How Vivendi’s video platform Dailymotion’s hyper-personalisation spurred audience growth

 

Dailymotion 2 ()

 

Consumers can view trusted content in sports, news, entertainment and music on Dailymotion across the web, from the dailymotion.com website itself, to owned and operated publisher properties. The experience is further personalised within the Dailymotion player on dailymotion.com, or within various sections of the Explore section, and within consumers’ personal feed. The personalisation tailors content to consumers’ tastes and the channels they subscribe to.

“Our pivot to personalisation is focused around our shift to premium content from UGC. A personalised and tailored feed helps to build a relationship between the publisher and the consumer, and it’s a big thing that sets Dailymotion apart from competitors,” explained Claudia Page, SVP of partner products. “Our new app has been updated to streamline the user experience and enable the consumer to dive deeper into a subject. The app features a feed that surfaces topics a user is following, or trending topics at the moment that shouldn’t be missed. As a platform, we partner with leading publishers and content creators to surface content from the most trusted sources on the subjects that people care about most.”

Page was brought on in 2017 to oversee all of the publisher experience end to end. While Page would not share exactly how the hyper-personalisation works, as the company’s algorithm is proprietary, she said there are a number of different signals, internal and external, that they use to help deliver a personalised experience, but also experiences based on where consumers come in to dailymotion.com.

 

Claudia Page ()

Photo: LinkedIn/Claudia Page

 

“We ensure that each user is receiving personalised recommendations from video to video, whether you’re using the Dailymotion player, or if you’re on dailymotion.com‘s news section,” she said. “Our platform is personalised to your taste based on signals, including channels you subscribe to or have previously shown interest in. Each user’s feed looks different, based on their interactions with our mobile app and/or online platform. The more you use it, the more it understands who you are. Whereas, in our Explore section, users are able to discover new content through topics that may be trending, like the US mid-term elections or other interesting topics trending in news, sports or music, or entertainment.” 

Page said dailymotion.com uses external signals to help them find what is trending across the web and what individuals are talking about, and filtering it through their own internal algorithm to ensure that Dailymotion is only surfacing content from trusted publishers.

“We created an algorithm that picks up user signals and intent, which is then used to create personalised experiences for consumers. Once a user begins following a certain topic or content provider, it’s easier for the platform to understand their needs and interests, and tailor accordingly. Stemming from our relaunch last year, we shifted our focus to providing personalised experiences to users based on their expressed tastes and interests. Since then, we’ve also invested in other features that enable content discovery for our users, such as topic pages that curate relevant content from trusted sources, allowing them to dive deeper into certain subjects.”

Page explained that dailymotion cares about providing brand safe environments for publishers and consumers alike. Content is provided by credible and verified media companies including Conde Nast, Bloomberg, CNN, Hearst, BBC News, Refinery29 and Cheddar. “We lean towards our proprietary algorithms really being focused on those verified sources, so, we know we have a trustworthy relationship with the content that is being surfaced,” she said. 

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Thus, not only does dailymotion create a safe space for advertisers to live in, for publishers to distribute content, but also for consumers to have good experiences. This three-pronged approach to creating and delivering on trust and surfacing premium content tailored to consumer tastes and preferences, has resulted in significant audience growth.

“Creating that brand safe experience with the media partnerships that we have, has resulted in the last 18 months, in a 52 per cent premium audience growth, with loyalty increasing eight views per session,” Page said. “So, these are really things that stand out to us in terms of how we shifted to this premium model, actually driving more views on premium content and loyalty to users who discover the content on dailymotion.”

For publishers, deciding where and how to surface content to consumers, and the context in which that content is distributed, is important. “Some of the things I’ve heard from publisher partners that really resonates strongly with them, is that each brand tackles that distribution strategy differently,” Page explained. “They’re all focused on maintaining that journalistic integrity or brand integrity, throughout that distribution strategy to make sure that, as their content is being distributed, or re-shared or syndicated across the web, it is true to their specific brand or tone of voice.”

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