With 60% of all Twitter users talking about television, and all the recent talk of Twitter’s ability to now target advertising for TV viewers, it’s no wonder that social TV has recently come to mean social advertising. But that’s okay. Whereas traditional money has been spent for linear advertising, this increased importance on the ability to monetize socially will only help in the shift from linear to digital innovations.
According to Business Insider, $350 billion was spent on TV ads globally in 2012. If social TV can help make that advertising more effective, or help social media skim some of those dollars, the opportunity is there for social TV to become a major business in its own right.
A&E has recently highlighted that shift at Nielsen‘s Consumer 360 conference in Phoenix. A&E was able to drive audience engagement for Project Runway, which runs on its subsidiary Lifetime network, through strategic Twitter TV initiatives. When Project Runway launched a fan-favourite social campaign, encouraging viewers to vote for designers by using custom hashtags, the initiative resulted in nearly five comments per unique user — more than the ratio for any other cable TV show at the time. This in turn to A&E has them thinking about premium charges for programming with high social engagement.
As quoted in Rapid TV News: “The most important thing we all do is to generate a linear rating for our company. However, social TV is extremely valuable in its own right and absolutely helps amplify the conversation, helps sponsors participate in programming,” Silverman said.
Related articles
- The Rise of Social TV: How Social Media Is Amplifying TV Advertising (businessinsider.com)
