MUMBAI: Twitter also made its presence felt in the 14 edition of Ficci Frames 2013, the annual conclave for the media and entertainment industry.  Twitter Inc head of global operations Shailesh Rao graced the panel ‘Engaging a billion consumers in the media and entertainment industry’- this year’s theme of Ficci Frames.

Twitter has witnessed 8.9 times growth in six years in India. Rao said, "In Asia, India is the finest market in digital. As media we should explore all the bold opportunities and for that technology should be used. Technology should be a part of business and service. A true platform is the one that connects with its audience and develops creative content.”

Highlighting the importance of digital media in dissemination of content to end users he said, "Digital users - be it mobile or internet - has seen increase by 9x in the past three years. Twitter is the pulse to understand the audience and has become a powerful marketing tool today. We have become a creative platform for many.  YouTube is a big opportunity for media and entertainment companies - it's a different platforms altogether which hasn't been used effectively, barring a few production houses that have done a fairly good job of engaging audiences via YouTube.”

He further added, "Television and print  have been a push medium in India for a while and there is a growing need to listen to what they have to say. The feedback on social networking sites have helped the broadcasters in changing their content.”

Speaking about the concept of  films broad casted digitally, he stated that if the broadcasters test the ability of the non-theatrical launch with small budget films to understand the trend among the audience it will be much better.

He was a part of the panel that included Bennett & Coleman  publishing CEO Ravi Dhariwal, Viacom 18 Media group CEO Sudhanshu Vats, Disney UTV Studios MD Siddarth Roy Kapur and Discovery Networks Asia Pacific senior VP & GM India Rahul Johri.  The panel, moderated by Star India CEO Uday Shankar collectively agreed that the principal means of engaging with a billion consumers is to localize content through multiple media vehicles.

Regulatory changes, exploding forms of new technology and original and creative content were the three fundamental drivers of exponential growth.

Rao said that understanding the mood of the audience and how they want to consume media is the salient aspect of Twitter’s business model. Supporting their need for diverse content is the drive to sample newer and newer smart phones.