs to sexual identity, will be available for free on YouTube and within the app.

The challenge, of course, is getting millennial consumers to pay for content when so much of it is available for free on YouTube and other platforms. To get the word out about “FilterFreeTV,” the company will recruit the thousands of creators on its roster to talk it up on their YouTube channels.

“I think the community is really ready for it,” said Kozera of the paid content model.

Late to Accelerate

Andy Wilson isn’t your typical accelerator participant.

Most tech accelerators, such as Venice’s Amplify.LA or MuckerLab in Santa Monica, are geared toward helping first-time founders get their startups off the ground.

So what made Wilson, co-founder and chief executive of five-year-old relationship-management software maker Rexter – who is also founder and managing partner of his own accelerator, Pasadena’s Momentum Venture Management – leave home for four months to take part in one?

Well, the company hosting the accelerator had something to do with it.

Wilson returned home July 10 from a four-month stint at the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in Seattle, an experience he viewed as a way to build bridges with one of the biggest enterprise software companies in the world.

“I came up there with a singular vision of how we could commercialize our product,” said Wilson of Rexter’s new software called Rexter360, an enterprise program that allows sales-driven organizations to track in real time which of their business conversations lead to actual sales. This lets companies understand which channels and contacts are the most productive.

“It was a four-month business development opportunity with a platform company,” said Wilson, who’s also co-chairman and co-founder of tech networking and advocacy group Innovate Pasadena.

Before joining the accelerator, Wilson said he had received feedback from initial customers that they wanted the ability to integrate Rexter’s service into sales software, such as those sold by Salesforce.com and Microsoft Corp.

Rexter became one of 14 companies in the accelerator’s second class, which was focused on companies working to improve digital productivity in the workplace.

After receiving advice from Microsoft engineers, Wilson and his team have just launched a version of the product that can be seamlessly integrated with the tech giant’s sales software.

“We are particularly excited about our new collaboration with Rexter whose solution addresses a critical need of our customers in the area of more effectively capturing and quantifying real-time field activities and customer engagement levels,” said Kees Hertogh, Microsoft’s senior director of technical marketing, in a statement.

Rexter also plans to launch a version of its new software on the Salesforce app exchange.

Rebooting

Former Nickelodeon executive Paula Kaplan has joined AwesomenessTV as head of talent and live content. Kaplan will lead talent initiatives and casting strategies at the Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. subsidiary across all film and series production.

Staff reporter Omar Shamout can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 263.

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