Comcast floods the Twittersphere with X1 tweets

Wooing cable-reluctant millenials, Comcast Corp. has blasted short videos by Vine star Logan Paul and others into the Twittersphere.

The campaign taps into the tens of millions of followers of personalities like Paul and Zach King, who claim a combined 20 million followers on Instagram or Vine.

Paul's slapstick video for Comcast's X1 set-top box has been viewed nearly 6 million times and garnered 88,100 likes.

Comcast asked the 19 "social media influencers" to develop video spots, or mini product demos, on what they liked about the cable giant's X1 set-top box. The personalities posted videos on their platforms. Comcast also paid for Twitter to push them out as tweets.

"Each of these people have their own audience and their own brand persona," John Young, Comcast's vice president of customer market communications, said recently. He called the videos "snackable."

Niche, a Twitter-owned talent agency, aided Comcast in finding the young video creators. Paul's VIne page indicates that his videos have been looped 3.9 billion times.

Comcast has not said how much it has spent on the promotional campaign that offers more evidence of the evolving sophistication and power of social media advertising. The month-long Comcast campaign began on Jan. 19 and ends Thursday.