Archive for the ‘social tv’ tag
Twitter’s first comedy festival: by the numbers
Twitter and comedy are no strangers, but last week saw something unprecedented in 140 characters or less: a comedy festival held entirely on Twitter. Comedy Central’s #ComedyFest pulled in some of the biggest names that already joke on Twitter daily, in addition to those established comedians completely new to the platform, such as Mel Brooks.
#ComedyFest gave us his first- and only- tweet.
The festival officially ran April 29-May 3, and featured a variety of events, ranging from moderated discussions on comedy, to individual comedians live-tweeting Ambien trips and television shows, and even included Twitter roasts. Reach for the week peaked on the first day, April 29:
4.7k tweets from 3.3k contributors reached 28.7 million unique Twitter accounts on that day, a nice chunk of the overall 17.6k tweets from 10.3k contributors over the entire week (a little under ¼ of total tweets and ⅓ of the total contributor amounts, respectively).
Mel Brooks’s first and only tweet was the second-most retweeted on April 29, second only to one from Workaholics actor Adam DeVine.
But one of the more interesting- and certainly the newest- uses of the platform during the festival was found at the bottom of the retweet list:
Cartoonist and writer Marlo Meekins used the new six-second video app Vine to create some intriguing and funny video segments during #ComedyFest, including this one of a cartoon cat running rampant across her legs and another of her throwing away the loading icon from the video. Clever and the result of careful work (one mishap while recording a Vine and you have to start over from the beginning) these show a fantastic potential future for comedic media.
While perhaps not an earth-shattering success, Twitter’s first comedy festival did see solid participation and was fantastic exposure for some up-and-coming comedians to be billed alongside the more established. While famous names might attract more followers, a space like Twitter evens the playing field when it comes to activities like live-tweeting a show via hashtag; every joke made with the hashtag ends up in the same place for interested people to scroll through, giving newbies a chance to get noticed and followed by fans and other comedians alike.
Overall, with the rise of multitasking on a second screen while watching TV in America, it makes sense to take entertainment where the people are already talking about it.
This Week in Social Analytics #48
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Positive Brand Tweets are Four Times More Effective Than Non-Tweet Ads [from Fast Company; written by Kit Eaton]
“For example, research by Deloitte suggests that a positive-message tweet can be four times more effective at getting a consumer to engage with a brand (hence, driving sales) than a non-Twitter advertisement.”
More details in this video.
Social media attracts/drives purchases for moms [from Marketing Charts]
“Mothers who are very active on social networks (defined as the top 20% of social networking mothers aged 18-49) are indeed active online purchasers. Compared to the general online adult population, they’re 96% more likely to have made an online food and beverage purchase, 73% more likely to have spent on movies and videos, 61% more likely to have bought apparel, and 82% more likely to have made an online purchase in the toys and games category.”
Is online privacy over? Findings from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future show Millennials embrace a new online reality [from USC Annenberg News]
“The survey, conducted by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future and Bovitz Inc., reveals a “Millennial Rift” — distinct differences in online behavior and core values among Millennials (ages 18-34) compared to other users, many of whom are only a few years older. Millennials, the survey found, report more willingness to allow access to their personal data or web behavior and a greater interest in cooperating with Internet businesses — as long as they receive tangible benefits in return (view infographic breakdown).”
Twitter Speaks, Markets Listen, and Fears Rise [from The New York Times; written by Amy Chozick and Nicole Perlroth]
“Could the global economy hinge on 140 characters?”
Twitter Strikes Major Advertising Deal For Social TV [from Viral Blog; written by Igor Beuker]
“In the Financial Times president of global revenue Adam Bain stated: “’We think that the industry had been focused in the wrong area, which was making a decision between Twitter and TV. That’s not what we believe. Twitter is a bridge.’”
Social TV: Facebook Vs. Twitter Vs. Tumblr [from AllFacebook; written by Will M]
“Most speakers agreed that Facebook’s social TV data is richer than what can be found on Twitter. Tumblr Entertainment Evangelist David Hayes explained social platforms for TV this way.
- Twitter is where people say they are watching a show.
- Facebook is where people say why they are watching a show.
- Tumblr is where people express themselves by creating great content about a show.”
6 Tips to Start Creating Content on Tumblr [from Business2Community; written by Adrienne Erin]
“Once you adapt to this new format, Tumblr can be a powerful content creation (and content curation) tool that increases engagement, website traffic, and inbound leads. Here are six tips that will help you get started with content marketing on Tumblr.”
Tumblr CEO says average cost of ad campaign tops six figures [from CNET; written by Shara Tibken]
“‘What we’re doing is giving advertisers space on a canvas to make the kinds of ads that win awards,’ Karp said. ‘That kind of advertising doesn’t have a place on the Web today…You can’t make an ad that anybody even remembers on Twitter or Facebook today.’”
9 tips for watching TV on Twitter
Live-blogging has spawned a new generation of itself, and the cool kids these days are live-Tweeting and Tumbling while they watch their favorite shows. Sound like something you’d like to get in on? We’ve got some suggestions to help get you started using Twitter while you watch TV.
After all, 4 in 5 Americans multitask while they’re watching TV now, did you know?
From Marketing Charts
If you want to be one of them, here are some tips for getting social while watching your favorite shows:
- Check for an official show or episode hashtag. Using this, you can join in the voices of the multitude – or minority – watching. It’s easy to connect with like-minded people this way. You can find these hashtags by searching for an official show handle by typing the show name into Twitter search, and then go to that account to see what hashtag(s) they use. If there’s no official account, or they’re not using hashtags, click through other search results to see what other people are using.
- If a hashtag doesn’t already exist, make up your own. People who follow you who watch the show might join in, and it can spread from there. Or someone who follows you who doesn’t even watch the show might start, because they know someone else who watches it.
- You might want to announce ahead of time if you’re going to be live-tweeting a show, and that you’ll be using a hashtag, just in case anyone wants to mute it if they’re not interested.
- Do not tweet spoilers. Ever. Remember that not everyone is watching live, and you don’t want to be the one who ruins the ending for everyone else.
- Interact with other people talking about the show, replying to and retweeting them when appropriate.
- Mention official accounts for the show, the actors or the characters. You never know when you might get a retweet, and those accounts often have a large following. You can find them by searching Twitter for the show name and choosing the official account that pops up with a verified checkmark, or by going to the show’s website – they all have their social profiles prominently displayed.
- Follow people you have an interesting interaction with – that’s what being social is all about, after all. You may find some new friends.
- For big events where you might have people over to be social IRL too – like a Super Bowl party or Oscar party – post pictures of your setup, and include guest’s handles in your tweets.
- Share your content from other networks like Tumblr and Instagram. But be careful of auto-sharing everything you post elsewhere; those who follow you in multiple places might get bothered by the redundancy and decide to unfollow you. It’s great to cross-post some, but be selective.
Do you tweet while you watch TV? Got any tips we missed? Tell us how you do it in the comments below.
This Week in Social Analytics #42
It’s Friday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Social Analytics and our favorite posts of the past week in the world of measurement, analytics, and social media. See a great piece we missed? Link to it in the comments!
Tumblr Is Worth a Look at For Your Business [from Business2Community; written by Matthew Simonton]
“If your business targets anyone in his or her teens or 20s, you should have a presence on Tumblr. Even if those youngest in these demographics are not your target audience, where do you think they will be in a couple of years? There are reasons why brands beyond College Humor have Tumblr accounts. Huggies has one. Sesame Street has one. Do you see the trend?”
This graph represents the % of respondents who said that they used X platform for at least several hours in a week.
Social Media And The Workplace [INFOGRAPHIC from AllTwitter; post written by Shea Bennett]
“More than half (52.1 percent) of firms now let all of their employees access social media sites at work, with only a little more than one quarter (26.4 percent) actively blocking access to these channels. And while almost two-thirds (64.2 percent) don’t monitor the use of Twitter and Facebook in the office, 68.9 percent do have a social media policy in place.”
State Of The News Media: Everything In Decline But Digital [from Marketing Land; written by Greg Sterling]
“In particular social media figure more prominently as a news ‘channel’ than even a couple of years ago. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center study, 19 percent of Americans received news or headlines on a social network ‘yesterday.’ The number was almost double (34 percent) for people in the 18 – 24 age category.”
Link to the full Pew study here.
Integrate Big Data Into Your Marketing Strategy [from Social Media Today; written by Yoav Dembak]
“I wanted to share a few easy ways anyone can start integrating analytics into marketing campaigns.”
A great short piece for those shaky on their feet, starting out in social media marketing.
New Study Confirms Correlation Between Twitter and TV Ratings [from Nielsen]
“Specifically, the study found that for 18-34 year olds, an 8.5% increase in Twitter volume corresponds to a 1% increase in TV ratings for premiere episodes, and a 4.2% increase in Twitter volume corresponds with a 1% increase in ratings for midseason episodes. Additionally, a 14.0% increase in Twitter volume is associated with a 1% increase in TV program ratings for 35-49 year olds, reflecting a stronger relationship between Twitter and TV for younger audiences.”
SXSW preview: How Twitter is changing how we watch TV
One of our very own will be presenting at SXSW Interactive this year. Jenn Deering Davis, Union Metrics Co-Founder and Chief Community Officer, will be speaking about how Twitter has changed how we watch TV on Saturday, March 9 during the festival. We wanted to get a preview of her presentation, so we thought we’d ask her a few questions about social TV and share her responses with you.
- How do you think social media has changed how viewers communicate about television shows?
Social media provides a great place for us to talk about our favorite TV shows and characters. It allows fans distributed across the country – even the globe – to share the experience of watching a show together. TV is such an important part of our culture, particularly in the United States; many of us watch some TV every single day, and we’re deeply connected to the shows we watch and the people in them. We want to talk about TV, and social media channels like Twitter are the perfect place for those conversations.
- What are some of the creative strategies that networks and advertisers are employing to tap into social TV?
There’s certainly a lot of hashtag use right now. You can’t watch a TV show – or a commercial – without seeing hashtags all over the place. Some of the more interesting fan engagement initiatives include creating character Twitter accounts that tweet during and between episodes, sharing content exhaust like behind-the scenes photos and outtakes, and running social games and contests to unlock premium content.
- What shows are doing social TV really well?
So many shows and show runners are doing interesting things on social media. Pretty Little Liars is one of the canonical examples – PLL and the team at ABC Family have created a huge and highly engaged following on Twitter and Facebook. As for others, I love how characters from Archer tweet as themselves (and to each other!), how Hollywood award shows like the Golden Globes post pictures from the red carpet and backstage, and how Netflix capitalized on the huge social interest around its new show House of Cards. There are so many great examples. For more, you’ll just have to come to the panel.
- How important is a standard measurement system for social TV and do you think Twitter’s work with Nielsen will push it forward?
Networks have been using Twitter as a way to understand the real-time pulse of their shows for several years, and I think it’s smart of Nielsen and Twitter to work together to formalize some of that. We can learn a lot about what fans think about a show by measuring their tweets. For example, tracking minute-by-minute volume helps us understand viewer interest spikes, telling us exactly what onscreen moments are exciting to the audience. I think this area will mature a great deal over the next few years.
- Twitter is at the center of the social TV discussion, but what other platforms do you think are poised to become a larger part of this movement?
Twitter was the first social channel to be really successful in the TV space for a variety of reasons (which I’ll discuss in more detail at SXSW), but we’re starting to see a lot more fan participation in other channels, as well. Tumblr is a big one, because millions of fans go to Tumblr to share and remix all kinds of amazing visual content about their favorite shows, and that content spreads like crazy on Tumblr. Social TV conversations happen in all the social media spaces we spend time in, but we’ve just heard the most about Twitter so far. I think that’s changing.
- How does online streaming content tap into social TV? Will advertisers cater to this demographic, or keep pushing for live viewing?
Great question. We’re starting to understand more about how social impacts (and is impacted by) both live and streamed viewing. I’ll get into this more during the talk, but we’re actually seeing a comeback in live TV right now! It’s fascinating stuff, but I’ll leave that as a teaser for now.
If you want to hear more, then be sure to check out Jenn’s talk at SXSW in Austin next week. And be sure to go say hi afterwards – she’d love to talk to you. She might even have party invites to share if you ask nicely.
10 SXSWi 2013 panels you won’t want to miss
We already mentioned that we’ll be at SXSWi- now just a mere two weeks away!- and we’d love to see you, so drop us a line in the comments if you’ll be there and let us know if you’re hosting an event or participating in a panel. Speaking of panels, we’ve got some suggestions for panels and other events you’ll want to be sure and work into your schedule:
Photo Credit: The Library of Virginia
1. Building Tools for Creativity | Presenter: David Karp (Founder | Tumblr)
2. Get Ready to Rumble! How WWE Is Crushing Social TV | Presenters: John Cena (WWE Superstar | WWE), Khris Loux (Co-Founder & CEO | Echo), Perkins Miller (EVP, Digital Media | WWE) & Stephanie McMahon (EVP, Creative Dev & Operations | WWE)
3. Data, Storytelling & Breaking Through the Noise | Presenters: Ashley Brown (Dir, Digital Comm/Social Media | The Coca-Cola Company), Dustee Jenkins (VP of PR | Target), Gary Goldhammer (Sr Digital Strategist | H+K Strategies) & Jon Steinberg (Pres/COO |BuzzFeed)
4. Brands, Bloggers & the Social Commerce Future | Lisa Stone (CEO & Co-founder | BlogHer LLC)
5. Mosh Pit of Experts: The Future of Social (Core Conversation) | Presenters: Sam Decker (CEO & Co-Founder | Mass Relevance Inc) & Sean McDonald (Managing Dir | Pricewaterhouse Coopers)
6. The Rise of the Planet of the Creatives | Presenters: Claire Mazur (Co-founder | Of a Kind), Danielle Strle (Dir of Prod | Tumblr), Jamie Beck (Photographer, co-creator of the Cinemagraph | cinemagraphs.com) & Jen Bekman (Founder, CEO 20×200/Jen Bekman Projects Inc)
7. Social Circles vs. Social Media | Presenters: Austin Carr (Staff Writer | Fast Company), Brian Schechter (Co-Founder & Co-CEO | How About We), Dylan Casey (Head of Prod Mgmt | Path) & Jared Hecht (Co-Founder | GroupMe)
8. Fresh Prince + Downton Abbey: A Perfect Engagement | Cheryl Engelhardt (Composer / Songwriter | CBE Music) & Michael Schaubach (Dir of Post Production | CollegeHumor.com)
9. From 140 to 0: The Rise in Image-Based Marketing | Presenter: Nate Auerbach (Music Strategy & Outreach | Tumblr)
10. And be sure to check out our presentation on Saturday! How Twitter Has Changed How We Watch TV | Presenter: Jenn Deering Davis (Co-Founder |Union Metrics)