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Shandra thanks so much for being with us
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today um we're here to talk a little bit
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about your research into social TV so I
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guess my first question for you is could
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you talk to us a little bit about what
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is social TV and what kind of got you
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interested in researching it sure so um
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I guess broadly speaking social TV is
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the integration of social media and TV
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programming um and this happens in a
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variety of ways so people um contribute
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somewhat organically uh on social
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networking sites like Twitter and
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Facebook and more recently there are a
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number of social TV applications that
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have been developed by um a number of
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businesses that have been quite
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successful that allow people to
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basically show how big of a fan they are
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of different TV shows so they do things
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like check into shows and communicate
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with one another and even social TV
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applications have been developed by
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networks themselves so networks um in
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the US at least have ways for their
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viewers to interact with one another on
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their websites and in fact are trying to
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drive them to their own websites to do
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just that now in for TV in particular I
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mean either TV networks or TV avatars
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what do you think it is that's kind of
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driving them to be interested in people
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on social media talking about their
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shows right so that's a great question
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so I think you know people like to talk
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about television and both networks and
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advertisers um only recently I would say
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in the past three and a half years
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noticed this right so people are doing
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this at large scale and so whenever
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advertising notice that people are doing
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um things at Large Scale they get very
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interested right and so then it begs the
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question sort of how can we use the fact
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that people are doing that to one you
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know better engage with viewers and
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customers or potential customers anyway
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um and then also hopefully make the
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viewer experience a little bit more
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meaningful so the networks are more
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interested in making the viewer um
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experience more meaningful so that will
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in turn sort of Drive more viewers right
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um but advertisers are really interested
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in understanding sort of what this
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interaction means for them with respect
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to selling their products and now youve
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done a number of different studies
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looking at various aspects of this so
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could you tell us a little bit about
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some of the studies and what you've been
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what you've looked at and kind of how
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you've analyzed it some of the different
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approaches you've taken sure so um we've
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run a number of studies um now some in
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the preliminary phase but two I think
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that are most notable are one where
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we've studied the popular reality
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singing TV show The Voice um and so the
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other is the Super Bowl so on the one
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hand we're interested in following a TV
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show that um has used social media as
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part of their programming and we want to
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better understand what that means with
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respect to viewer engagement on the
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other hand we followed TV advertisers
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during major national events including
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the Super Bowl so let's take the the
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voice so the voice as part of their
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programming does a number of things to
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engage um viewers on social media so one
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thing that they do is they simply put um
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a hashtag on on the show right so pound
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the voice is used as um an identifier
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for the topic The Voice
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additionally they put specific tweets on
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the screen that are both generated by
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users so they're contributed um by users
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and also contributed by people that are
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on the show and so additionally they um
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have what's called a social media room
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so this was I don't know of any other
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shows uh that were doing this at least
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when they did it the first time and
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during the social media room um they
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have an MC that basically um interacts
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with both the contestants on the show
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and the viewers in the audience and so
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using all of these different strategies
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they've been able to generate quite a
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bit of word of mouth on social media and
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so we have um tried to understand what
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has triggered the most word of mouth
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what seems to be working for the show
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and what seems to be less effective and
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so we found a number of things one I
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think most importantly that actually
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providing these triggers via either um
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tweet hashtags or specific tweets leads
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to more engagement um and also we find
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that the content in terms of the
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diversity of the content changes when
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these triggers are are posted on the
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show versus when they're not and maybe
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obviously we find that there's a
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different response to the social media
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triggers when um the show is aired for
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the second time so for example when it's
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aired on the west coast after it has
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already been aired on East Coast Live
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versus live exactly and I know you've
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also done you mention also mentioned a
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study about the Super Bowl could you
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talk to us a little bit about that sure
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so with the Super Bowl we um we knew in
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advance luckily who was going to be
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advertising on the Super Bowl and so we
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followed those advertisers on Twitter
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and on Facebook and were able to see um
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both what they were contributing during
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the Super Bowl and also how viewers were
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talking about the brands during the
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Super Bowl and so the remarkable thing
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is that we can see in real time how the
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users are responding to specific
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triggers again and so in this case it's
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both content that's happening um um
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during the show so where people are
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firms are advertising but also some of
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the um advertisers were doing things
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like playing social media games right
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and so when they did we found that the
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advertisers that actually included some
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kind of social media content but
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specifically the um the games in the
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social media content their buzz if you
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will so the amount of um or the number
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of tweets that people were contributed
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online were not only greater in number
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but also more sustained over the the
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superb which suggests that actually
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incorporating some kind of social media
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and content actually leads to more
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engagement and also more sustained
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engagement and if you believe that
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that's important which I think most
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advertisers do then they can think about
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sort of how to incorporate more social
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media content into their advertisements
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now when you say social media game can
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you give an example of that um so so
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they varied um so one example um was
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happening happened actually before the
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the Super Bowl so Chevy had a
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competition where they asked uh viewers
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to contribute commercials um and so one
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of the commercials that was shown during
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the Super Bowl was a commercial
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contributed by a user so they had people
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submitting these these commercials and
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as a result people were interested in
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who won right so that's one example um
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so another example is something that uh
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Coca-Cola did they had polar bears
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responding to the advertisement um
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responding to the Super Bowl in real
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time so um based on what was happening
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during the Super Bowl the commercials
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were adapting to that and and users were
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contributing content as a result now you
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had mentioned earlier to me that like
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you and your and your research team had
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got in pretty exacting detail gone
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through these shows I mean not just
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watching them once but I mean talk a
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little bit about some of the methods
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that you Ed in order to sort of track
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this and how exacting you had to get in
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terms of watching it and also tracking
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what was going on on Twitter or Facebook
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right great so in order to do the
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research that we're doing we we're
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basically pulling data from a number of
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sources so we are looking at Twitter and
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Facebook response obviously um because
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we talked a lot about that but in
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addition we're actually recording the
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shows and in order to later look at
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response to specific triggers we
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actually need to timestamp those
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triggers so we go back through the shows
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and note exactly when certain events
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happen so that we can see how that
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directly ties to the social media
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response and what's nice about the voice
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in addition to having the Twitter and
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Facebook data the content of the show
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that's tagged um we also have sales data
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so um part of the voice well how people
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voted um in part was by buying songs on
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iTunes iTunes and so we were able to
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look at the sales rank of the iTunes
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songs associated with the voice over
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time as the season was going on and so
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because we were able to calcul to
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collect that data we've been able to
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link the buzz to sales and
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so there huge questions out there not
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just um in relationship to TV but for
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social media in general around whether
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Buzz actually leads to sales or in the
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context of TV does it really lead to
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more viewers and so um it's been really
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nice to have all of these data because
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we've been able to link Buzz directly to
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sales at least in this case of the voice
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and where do you see the research going
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from here I me what are kind of your
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goals for the future in terms of taking
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this to the next step so we have a lot
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of we have a lot of goals so in addition
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to the specific case studies that we're
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working on we're actually working on a
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number of projects that look at Social
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TV in general so for example we're
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building a social TV recommendation
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engine that takes advant AG of the fact
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that people are contributing this
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content about shows and we use it to
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calculate the similarity between shows
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to make better recommendations about TV
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shows in addition um we're studying the
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relationship between how popular a show
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is um using neelon ratings right so in
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terms of how many viewers there actually
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are for a show and how social a TV show
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is so um other data that we've been able
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to get are check-ins on some of these
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social TV apps that viewers are making
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in public on Twitter for example and we
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can measure how social a show is and
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we're relating so those are things that
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we're already doing in the future I
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guess what is most exciting I think is
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one doing what you're talking about so
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coming up with some better analytics for
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social TV and social media in general to
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begin to link that to some business
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value um and then I think for me what's
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really nice to see um are people are now
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doing social TV for good so one example
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of that is um there was this Telethon
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that was um I guess it's been a couple
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of weeks ago now maybe a month where um
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it was called standup for cancer and so
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um they had celebrities it was it was
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kind of a new age teleon if you will
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where celebrities were talking about
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cancer and um during the broadcast they
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were of course trying to get people to
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donate for cancer research but they were
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interacting with viewers on the show in
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addition as people were donating they
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were talking about that on social media
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and also saying that they stood up for a
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specific person so it you know it was
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one example where a television show was
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actually trying to not even incentivize
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but motivating people to talk about this
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particular event and donating to a
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special cause um on social media and so
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there are other examples like that so
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PBS just really just recently um had a
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broadcast uh the show was called half
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the sky and it talked about um
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oppression of of women right it was
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really the subject of of the broadcast
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and they partnered with one of the
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social TV apps that I've been talking
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about get glue and with get glue they
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had the get glue um app users uh they
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gave them special bad for watching both
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episodes so it was a two-part program
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and they they partnered with the social
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TV app to get people to view and talk
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about the show and I think you know
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seeing these nice examples where not
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only you know is there the advertising
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story of course where people are you
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know trying to come up with analytics to
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better understand what this means for
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products and Brands but also you know it
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really just shows how important it is to
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think about the fact that regardless of
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if you um develop content to to to
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promote word of mouth on social media or
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not in TV shows that people are going to
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do it and so why not especially in the
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case of you know these good causes try
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to think about the best ways to promote
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that word of mouth so that you build
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more awareness even when people are not
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watching the television show so I think
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that that's particularly exciting for me
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and I guess down the road we've been
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talking with
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um uh a couple of of TV networks about
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running and not in this country by the
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way but but running um some experiments
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so as we begin to better understand what
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seems to be driving um you know
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sustained word of mouth and and more
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engagement using these TV triggers we
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want to begin to experiment with
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different messages to see whether we can
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actually um figure out exactly what is
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causing the response and I try to kind
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of go on on with that I mean in terms of
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this research I mean do you think if I'm
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a business I'm a network or an adver
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Advertiser how does it help me I mean to
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be able to use this sort of thing when
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I'm trying to create a social media
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strategy or figure out maybe how social
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media fits into my overall strategy
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right so I think um so I think from the
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network perspective they have to be
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thinking about a number of things right
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so networks um networks make money in
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part from advertisers and so for them
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they want to have a lot of viewers of
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their shows right and so it's kind of
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maybe an obvious thing to think about
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how um incorporating social media
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content will not only lead to buzz but
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also to more viewers so you know
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hopefully the results of our work will
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better inform networks that are trying
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to incorporate social TV content um I
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guess additionally advertising because
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it's a huge part of how networks make
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money is changing right so consumer
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behavior is changing and you know if
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people are glued to their computer or
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their phone or even their tablet when
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they are watching television it kind of
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changes how they're interacting
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potentially with advertisement and so I
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think networks and they know this um are
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going to have to pay attention to that
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fact and as a result come up with new um
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advertising models that take advantage
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of this and that's not a bad thing
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because potentially what will happen is
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because people are contributing content
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and thus revealing more information
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about themselves and their preferences
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you might be able to do better targeted
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advertising to Consumers and and
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therefore more effective advertising to
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Consumers that are watching TV right so
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potentially turning the fact that
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people's attention is divided and they
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might be able to fast forward pass the
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ads from kind of a negative into maybe a
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positive like figure out how to leverage
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what people are doing right into
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actually letting them know about a
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product right and then even better I
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mean the holy Grill of course is to
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drive people to buy things right I mean
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so it you can't buy at least today you
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can't buy anything by watching
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television alone but if you're online or
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on your phone you can sort of click
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something and and purchase and be driven
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directly to a website or something like
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that and so finally could you tell me a
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little bit about I mean what this
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research means what are the implications
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for consumers so first of all I think
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you
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know networks care about viewer
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engagement right and so you know on the
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one hand you're seeing Network respond
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to the fact that people are contributing
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in public for free um by creating new
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ways to enhance the viewer experience so
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I think you know viewers will benefit
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because there'll be new applications and
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new ways to engage with TV shows and
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even TV show celebrities um I think from
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from some of our work what's nice too is
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that um we can begin to use the content
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that viewers are contributing to help
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them learn about new content right so
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you know in some way we hope to give
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back to viewers um you know some
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insights into you know how TV shows are
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related and what they may like and we
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can only do that because they're
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contributing this content so I think
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users um and viewers stand to benefit
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tremendously from the insights that
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business analytics will give us um you
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know perhaps they're not as happy about
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the advertising angle but you know
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that's positive too perhaps because
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they'll get more targeted advertising
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right and so the advertising at least if
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you're going to have to watch it anyway
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will be more relevant thank you so much
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for talking with us today sure
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