By adaptive - April 29th, 2014

Leveraging the second screen is gaining pace, but new research indicates your business needs to carefully choose which social media platform to align with TV

In August 2012, Deloitte published research that looked closely at what had come to be known as ‘second screening’. The research concluded that nearly half of all 16-24 year olds use messaging, email, Facebook or Twitter to discuss what they are viewing on TV.

A year later and second screen activity had become a clear trend with Nielsen stating: “The biggest finding was the percentage of brand tweeters that also tweet about TV. Notably, TV tweeters made up 73% of the total number of people who tweeted about brands during that time, and they sent an even greater portion—89%—of the Tweets about brands. Knowing that the majority of people who tweet about brands also tweet about TV is significant for advertisers, agencies and TV networks looking understand how brands can reach people who will socialize their messages.”

The research also concluded: “The initial analysis also found that TV tweeters talk about brands across categories. Of the 5.5 million Unique Authors who tweeted about both brands and TV from August through October 2013, Nielsen SocialGuide found that 74% tweeted about consumer electronics brands, 48% tweeted about restaurant brands, 29% tweeted about food brands, 27% tweeted about beverage brands, and 24% tweeted about car brands.”

Tweets about brands

Seeing double

Today the second screen phenomenon is increasingly gaining traction. However, recent insights do suggest that all social media networks are not equal when it comes to second screen activity. Facebook would of course warrant the most traffic via the second screen – and research by SecondSync illustrates this when they found 60% of second screen activity was during a programme’s broadcast.

Second screen activity during programme broadcast

However, Twitter and Tumblr continue to advance and are rapidly becoming the social media platforms of choice for second screen activity.

Twitter second screen activity

A study by Pulsar concluded: “Television watching is unquestionably a social activity, but viewer engagement isn’t limited to the show’s narrow timeslot. Fans move fluidly between platforms at different times to engage in different activities. During the episode, there was a spike in original tweets when quick, one-off comments let users stay connected without distracting them from the episode. When the show ended, and for several days after, viewers turned to Tumblr’s media rich environment to recap their favourite scenes, dissect details of the episode, and speculate on what’s to come!”

In terms of sustaining engagement, Tumblr has three major advantages:

  • Support for visual content and other creative treatments lets viewers engage in a broader range of activities.
  • Reblogging spreads content within the network with one click, fostering a fan community and exposing the show to new audiences.
  • Native ability to push posts out to Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds helps fans build a community and increase viewership.

What is interesting is how Twitter and Tumblr are used in connection with a TV show. Twitter is clearly popular for immediate comments. However, Tumblr has a long tail of activity that extends far beyond the programme’s airtime.

Hourly average mentions per day

Cumulative growth in TV mentions after start of broadcast

The socialisation of TV is clearly in its early stages. No one yet has a clear understanding of how social media and broadcast TV fit together. The DNA of this space is still being defined. The Second Screen Journal stated: “Sending live tweets, logging into Facebook, and shopping for music or merchandise related to TV shows is quickly on the rise, and this trend shows no sign of slowing. While statistics vary, watching TV does lend itself to social-network multitasking. A recent survey of social network users reveals that 79% always or sometimes visit Facebook, 83% surf the web, and 41% tweet about what they are watching. More than half of these people who post on social networking sites while watching TV do so to feel connected to others.”

What is clear is that the use of second screens will continue to expand. Consumer behaviour also clearly varies across each of the major social media networks. It’s likely, therefore, that in a second screen environment consumers will choose to use multiple social networks to reflect the activity they want to engage with.

This was recently highlighted by Gordon Macmillan, Twitter’s editorial manager who said: “When consumers are relaxed, the focal point shifts between Twitter and TV depending on what is happening on the screen. Here viewers might be engrossed in a drama or a movie; they’re paying close attention to the action and aren’t so focused on tweeting as they watch. Come the show’s end, things change. People jump on to Twitter to share their reactions and read those of others — and the volume of tweets spikes.”

Macmillan continued: “Understanding these two different states of mind, and being aware that consumers switch back and forth between the two, can help brands tap the pulse of how people combine their TV viewing and Twitter. And brands that get it right can get results, as we’ve previously shown: there is a 95 per cent increase in message association versus TV alone, a 58 per cent increase in purchase intent versus TV alone and the cost of acquiring new customers is 36 per cent lower when TV advertising runs concurrently with Twitter Ads.”

This was amply illustrated by Domino’s Pizza that through Adaptly gained more than 24,000 mentions (@Dominos_UK) with over three million impressions during a campaign that ran over the weekend April 26-27th.

Nikhil Sethi, CEO at Adaptly, added: “This collaboration illustrates what is possible when a category-leading brand executes a strategy that takes advantage of the most advanced marketing opportunities available on a platform like Twitter. There is a unique relationship that exists between TV and social media, and we saw an opportunity there for Domino’s.”

Technologia in association with DTG and i2 media research concluded: “The role of second screen in programme search and discovery and the related channel change seems certain. However there is uncertainty in how much second screen will capture viewers’ attention – the ‘battle for eyeballs’. The two key dimensions are the extent to which second screen will be adopted and exploited for commercial means (advertising and retail), and the extent to which they will be adopted and exploited to enrich editorial content in programmes across a wide range of genres as opposed to the live entertainment, games shows and contests where they have predominated.”

For corporations and their key brands, social TV is a growing component of their marketing activity. Currently real time social interaction has the limelight. But as the research completed so far is showing, social engagement occurs during a programme’s airtime, but it is after the event where longer lasting and commercial relationships can be built across social media channels.

[Image Source: Freedigitalphotos.net]

The Corporate Social Media Summit New York 2014

June 2014, New York

Become a social business: For superior marketing response, sharper corporate decision-making, enhanced innovation and a happier, more loyal customer

Brochure Programme
comments powered by Disqus