SocialTV Takeaways from NATPE 2012

January 27, 2012

This is the time of year that producers and distributors congregate to buy and sell television programming globally. So representing Networked Insights, I traveled to South Florida this week to take the pulse of social TV at the annual NATPE conference. While syndicated programming and celebrities were stealing the headlines, I wanted to see firsthand how content creators are using social media.

In fairness, social TV is a developing concept. A variety of constituents are playing a role in transforming the viewing experience, and the term means different things depending on your vantage point.

Categorizing the participants in the social TV landscape can help in understanding how events and trends impact the larger path and the pace of change. The legacy players are the creators and distributors of TV programming such as broadcast and cable networks, producers. Some might also put the cable operators that deliver all this content in that category.

Then there are the many new kids in town. These include “over the top” content providers such as Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV and Google TV, and social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. The technology contingent also includes second-screen applications, data analytics companies and gaming platforms like Xbox and PlayStation. Taken together, this progression of technologies provides the bridge between audiences and the brands that want to reach them.

My exploration at NATPE focused on how social media is being used to: 1) heighten storytelling, 2) increase viewer engagement, and 3) develop and grow an audience. Given that the conference is more about conducting commerce than showcasing content, I was happily surprised to see that many TV producers are baking social media and social TV into their programs.  Here are some highlights:

Heightened story-telling

Electus International’s Fashion Star is a competition show hosted by Elle Macpherson, who is joined by participant mentors Jessica Simpson, Nicole Richie and John Varvatos. Designers will compete to get their collections launched at Macy’s, H&M and Saks Fifth Avenue. Social media is planned, archived and integrated into the show. Producers have captured participants’ emotional impulses during tapings and banked them for release as the show airs.

Audience engagement

Equally exciting was the news from Telemundo that its social media team will be managing 16 Twitter accounts for characters and sending live tweets on broadcasts. The network is also leveraging social media properties to increase audience engagement and allow new viewers to discover the program.

Social discovery and audience development

Revision3 has proven that large number of viewers are discovering video content on the Web through mobile devices, tablets, set-top boxes and personal computers. VentureBeat recently reported that the Internet TV network is attracting viewers on par with traditional cable networks. The network reported having more than 4.5 million YouTube subscribers across all shows at the end of 2011. Proving that the momentum continues to build in 2012, Revision3’s coverage of the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) delivered more than 9 million views in one week.

How social is changing television

Networked Insights’ work with networks and brands has revealed just how powerful the voice of the consumer expressed through social data can be. Fully leveraging the feedback loop that social media provides requires real-time audience analytics. Our analysis has helped content producers understand more quickly how audiences are interacting with and interpreting content. This information has led to modifications in postproduction techniques and accelerated marketing optimization.

Brands face a more competitive and fragmented environment than ever. Marketers need to stay in-sync with the behaviors of their target consumers to capitalize on trends and uncover insights that can make the difference in consumer adoption.

As social TV continues to develop, the use of metrics and analytics will play an expanding role throughout its value chain. It’s an exciting time. And the action will only accelerate as brands increasingly turn to content creators and technology providers to tap the evolving, often entertaining, and at times surprising online social behaviors of their target audiences.

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