To recap the year that’s been, they have produced this latest info graphic below show the check-in trends for audiences in the US.

The trends of 2011

It follows from the introduction of the first Digital Video Recorder (DVR) in 1999 through to the arrival of online video and from where consumers are now obtaining their digital video content.

Social media has redefine how we communicate. Now it is transforming the television viewing experience with the rise of Social TV and platforms to support it such as Zeebox.

To prepare for this study, Forrester conducted phone interviews with executives at 12 leading digital agencies. The interviews covered each company’s use of rich digital media, the challenges and benefits companies were experiencing from using it to address client needs, and what the executives thought the future of the rich digital media landscape looked like.

Key Findings

Forrester’s study yielded the following key findings with respect to the use of rich digital media:

• Advertisers are turning to more engaging forms of rich digital media to deliver against consumer expectations.
• Rich digital media drives engagement with nonlinear interactive storytelling and custom experiences.
• Agencies with in-house digital media capabilities and expertise have competitive advantages.
• Agencies plan to expand digital media production capabilities to prepare for future growth.

For Advertisers, Engaging  Consumers Online is Harder Than Ever

Consumers today are comparing content on the Web with the latest Hollywood blockbuster, console game, or television show. As a culture, we want to be entertained and expect the content we consume on the Web to be something of value, such as a custom digital experience or an offer tailored to a specific interest. It takes much more to garner the attention of a potential or existing customer, and that creates a challenge for advertisers. A vice president at one of the participating agencies described it this way: “Advertisers are operating in a highly competitive marketplace, where consumers are reading less [and] comparing more, and the typical web article or content is not being read. Being able to communicate product benefits in a succinct and engaging way is crucial.” The bar has been raised for engaging consumers online because:

• The Web is cluttered with content. Consumers face a tidal wave of content that is competing for their valuable attention online. Within the next five years, US advertisers will spend $77 billion annually on email, display, mobile, search, and social to try to engage these consumers online, so clearly advertisers are facing an increasingly cluttered online advertising landscape (see Figure 1).1 Websites are filled with advertising, videos, text, and social media messages. To beat the clutter and engage with increasingly overwhelmed audiences, advertisers are turning to rich digital media.
• Consumers are accessing content across multiple devices. More than half of the 177 million US adults who are online have two or more different types of devices connected to the Internet, and one-third have at least four.2 There is a wealth of opportunity for advertisers to engage consumers across multiple devices. However, it requires brands to be present across multiple touchpoints. One agency is focusing its connected device strategy on delivering “all the content you need to make an intelligent decision on the screen at one time.”
• TV and film keep raising the bar for consumer expectations of digital media. All of the agencies interviewed for this study attribute the growing demand for rich digital media to feature films, gaming, and television. “Clients point to examples in movies and television and ask us to create a similar experience for their brands,” said one agency. In addition, movies like Avatar and Toy Story deliver engaging viewing experiences that heighten consumers’ overall expectations of digital media. Creative and engineering talents — in-house and consultative — with motion-picture and television experience are highly sought after for projects by agencies.

Interactive Marketing Spend Will Net Near $77 Billion By 2016

Advertisers Are Embracing Rich Digital Media

Rich digital media helps advertisers to break through the clutter of the Web. As one executive creative director at a leading agency declared: “Being able to show different ways for consumers to engage with products, [and] letting them understand what differentiates [their products] from the rest of the market, is crucial. And just calling that out via text boxes really doesn’t work. Consumers are so much more aware now; they can get as much text as they want from blogs and reviews.”
Every agency interviewed for this study confirms that rich digital media creates more engaging experiences online, compared with other media. “balancing art with science and function with entertainment.” This type of media empowers advertisers to tell richer brand stories, drive deeper engagement, and ignite conversations on social channels like YouTube and Facebook. It enables more online exploration that leads to enhanced experiences that consumers can customize and personalize. These experiences increase fundamental engagement metrics like time on site and lower metrics like bounce rates.

How Advertisers Are Using Rich Digital Media Today to Drive Engagement

Rich digital media has a wide variety of applications. Our study found that agencies use it in the following ways:

• Virtual photography. Advancements in technology allow agencies to use digital models and computer- generated images (CGI) to replace the expensive process of photographing real objects or environments. One agency explained, “I can save time and a tremendous amount of money by using CGI and digital models.” CGI also provides the benefit of being more flexible and adaptable to cross-platform applications.
• Animation and motion graphics. By animating elements, advertisers can bring stories to life. For example, “Sometimes you want someone to jump or make a car spin,” explains one interviewee. “So we will take a static model and apply all the kinetics, animations, and physics on top to make it look real.”
• Interactive display. Interactive touchscreen displays are appearing more frequently in retail outlets and public places like bus shelters in San Francisco and subways in South Korea. It allows advertisers to engage audiences at point of sale and out of home. While this exemplifies a growing global trend, there are many other use cases for interactive display online such as rich media banner ads on a website.
• Product demos. Agencies use rich digital media to create immersive product demonstrations for manufacturers and retailers. These demos tell a much richer story about the product and illustrate key differentiations from competing products in the market. For example, one agency used 3D technology to showcase the uniqueness and design of an athletic shoe by allowing consumers to interactively spin it and see it from all angles.
• Game-like experiences. More than 340 million people play social games monthly, and gamification — the application of game mechanics to nongame play — is being leveraged by advertisers to drive deeper engagement on web and mobile properties.3 Agencies can use rich digital media to enhance the game-like online behavior.
• Social media drivers. With rich digital media, consumers can customize and personalize content, share their experience online, and spark conversations on social channels like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. “If you create something of value for the consumer, the consumer will share it,” affirmed an interviewee for the study.
• Online and mobile advertising. Rich digital media is rapidly pervading online advertising on the Web, as more advertisers want to stand out in a crowded web environment. Video advertising is the fastest- growing segment within online advertising, and publishers are opening up new online ad formats enabling much richer experiences and page takeovers. With the ubiquity of mobile and the soaring growth of tablet devices, online and mobile advertising has advanced to a newer, more exciting level — one that leverages inherent features on the device such as flicking, sharing, or swiping that yield high engagement.
•  Video production. Rich digital media allows advertisers to deliver very high-quality content across a variety of platforms. Video is no longer a “lean back” passive experience but can be incorporated into the core of interactive experiences to engage audiences, aided by the rapid growth of online video advertising.

Forrester asked each agency interviewed for this study to describe how rich digital media creates more immersive and engaging experiences online. “Rich digital media is the way we tell stories,” one agency stated. “And that’s how we are able to capture consumers’ imaginations.” In summary of the qualitative data for this study, rich digital media drives more online engagement with:

• Nonlinear interactive storytelling. Rich digital media enables advertisers to tell better brand stories and give consumers more control over their experience. Consumers can interact with content, choose their own path, and create their own adventure.
• Personal and customized experiences. Consumer engagement can be driven by empowering the user to personalize and customize their experience. “Leading global brands request it,” one agency shared. “They want the user to control and own the experience.”
• Expressive and creative visual elements. Rich digital media allows artists, advertisers, and designers to be more creative and expressive, which creates a more entertaining experience for consumers. Leveraging gestural user interfaces like flicks and swipes, which are now commonly used on mobile and touchscreen devices, also helps to drive engagement.

In-House Capabilities Produce Lucrative Business Benefits for Agencies

Every agency interviewed for this study has rich digital media production capabilities in-house to a certain capacity, and all of them attribute having these capabilities to giving them an advantage in a competitive marketplace. Moreover, all of them plan on increasing their capabilities in the future to meet increasing demand. It is advantageous for agencies to invest in in-house resources because:

• It reduces cost. All of the agencies interviewed for this study reported lower costs of production due to in- house resources including talent. Agencies don’t have to outsource to specialty agencies that charge a premium.
• It produces better content, more quickly. When asked if keeping the technology in-house helped produce content better and more quickly, one creative director responded, “Absolutely, by the fact that creative and production are highly interacting with each other and closing any communication gaps.” Production teams are also able to ideate and iterate much faster — increasing the team’s overall flexibility and agility.
• Creative and technology are more integrated and more powerful. “You can’t get the right level of collaboration and iteration you need when you outsource projects in this field,” asserts an agency. In- house capabilities enable creative teams with a clear sense of the storyline to work next to production specialists with a deep knowledge of the technology and marry their two skill sets to tell a more powerful brand story.
• It’s profitable. Digital services are a fast-growing profit center. The agencies all stated that these capabilities give them a competitive advantage, which helps them attract and grow new and existing business. And digital advertising is showing particularly strong growth for agencies, increasing 16.3% in 2010, compared with 7.7% growth for the advertising industry overall.4

Agencies Predict More Demand In The Future, Investing Accordingly

“I can tell you that the more work we do [in rich digital media], the more calls we get from clients and prospects wanting to produce these types of experiences for their audiences.” The agencies interviewed for this study are increasing their offerings in rich digital media because they all anticipate the landscape to continue to grow. Demand for rich digital media will continue to grow due to the following factors:

• Continued consumer demand. “At the root, consumers and users want to be entertained or have something that’s useful. If you do either of those two, you have their eyes and ears. Consumers compare an experience online to a game they just played on PlayStation 3, and everyone holds web experiences to the highest standard because they compare the Web with TV, film, and games,” summarizes a Europe-based agency. Consumers’ high standards and future innovations in motion pictures and television will continue to increase consumer expectations of content on the Web and create increasing demand.
• Opportunities for deeper engagement. Research for this study undoubtedly concludes that rich digital media drives higher engagement online, and agencies are embracing the technology as a direct result. Nonlinear storytelling, game-like mechanics, personalization, and shareability across a consumer’s social graph help advertisers break through the clutter and drive powerful experiences online.
• More in-market competition. The majority of rich digital media was once exclusively produced by specialty agencies. Today, more in-market competition is increasing, as more agencies invest in their own capabilities to meet demand from consumers, gain a competitive advantage, and obtain inherent business benefits.
• More talent. More design schools are providing access to new technologies and are teaching more courses in rich digital media. While agencies continue to invest in training their existing teams, young talent is entering the market with more advanced skill sets to hit the ground running and make more immediate contributions.
• Proliferation of devices that creates additional opportunities. Smartphone and tablet adoption creates new opportunities for advertisers to reach consumers with rich digital media. With technology iterating and innovating so rapidly, processing power will increase and allow advertisers to continue to push the envelope as broadband becomes ubiquitous.

For the full key recommendations see the complete report by Forrester Research.

1 By 2016, US advertisers will spend $77 billion on email, display, mobile, search, and social to try to engage consumers online. Source: “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 To 2016,” Forrester Research, Inc., August 24, 2011.
2 More than half of the 177 million US adults who are online have two or more different types of devices connected to the Internet, and one-third have at least four. Source: “Welcome To The Multidevice, Multiconnection World,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 25, 2011.
3 More than 340 million people play social games monthly. Source: Appdata (http://www.appdata.com/).
4 Source: Bradley Johnson, “Agency Report: US Agency Revenue Jumped 7.7% in 2010,” Advertising Age, April 25, 2011.
To prepare for this study, Forrester conducted phone interviews with executives at 12 leading digital agencies. The interviews covered each company’s use of rich digital media, the challenges and benefits companies were experiencing from using it to address client needs, and what the executives thought the future of the rich digital media landscape looked like. Respondents were from the US, UK and Sweden. The study began in July 2011 and completed in October, 2011.

© 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

Mark Burnett, a successful global producer and the acknowledged pioneer of reality programming in the US — is set once again to make a major leap forward that is sure to reinvent the broadcast and cable worlds.  Mark Burnett has teamed up with technology company ACTV8, to usher in a whole new world of audience participation and integration with television. Now, anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or Android device will be able to interact, socialize, consume, share and participate in real time, all while watching his or her favorite TV shows.

Mark Burnett’s successes include the long-running Survivor (currently in its 23rd season) airing on CBS; The Voice, which starts its second season in February 2012 on NBC; The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice on NBC, Shark Tank on ABC; and a host of other very successful franchises. Burnett also produced the 2011 Emmy Awards; the 2010 and 2011 People’s Choice Awards; and the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, which aired this past weekend. Since 2007, Burnett has also served as the executive producer for the MTV Movie Awards.

In making the deal with ACTV8, Burnett explains, “It has always been my dream to create a deeper and more engaging relationship with the audiences of our shows. ACTV8 enables us to give the audience exactly what they want: interactivity, metadata, behind the scenes views, scoops and insights, social relevance and connectivity. Today’s audience brings a whole new set of expectations from the shows they connect to and embrace. ACTV8 allows our content to take a much more important and relevant position for consumption within the changing lifestyles of our viewers. This breakthrough technology serves to foster a world of “New Era TV Networks.’”

ACTV8 delivers what it calls a “complete global media integration platform.”  The platform synchronizes a user’s mobile device or tablet to any live or recorded video broadcast and not only provides rich interactive content to the user’s device related to the programming, but also feeds viral hooks into Facebook and Twitter. With its proprietary technology, ACTV8 has married broadcast and cable television to the two largest social media platforms on the planet, and then made this all interactive, thus creating the ultimate uber-platform. The technology enables ACTV8 to deliver a host of program enhancements, line extensions, quizzes, trivia, gaming and sales experiences in conjunction with any TV programming.

Founder and CEO Brian Shuster explains, “ACTV8 represents an altogether new model for digital media creation, interaction and distribution. ACTV8 creates a world where viewers won’t skip branded messages and integration, because ACTV8 unlocks their value for consumers.  We are working with the largest brands in the world to enrich their connection to the consumer and establish new relationships between their brands and their audiences”. Most of these brands and most TV industry executives acknowledge a major problem facing the medium today: the DVR. And as consumer adoption of the DVR grows, TV ad spot values decline. How can we keep the viewer watching? Like other players in the growing Social TV market, ACTV8 and its partners are set to reinvent the value proposition for the TV networks, the advertisers and most importantly…the consumer. Consumers are rewarded for their participation with content, including special offers and coupons from many of the leading TV advertisers in the US.

SOURCE ACTV8 /PRNewswire/

“OTT video is continuing to grow, overcoming the barriers of low device connect rates and cumbersome user interfaces,” says Keith Nissen, Research Director. “Even stronger growth of I-VOD and EST video services is possible if device manufacturers and digital retailers can put together a simpler, plug-n-play solution for getting online video to the TV (web-to-TV). The proliferation of tablets is also contributing to OTT growth.”

Some of the other factors affecting the OTT video market:

• Streaming video transactions will reach just under 1 billion in 2010.
• Netflix and other S-VOD suppliers are shifting to a more TV-centric model and will soon be competing directly with HBO, Showtime, and Starz.
• The collaborative and competitive models among physical and digital retailers, content owners, and pay TV operators are shifting rapidly as players in the ecosystem grapple with the evolving mix of physical versus digital channels, EST, pay-TV, OTT, and subscription VoD.

Leaders of the advertising, media and entertainment sector have converged in New York, London and Melbourne for the inauguration of the CTVMA, the global industry trade body of the advertising, media and entertainment sector.

In 2012, television advertising will join the 21st century, with Internet connected televisions, from brands such as Samsung, Sony and LG predicted to make up to 90% of the global TV market in the next three year. 41% or televisions are forecast to have internet connection in 2013. By 2015 there will be 138 million connected TVs rising to 550 million a year later according to Digital TV Research.

Connected TVs offer brands the chance to connect their offline spend with the rapidly growing online content market, with TV applications or targeted ad campaigns served by ad networks across electronic program guides.

Announcing the launch from Melbourne, Founder and President Asia-Pacific of the Connected TV Marketing Association James Grant Hay said, “The CTVMA is being launched today to address these issues currently being faced, by not only advertisers, broadcasters and rights holders alike but, by the TV set makers themselves. As TV platforms are likely to compete with broadcasters to buy programme content from rights holders and serve advertising against it,” he said.

With 85% of marketers already interested in advertising on internet-connected TVs, the CTVMA had been set up to inform and educate the advertising, media and entertainment sector on the commercial opportunities of Connected TV platforms.

Co-Founder and President North America of the Connected TV Marketing Association Zachary Weiner said, “Connected TV platforms supersede broadcasters in owning programme content and selling advertising against it. Marketers are also frustrated by the lack of audience information on who they are targeting and ad networks face issues of interoperability, scale and standards across platforms”.

Mr Grant Hay added, “it is therefore essential that all sides of industry now come to together in an open industry forum of consultation with CEMs to discuss the future success of our industry as a whole,” he said.

As part of its future plans, the CTVMA has immediately embarked on an open industry consultation process, inviting leaders from the advertising, media and entertainment sector to participate in formulating an industry terms of reference.

The launch in Melbourne included a Smart TV presentation from Sony Australia, attended by representatives from local companies as diverse as NBN Co. Limited, Adconion Media Group, Foxtel, News Digital and Accedo Broadband.

The association currently comprises of 47 Country, Regional and Chapter appointed Presidents, Vice-Presidents with representatives around the world.

The CTVMA’s first industry event in Sydney on March 7, 2012.

Moving forward, Futuresource expects the paid-for segment in Europe to be boosted by the launch of a handful of key regional streaming subscription services, similar to Netflix in the USA. It is anticipated that these services will be led by existing online players including YouTube, Apple and Netflix, rather than new entrants. The potential for future online video revenue extends beyond online purchase and rental and the expansion of subscription services across all major markets, with contributions from ad-funded services having a key role to play. “Brands have only recently started to harness the full potential of online video,” says Hoang, “with ad-funded revenues expected to grow by 50% in 2011 as advertisers continue to develop and refine content specifically for the online environment, rather than repurposing content originally destined for television. At the same time, consumers become more receptive as ads are effectively targeted.” “With tablets showing even more impressive growth and evolution, content holders, broadcasters and hardware manufacturers are increasingly interested in the relatively untapped growth potential in the online video market for these devices.”

YouTube in particular has recognised the potential of online advertising, as it continues to introduce initiatives to increase consumer engagement on ad-funded videos, even allowing viewers to stop ads that do not appeal to them. This is then reflected in advertising rates, with more popular ads attracting preferential rates, thus encouraging an upsurge of enjoyable, targeted ad content and an enhanced experience for the consumer. Advertising from short-form content is expected to account for around 60% to 70% of total online video advertising revenues in the short to medium term according to the report.

“The growing range of mobile devices is playing an increasingly significant part in the online video market,” says Hoang. “Sales of smartphones are expected to exceed 450 million units worldwide this year, fuelled predominantly by the growing influence of Android-based handsets. This groundswell is building to a significant content distribution platform, largely driven by growth in the development and consumption of apps and rapidly becoming an essential part of service providers’ multi-platform strategies. The full report which contains market forecasts until 2015 identifies that currently catch-up TV services are the key driver of free online TV and movie growth in Europe. However, paid-for online revenues across the four key countries are forecast to hit $6.8 billion by 2015.

(Source: GlobeNewswire) At 11:11 a.m. local time on 11/11/11, more than 200 delegates to the Future of Broadcast Television Summit officially expressed unified support for a joint declaration signed by technical executives from 13 broadcast organizations from around the world that calls for global cooperation to define new requirements, unify various standards, and promote sharing of technologies to benefit developed and under-developed countries and conserve resources.

A common theme throughout the summit was that broadcasting — the transmission of information to an unlimited number of listeners and viewers — is the most spectrum-efficient means for wireless delivery of popular real-time and file-based content. The signatories of the declaration believe that the broadcasting and TV industries will continue to evolve and play a critical role in bringing both information and entertainment to everyone.

While television has prospered, it has not been possible for the world to take full advantage of the convenience and economies of scale of a single broadcast standard. Even in the digital age, splintering of different standards and methods of broadcast TV transmission makes it difficult to share information and entertainment globally.

As a result of the Future of Broadcast Television (FoBTV) Summit, supporters for the declaration agree to three major initiatives:

1. Define the requirements of future terrestrial broadcast systems.

“The collaboration between broadcast and Internet content will play a vital role in providing attractive services. The broadcast industry is committed to developing necessary technologies to create and deliver new media and information services by taking advantage of future broadcast systems. We also know the critical role played by broadcasting in times of emergency,” notes the declaration.

2. Explore unified terrestrial broadcast standards.

“We aim to promote cooperation among broadcasters, communications companies and manufacturers of broadcast equipment and all types of receiving devices. We seek to maximize proper and efficient use of spectrum resources, as well as exchanges and cooperation between communication systems and broadcasting on both a technological and business level,” says the declaration.

3. Promote global technology sharing

“A future broadcast ecosystem, with collaboration between different areas and among broadcasters, research institutes, and industries, will foster new broadcast technological innovation. We commit to the elimination of broadcasting technological gaps. We realize that advances in broadcasting technologies should benefit both developed and developing countries,” the declaration states.

“Today, technological innovation may be able to break down many of the long-standing barriers that have prevented common systems,” according to the joint declaration announced today.

“This would enable us to remove the gaps between the different television signal formats and transmission systems used around the world. Digitization has opened the door for a broadcasting renaissance.”

“We need to explore new ways of cooperation, seek the progressive unification of standards, and realize technology sharing so that the efficiency and convenience enabled by digitization will be realized − not reduced by system fragmentation. The 21st Century is an era of integration of broadcasting, Internet, and communications, all of which have evolved in parallel. Consumers are calling for more convenient and user-friendly services. The development of digital technology opens the possibility of cooperation among all the different networks and transmission systems,” the joint declaration states.

The complete declaration — signed by technical executives of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC), Communications Research Center (CRC), Digital Video Broadcast Project (DVB), European Broadcast Union (EBU), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Globo TV Network, IEEE Broadcast Technology Society, National Association of Broadcasters, National Engineering Research Center of Digital TV of China, NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratories, Public Broadcasting Service and the Brazilian Society of Television Engineers (SET)

(C) Copyright 2010 GlobeNewswire, Inc. All rights reserved.

‘Living with Digital’, which was carried out in the USA, UK, France and Germany with more than 2,600 respondents ranging from 12 to 65+ years of age, explores the ways in which consumers interact with and consume digital entertainment and compares behaviours with those of six months ago.

The study also shows that 57% of people are watching online video content, with nearly one in four using their smartphones, at least occasionally. Watching online video on a desktop PC is still the most common method, very closely followed by laptop.

In all four countries surveyed, there has been a net increase in online video viewing over the last six months, with wider choice, more appealing content and being able to watch content at any time the key factors behind the shift. However, more than 80% of respondents still do not pay for online video content; although nearly 40% of these said they could be persuaded in the future. Among respondents that have paid for online content already, more than two in every three have paid for movies.

When asked about their buying behaviours for physical media, 60% of respondents are still buying DVDs and 19% are buying Blu-ray Discs. Of the countries surveyed, people living in the UK buy the most DVDs, an average of nearly 6.5 during the last six months. For Blu-ray, the USA leads the way, with US purchasers of Blu-ray Discs buying an average of 5.75 in the last six months.

In Germany and France there is a net increase in the number of people buying more Blu-ray Discs than six months ago, with 41% of people in Germany buying more titles than they did six months ago.

‘Living with Digital’ is an ongoing programme of independent research from Futuresource Consulting, exploring the ways in which consumers interact with and consume digital entertainment, whether via the TV, online or on a mobile device. The study is based on regular consumer surveys carried out in the USA, UK, France and Germany, with more than 2,500 respondents surveyed in each round.

Click this link to view Chloe Sladden’s presentation on Social TV at the Social TV Summit in NY.

Below is the promotional video shown by Chloe during the presentation.

The motivation

Do TV viewers want a synchronous interactive experience? After decades of debate, we can finally answer this question: Yes, they do—and they are creating it for themselves, on Twitter.

The graph below shows Tweets about the ABC Family show Pretty Little Liars. The sharp spikes correspond exactly to the East Coast airings of new episodes. On-demand and online viewing are important options, but the vast majority of the conversation around the show happens during that initial airing, in real-time:

Let’s zoom in on one airing. Tweeting around TV follows a fairly predictable pattern: first, anticipatory Tweets appear 15-30 minutes before the show airs on the East Coast; then, the Tweets surge during the episode (with sharp spikes in response to surprises and reveals); finally, there’s another 15-30 minutes of post-show buzz and reaction.

All together, it acts as a kind of creative EKG. Look at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, and see how the sharp spikes correspond directly to major moments in the show:

Here’s what you’re seeing above:

A MTV host Jim Cantiello announces the #WhatWillGagaWear hashtag on-air
B The VMA main show begins with a gender-bending performance from @ladygaga
C Jay-Z and Kanye West take the stage
D Adele performs
E Beyonce’s performance begins…
F …and ends with the big reveal of her “baby bump”

Many TV producers watch this EKG as their show airs to get real-time qualitative feedback on what is and isn’t resonating with their audience. To be clear: the vast majority of the total conversation around a show happens live during its initial airing. You should focus your planning and investment on that airing and then watch the reaction on Twitter closely.

And here’s the most important thing to know: Across networks and genres, when TV shows bring hashtags, accounts, or other Twitter elements into the broadcast itself, we see a direct and immediate increase in engagement on Twitter—anywhere from two to ten times more Tweets created while the shows air.

#Hashtags

Choose and promote a single official hashtag. On Twitter, hashtags become links; therefore, Tweets containing your show’s hashtag are powerful promotional messages that gather Twitter users around a central conversation. Your official hashtag should be clear but concise: Glee is #glee, True Blood is #trueblood, How I Met Your Mother is #HIMYM.

You should show this hashtag on air at least once between every pair of commercial breaks. Even better, synchronize it to dramatic moments in the show, as NBC did with The Voice:

Image courtesy NBC.

You can also use “madlib” hashtags: clever sentence-starters like MTV’s #WhatWillGagaWear. The upside is that more viewers respond to these hashtags, so you’ll maximize engagement. The trade-off is that they’re a less effective marketing mechanism, because it takes an additional click for users to connect them to your show. (“Oh, I get it… this hashtag is part of the Video Music Awards. Oh, right—the VMAs are starting soon!”)

You should pair hashtags with creative calls to action. CNN did this during its coverage of 2011′s Royal Wedding:

Image courtesy CNN.

On BET, the hosts of 106 and Park do it every day, explaining a daily madlib hashtag as they show it on screen…

Image courtesy BET.

…and these short, simple segments directly and immediately generate tens of thousands of Tweets about the show—every day.

In the 2010 VMAs, MTV used the madlib hashtag #IfBieberMetGaga. Gabi Gregg presented a call to action from the red carpet and paid it off by showing the best response on air.

In the clip below, we’ve overlaid a counter of total #IfBieberMetGaga Tweets and graphics showing the Tweets as they’re created. It gives you a visceral sense of the engagement that follows directly and immediately from an on-air hashtag and call to action:

Accounts

Show your Twitter account name on air. Your viewers don’t automatically know you’re on Twitter; showing them your account converts fans into followers. CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight showed @piersmorgan twice during the show in a large lower-third graphic…

Image courtesy CNN.

…and earned 4,500 new followers as a direct and immediate result. The sharp spikes in this graph of new followers per minute correspond exactly to those lower-third graphics:

Live-tweet during the show. This allows you to shape and drive the Twitter conversation and gives your fans a reason to follow you. You should tweet live during East Coast airings—that’s when most Twitter activity takes place—and focus on commentary or content that’s synced to the show.

Jeff Probst, the host of “Survivor,” is also a committed live-tweeter, and CBS promotes him like this:

Image courtesy CBS.

Survivor provides a useful test case for live-tweeting. Probst didn’t live-tweet at all during Survivor: Nicaragua in fall 2010. Then, in spring 2011, he live-tweeted during airings of Survivor: Redemption Island, with on-air promotion (as shown above). The difference in the scale of the Twitter conversation is dramatic and plain to see:

Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain tweets live during new episodes of No Reservations, and the network rotates his account @noreservations with the network bug throughout the show:

Image courtesy Travel Channel.

This placement earns them 3,000 new followers during each airing.

Tweet

When you show individual Tweets on TV, you should generally favor:

Tweets from on-air talent granting special behind-the-scenes access to followers.
Tweets with great images (but note that you are responsible for clearing them).
In terms of implementation, we recommend that you:

Show Tweets on a physical in-set display, rather than with a graphics overlay. That way, there’s no legacy technology involved and on-air talent can interact with the Tweets more naturally.

Ideally, use Mass Relevance’s TweetRiver (or develop your own alternative) to curate the very best Tweets and show them in a way that’s optimized for broadcast.

Finally: use the Twitter.com Tweet permalink page in a pinch!

Guidelines

Here are the guidelines you’ll need to follow regarding the user of Twitter’s marks and content on air:

• General guidelines
• Broadcast display guidelines

Social TV Ratings

How do you measure your impact? Here are some public sites that show Twitter engagement levels for broadcast and cable TV shows:

• Trendrr TV
• SocialGuide

This article was originally published by Twitter where the latest version may be viewed.