@AuthorBee Extends Twitter into Long-form Social Storytelling

NEW YORK, Nov. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- AuthorBee is changing the way people connect and engage digitally by tapping into our innate need to tell and share stories.  Today, with its launch of @AuthorBee, the company has expanded Twitter with full integration of its proprietary collaboration platform.  Using @AuthorBee – from any standard Twitter client or from @AuthorBee's dedicated web interface – Twitter users can now break the 140-character barrier to create, co-create and curate rich, long-form stories with their followers.   

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"We wanted to create a better way for people to express themselves, taking advantage of the low barrier to participation that Twitter provides, but also offering a beautiful interactive canvas and working showcase for the assets created," said Stephen Bradley, founder and CEO of AuthorBee.  "@AuthorBee channels that are owned, branded and managed by our users serve as the perfect showcase to feature and drive traffic to their stories and collaborations."

A Creative Canvas for Creative People – and Their Followers
"Today, Twitter is central to any successful emerging artist's brand strategy," said Charlie Singer, SVP, Production, MTV360.  "It's hard work to build an active following, so you have to make the most of it.  @AuthorBee offers an innovative way to fully engage followers by getting them engaged with each other around the brand."  Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning horror writer of Instigation, 100 Jolts and The Gorelets Omnibus has been using @AuthorBee to engage his followers with original "micro horror" story and poem prompts.  "I see AuthorBee as a great literary experiment," said Arnzen.  "The platform is designed to enable collaborative writing and creativity, and it's a smart way to integrate Twitter, especially since a lot of ideas come from story prompts that I've shared with my followers.  It will be cool to see how people use it to create multiple storylines and see their collaborations in a different way."

"A story can really be anything," said Bradley.  "It can be breaking news, fan fiction or poetry.  It can also be a travel log, a Haiku, a hip-hop song or a chocolate chip cookie recipe.  What matters is the common interest or passion shared by the contributors." 

True Brand Engagement
Brands aim to build and engage a strong following, but how valuable is a follower unless he or she is engaging back?  @AuthorBee is a powerful, flexible and fun platform for brands to deeply engage with their followers – and engage their followers with each other – one that can be seamlessly integrated into any Twitter-based social media strategy.  The platform can also be white-labeled as a custom-branded solution. 

Benefits for brands using @AuthorBee include:

• Frequent and deep follower engagement – with the brand and with each other
• Simple integration into any existing Twitter-based social media strategy (followers can participate simply by tweeting)
• Brand loyalty through ongoing story assets – created by followers but controlled by the brand
• Strong trackable conversions of Twitter followers into repeat web visitors
• Repeat web visitation with extreme "stickiness"
• Active brand promotion by participants reaching new potential customers
• Worry-free user content through available custom filtering

A Public Newsroom
Publishers understand the power of stories to engage an audience, but grapple with the high costs of creating content.  These costs can be mitigated substantially by adopting strategies that allow the audience to participate in some elements of the creation.

"By bringing people together around a common interest and giving them a powerful, simple platform for collaboration, storytelling becomes an accessible, fun and highly engaging medium," said Bradley.  "AuthorBee's platform coordinates this collaboration, manages the attribution and allows each participant his or her own unique experience."

Starting today, anyone can sign up for @AuthorBee by visiting http://tweet.authorbee.com.  For brands, the AuthorBee platform is available for customization and white-label licensing by contacting [email protected].

About AuthorBee
At AuthorBee, we believe you don't have to be a Hollywood big shot to tell a great story.  But you do need a community that will both appreciate and help you tell your story.  AuthorBee is changing the way people engage and connect through storytelling.  We provide a proprietary platform for fan engagement and content creation that is being applied to a variety of customer applications, including brand engagement, publishing, education and content sourcing.  AuthorBee is led by a talented group of disruptive media serial entrepreneurs inspired by the democratization of creativity.  To learn more about AuthorBee and how to become involved, please visit www.authorbee.com.

Media Contact:
North 6^th Agency for AuthorBee
212.334.9770; [email protected]

SOURCE AuthorBee