Friday, November 15, 2013

Twitter as the 2nd Screen

I was recently watching an episode of the Voice during one of the results shows.  There were 3 remaining contestants who had the least amount of votes from America (taken online and through text).   During the live show, they stated that they were doing a new initiative - in the 10 minutes that followed, viewers could vote for which contestant they wanted to save by tweeting #thevoicesave[name of contestant].  I thought this was a genius strategy to integrate Twitter with live TV.  As consumers are demanding more power and control, this is a great way to have live viewers benefit and make an impact on the show.  Also, it is a very creative way to encourage live viewing for the Voice.  This is a social media tactic that I think may be replicated on other shows.  The more tweets the Voice gets, the more free social media marketing it receives.  Also, live tv show viewers are more valuable than any other type of viewer for advertisers. 

This is indicative of the future success of Twitter.  Many people see Twitter as a customized news resource, 2nd screen for TV and many advertisers see the benefit of publicity that Twitter generates.  30% of people under 30 are tweeting which shows that this is a valuable platform.  Recently, Comcast signed an agreement with Twitter to help integrate TV.   Twitter will help encourage tuning into the show by helping directly link to seeing the show through hashtags.    Also, Nielson recently starting coming out with Twitter ratings for TV shows by looking at the number of tweets a show is getting as it airs. 

Twitter and TV need each other and Twitter as the 2nd screen will be very important to its success in the future. 

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