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The tweeting Power of Television
A new study reveals the impact of TV on Twitter and vice versa.
Usually we talk of new media – and especially the new disciplines of social media – as a new type of media that will take the place of the dinosaurs. In the February 15 issue of Advertising Age a contrary thesis was proposed: TV and Twitter can form a symbiosis and profit from each other. A new study conducted with the “topic tracker” tool by Lowe, X-Ray and Scholz & Friends this January proofs this, reveals the interactions between TV and Social Media as complimentary media and shows implications for a new understanding of media reception.
TV still has a great power to unite major audiences at a given time to enjoy the same content. Sometimes the hype of Web 2.0 and Social Media blurs our sight on the real life. But more and more we can see the real effects of a revolutionary change in the media landscape we all experience. The second half of 2009 saw facebook and twitter gain critical reach in mainstream target groups. This means that for the first time it is possible to monitor “real people’s” real time Word-of-Mouth resonance of TV. Especially the openness of twitter makes it easy for groups with a shared interest to build by the use of hash tags. The hash tag principle is far more flexible and less committing than a friendship or group on facebook and its clones. Therefore it is perfect for TV audiences to interact in big groups in real time about the broadcasted content.
There are much potential to use twitter in marketing. The most obvious is research. Lowe teamed up with the social network tracking company X-Ray and partner agency Scholz & Friends to explore the mechanics of TV-resonance on Twitter. From the 8th of January till the 24th of January all German tweets were searched for references to TV-programmes by the use of X-Ray’s social media monitoring tool “Topic Tracker”. It is able to display the 3 dimensions quantity, quality (“sentiment analysis”) and time of social interaction of popular TV programmes. The tool itself works in any language; the study has been conducted in Germany.
The German findings have international relevance, because many top scoring formats are internationally successful . The show with the greatest resonance was the local version of “American Idol/Pop Idol” (“Deutschland sucht den Superstar”). Other internationally successful formats among the top ten are “Who wants to be a millionaire” (“Wer wird Millionär”), “The Simpsons”, “Big Brother” and “Beat the star” (“Schlag den Raab”).
The German version of “Pop Idol” was commented in 11000 tweets. Taking in account the followers of these tweets, the summarized resonance could pass a million contacts. The first qualitative finding is the confirmation of the real time character of social media resonance. Tweets come in as the TV-action takes place. This means that “newness” is key. TV-Shows and TV-premieres score highest . Cliffhangers and high interest are represented by peaking numbers. But commercial brakes bring the stream of tweets to a pause. This is obviously something to watch for in 2010 – could Twitter be used to keep up awareness in commercial brakes?
But the timeline of tweets is not the only finding. By semantic analysis it is possible to track down the sentiment of the programme’s resonance. Positives, negatives and polarizing effects can be detected. For example during the casting of the “Superstar”: The candidates receive very different comments. Fort example candidate “Julia” couldn’t win sympathy on January 16th at 8:20 pm, tweets about her were rather negative. In the contrary only five minutes later “Ina” got very positive feedback.
There is no timelimit. As long as there is attention for a show and enough news value there are tweets. And there is an opportunity for the broadcaster to participate and keep attention up: the openness of twitter allows branded tweets to fire up the discussion with statements, polls etc. Only one broadcaster (Pro 7) uses this opportunity and interacts with the audience via twitter. The results are clearly seen: the two supported programmes “beat the star” (“Schlag den Raab”) und TV total have a significantly more constant stream of tweets.
As a summary there are 5 key things to take out the study:
Twitter is a real time medium, users comment unfiltered and spontaneously.
This impulsive interaction is a potential currently not used by most broadcasters. A pause, e.g. a commercial break, pauses the tweets also.
As of today nothing is done to keep up attention for the advertising – something leading advertisers might want to take a look at in the near future.
Because all tweets come in directly, Twitter is a perfect tool for broadcasters to monitor the audience in real time and to use the findings for improved programmes or better understanding of the competition.
The final insight: TV audiences are far more active than previously estimated. Social media can act like a valve to release potentials of TV till now locked “on the couch”.
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