audience

TV Shows & Social Media

October 14, 2011 By Alex 3 Comments

The following is a guest post written by Lisa Skrezec, a Social Media Specialist and Account Manager at tcg. Her background in marketing has sparked her interest in the entertainment, fashion and social media world.

The only thing I love more than Facebook stalking and tweeting all sorts of outlandish hashtags, is television. When my two favorite things overlap, well, I couldn’t be any happier! Between the hours of 8pm-11pm you can find me sitting on the couch with my laptop tweeting away – but apparently I’m not alone.

Live-tweeting television shows is not only fun to partake in and track, but it has a proven positive impact on the ratings. The best way to reach your audience is to do what they’re doing, and they sure as hell are tweeting and Facebooking! Below are five examples of television shows that have adopted the live-tweeting trend and engage with their fans on a weekly basis:

#JerseyShore: Oh yes, our favorite fist pumping “juice heads” have without a doubt adopted social media. They dominate the trending topics every Thursday at 10pm EST and each cast member live tweets and asks questions to their fans. 9 our of 10 times @itsthesituation WILL retweet you!
#TheVoice: This past summer, NBC’s hit new show “The Voice” not only had its 3 judges live tweeting each show, but they even had a social media room! Fans would tweet questions for the contestants using #TheVoice and they would all be answered in the exclusive, state-of-the-art social media room. How cool is that? Needless to say, #TheVoice was always the number one trending topic.
#Bachelorette: @ChrisBHarrison hosts the long running show “The Bachelor”/”The Bachelorette”, and as the seasons progress, Chris gets more and more involved with connecting his show’s fan base through social media. Throughout the entire 2 hour show, Chris is actively tweeting and answering questions, many of which reveal “behind-the-scenes” fun facts. (For example, did you ever want to know if the contestants pick out their own clothes? Well someone asked, and Chris said nope!)
#Survivor: @JeffProbst, the host of Survivor, is a social media guru! He too live-tweets each show, but he has recently joined Tout. Tout is a video status update — essentially Twitter meets YouTube. Fans tweet him questions during the show, and he answers them in a Tout. Not only do I look forward each week to his video responses, but I’m excited to see how Tout is perceived by social media users…
#SonsofAnarchy: Last, but most certainly not least, is @SutterInk. Kurt Sutter, the creator, writer and producer of Sons of Anarchy has explored ALL aspects of Social media, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogspot. Kurt is quite possibly the most honest and uncensored person on Twitter. He constantly stays connected with his fans, which certainly helped him achieve a 20% bump in viewers from season 3 to the season 4 premier.

Below is a graph that demonstrates the relationship between online buzz and TV ratings. Clearly social media has it’s biggest impact prior to a show’s premiere, which is expected, but it also does hold a great deal of value throughout the season (source):

Social media gives fans and followers the opportunity to connect to these shows/contestants/creators on a more personal level. I look forward each week to tweeting all those mentioned above, and nothing makes me happier than getting a response! I am very glad to see television shows taking part of new age media – keep it up!

Do you follow television shows in the social media universe – have you gotten an EPIC retweet? I’d love to hear all about it!

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Social Media Tagged With: audience, fun, impact, partake, positive, proven, ratings, real time web, Social Media, televisions, the bachelor, tv shows, tweet, Twitter, web 2.0, world wide web

A Clear Path To Context

August 11, 2010 By ajmunn 10 Comments

Context gets a boost this year with the proliferation of location aware devices. The idea of using crowd-sourced information with the added layer of location aware intelligence makes me very excited. It is not only smart, it also provides the ideal tools for context and relevance. Yet, many remain stuck in the mindset of ‘Get loads of people to sign up and figure out how to make money once we have critical mass.’”

The visible layers of social media can be so shiny that they end up distracting us from their deeper application. We all recognize that ‘overt’ social media is a critical element. If there were no people out there sharing information, participating and making it available to everyone, we would have no crowd to source from.

The deeper layers don’t always get as much attention. The collection of data and its sorting into useful information registers on people’s minds, but it is often overlooked. It’s a case of ‘out of site, out of mind.’

Listening and monitoring are a bit deeper, sure, like the sedimentary versus surface. There are many organizations great at customer service, sourcing and developing leads, discovering new markets and even developing new products by monitoring keywords and engaging. There is a good level of online conversation around this topic.

We all talk about what’s next for social media. What is going to be the next Twitter or the next Facebook? Is FourSquare going to last? These questions all have some bearing on the future of social media but, for me, these are the wrong questions. The quest for the social media business model involves a combination of the visible, the sedimentary, and a third, deeper level that is seldom seen, but rather experienced.

A lesson I learned many years ago is that the quickest route to a sale, or an achieved objective, is to remove as many obstacles from your customer/audience as possible. Thinking for your customer is key. Putting the information they need in front of them as quickly as possible will increase your chances of achieving the sale. The lesson that followed shortly after was not to expect your customers to thank you or to notice how clever you’ve been (your sales figures are your thanks). Do expect them to notice when you mess up and do expect them to lose interest if you put obstacles in their way.

Using technology to understand exactly who you audience is, where they are, when they are interested in hearing from you, what steps you can cut out and what information to put infront of them isn’t some sort of ideal, it is what smart organizations are doing. Location based technology, attached to a profile, or connected to an objective or call to action is much bigger than a game, it is a marketers gift.

This is what social media can do for you. This is where you are going to see your ROI. People’s expectations have evolved and we have the technology and tools to meet them. “This is who I am. This is where I am. Serve me up relevant information.” Get that right and you are that much closer to reaching your objectives.

It may not be shiny. It may not be sexy or achieve as many column inches, tweets or inclusions in the ‘Top Ten viral campaign” blog posts, but it will cut through all the noise, and put you in front of the right people, at the right time, and in the right place.

What’s your next big thing? What do you think is going to be a game changer?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: audience, context, facebook, FourSquare, geotagging, Location, Sales, Social Media, Twitter

Where is the beginning?

May 14, 2009 By ajmunn 2 Comments

I love being exposed to new ideas, new approaches and new ways of looking at things. It was brought to my attention this week that what I regarded as the beginning is not necessarily a universal construct.

Although I come across as being driven by process and form, my natural instincts are towards the beautiful and at times chaotic creative. I love brainstorming and free form thinking. I get pleasure from trusting my instincts, especially in situations where I have the experience and confidence that flows from that.

Seeking out creative solutions and thinking on my feet are my natural states.

I have had to discipline myself through applying process and form. I have had to develop processes and methodologies in order to provide a framework for the creative. This is especially true in situations where I am not a subject expert or I do not have first hand experience.

In order to allow the creative to flow I need to feel confident, informed and have the self belief that I will find the right answer. In order to do that I need context.

For me the beginning is gaining an understanding of the audiences. I mean really understanding them, not from a quantitative survey, or closed product focus group, but in terms of who they are, what their learning styles are, their aspirations, influencers, values and desires. I need to talk to them, to explore and seek clarity. I need to understand the industry. Not only from the perspective of the organisation I am working with, but in relation to their competitors, industry experts and real time conversations. I also need to learn about the organisation. Just as the customer knows best what the customer wants, so too the people of an organisation are best placed to pass on its personality, culture, objectives and unique business rules.

Armed with the right information from the best sources, the creativity can begin and the often surprising findings lead the strategic direction for the rest of the project.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Africa Strategist, audience, Creative, discovery, form, process, profiling, Social Media

Social Media

July 2, 2008 By ajmunn 2 Comments

Social Media has everybody talking, but are they all talking about the same thing? Social Media is such a vast subject, with many different nuances, disciplines, approaches and reference points.

What do we use social media for? I asked a sample of people, male and female between the ages of 16 and 40. Here are some of the answers.

To share pictures, videos, links and posts with friends.
To connect to friends and family.
To find out stuff.
To keep in touch.
For entertainment. Etc.

Perhaps the most interesting answer came from a 16-year-old female. (I will call her Emma)

“I don’t use social media for anything specific. It is not like I set out to use social media, it just exists. It is a part of my life. This is a dumb question. You don’t ask people what they use a telephone for. I could list a thousand instances where I would use a telephone, but really everyone knows that a telephone allows you to talk to people over distances. Well social networking allows you to do this better. It is a fuller experience.”

Emma’s answer makes sense to me. Social media allows us to communicate with people in ways we never thought imaginable. It provides us with easy to use, intuitive tools that cross over multiple learning styles, allowing us to be a part of that communication. We don’t think about how this happens, we just accept it. Providers of these tools think for us. We want to run with these tools from the offset. We accept that it can exist in real time, that we can mix sound with visuals, with text and participate in multiple dialogues. We do not only accept it, we now expect it.

Right? Well, these are our expectation. These expectations are what a handful of social media sites have engrained in us. But this is not always the case. So many social media providers don’t think for their users, they don’t even talk to them. They get fixated in the technology. This is pretty dismal for a discipline that is all about people and communicating. The how is important I agree. There is a need to have world-class technology in order to supply a world-class service, but that technology needs to be applied correctly, with understanding and after dialogue.

When we think social media, we need to think people and connections. If we understand our audience, I mean really understand the audience and then marry that understanding with our objectives, the right technology, applications and tools will follow.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: audience, business-objectives, Communication, community, experience, people, profile, share, Social Media, social-media-tools, social-networking, technology

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