Ever heard of the term ‘multi-screen’ experience? I’m sure most of you have. This most exciting trend for 2012 says that 6 in 10 Australians now use the Internet while watching television (Nielsen Online Consumer Research). This second screen is commonly known as the Smartphone, Laptop or more recently, the Tablet. To dive deeper into this phenomenon, Yahoo7! states that; “41% of Australian consumers are now posting their views on Facebook whilst watching TV…and an additional 36% are using a mobile phone to text or call friends and family while watching TV.”
This scenario is all too common in my household. And yes, while this may be solely attributed to myself; more often than not you will see a few iPhones, a couple of MacBooks and even an iPad being used in conjunction with the TV set. Whilst this is not an advertisement for Apple, I just want to get the point across that although you may not realise it; it is so incredibly easy to fall into this trap of the ‘multi-screen’ experience without even knowing it.
Although we are far behind the United States in the ‘Social TV’ stakes, the US has allowed us to see into the future of the potentials and impact of ‘Social TV’. Bluefin Labs are a ‘Social TV’ analytics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which use publicly available social media commentary from Twitter, Facebook and blogs to measure viewer engagement with television shows and ads at scale. They state that ‘the number of unique individuals commenting on a show (via predominately Twitter and Facebook) grew by an average of 362 percent from 2011 to 2012’.
What has really driven this trend of ‘Social TV’ is the creation of ‘Social TV’ apps for Smartphone and Tablet users. Although in Australia, we are only yet to see FANGO (Yahoo7!) – which was launched during this year's Australian Open and is at almost half a million downloads – there have been many different ‘Social TV’ apps launched on a global scale. Miso, Get Glue, Viggle, IntoNow and Peel are some you may have heard of. These apps allow users to ‘check-in’ to their favourite shows, answer trivia questions, contribute to polls, share with their friends and be rewarded for their efforts.
Another major catalyst for the rise of ‘Social TV’ is Twitter. What started out as hashtag know as #QandA for the ABC’s Q and A has seen many other commercial programs and events create their own hashtags for viewers to contribute to the program. Currently, this can be seen on or around: #CelebApprentice, #TheBlock, #60mins, #MasterchefAU, #DWTS, #AmazingRaceAU, #AGT and the ‘Social TV’ master; #TheVoiceAU – which has accumulated over 460,000 tweets from its 1st episode only 8 weeks ago. Even SBS’s #Eurovision last month had Twitter Integration between each performance.
Moving away from the reality and entertainment programs; sport has also embraced ‘Social TV’. It is a known fact that in America 83% of sport fans will check sport social media sites whilst watching the game on TV (Mashable). A recent example was the NBA Thunders vs. Lakers game on the ABC (US) where 1.29 million social media comments were made; with over 500k social media commentators. The Lakers ended up winning the game in double overtime. In Australia, an app known as ‘PlayUp – where sport gets social’ – has recently launched whereby fans can communicate in real-time via ‘hang-outs’ to discuss the game that they are watching as well as uploading their thoughts to Facebook and Twitter.
In an increasingly fragmented media world, ‘Social TV’ is allowing brands to increase engagement and recall from their target audience. Leslie Nassar, digital expert and founder of TweeVee TV, a Twitter monitoring service for broadcasters and studios, states that: “Social TV is bringing people back to live television and getting viewers away from time-shifted programs which is particularly important for commercial TV.” In addition to this, ‘Social TV’ apps allow brands to increase their frequency and reach through the ‘second screen’ and continue a branded conversation long-after the TVC appears. Joel Lunefeld (Twitter VP of Global Brand Strategy) said recently at the NBCU's Social TV Symposium, “An ad lasts for 30 seconds. Create a conversation and it continues forever.”
Finally, through providing analytics such as measurement, return and audience insight; it’s predicted that ‘Social TV’ will deliver far more intelligence for advertisers, bolstering demand for new ways of TV advertising in the future.
Joel Smith
Media Assistant
Mindshare
THE ADNEWS NGEN BLOG: The Rise Of Social TV
12 June 2012