TVloop Blog

As election fever takes hold of the nation, we’re getting into it at Watercooler as well.  In fact, as I type there are probably no less than 10 people constantly refreshing CNN.com to get the latest results.  In actuality, we got into the election game months ago when we developed versions of our TVLoop “Addicted to” applications for a variety of politicians during the Republican and Democratic primaries. Not surprisingly, the only ones that get any action now are those we made for Barack Obama and John McCain. The results as of Election Day: Obama - 74K users and McCain - 29K users.  So is it safe to say that Watercooler applications could correctly predict the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election?  Probably not, but our numbers certainly follow the general trend that Jeremiah Owyang blogged about earlier this week which is that Obama is dominating social media including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  The TVLoop McCain application did show a higher percentage growth in Oct with 26% to Obama’s 22%, but the Obama application had significantly higher raw number growth with 14K to 6K.  The one thing that is very clear is that you’ll see all candidates embrace social media early and often in 2012.  Just a little something to look forward to.

We spend a lot of time at Watercooler and TVLoop developing product features that provide members with engaging communities where they can gather with their fellow fans to discuss their favorite TV shows.  At the same time, it’s important to consider our bottom line, which leads to a lot of discussions around how we can provide brands with innovative, creative advertising solutions without detracting from the user experience.  Or better yet, how can we implement advertising solutions so that we actually make the product better at the same time?  That’s the nirvana of the interactive advertising world, especially as it relates to social media.  So without further adieu, here are our recommendations for the top 6 ways advertisers should use social media to engage users:

1. Be relevant
2. Be authentic
3. Be part of the product
4. Use the social graph
5. Don’t get in the way
6. Analyze the right metrics

Be Relevant
Relevance is key to driving engagement.  No matter how creative and integrated a campaign is, if you’re trying to get the community to embrace Lipitor content, you’re in for a long road.  That’s not to say that online pharmaceutical campaigns cannot be impactful, but successful social media campaigns establish emotional connections between consumers and brands.

Be Authentic
You can’t fake community and attempting to fool your audience will make the publisher and the brand irrelevant. Don’t try to turn a campaign or brand into something it’s not.

Be part of the product
Nothing will increase brand engagement like making it part of the normal user experience.  At TVLoop, we’ve had a great deal of success doing this with sponsored trivia questions.  Users love trivia and embrace sponsored questions as readily as those submitted by other users.

Use the social graph
The whole point of social media is to be social, right?  Yet you see numerous examples of brands haphazardly throwing up display ads on Facebook or blogs because they think they need to be in the game in some format.  If you do the first three things right and you make sure the social hooks are there, users will tell their friends and your brand message will spread virally.

Don’t get in the way
A successful social media campaign enhances the product and does not compromise the user experience.  Your brand should be integrated in a way that makes it very visible (hey, that’s what you’re paying for), but you should not negatively impact what the user does every day.

Analyze the right metrics
If display advertising is your bag, reach and frequency are always going to be the primary metrics.  However, if you’re looking to expand into social media prepare to alter your world view. Impressions and unique users are still important, but be sure to look at engagement metrics such as discussion posts, viral distribution, and other brand interactions when crunching results.  And don’t discount the qualitative impact of social media campaigns.

Social media advertising and conversational marketing are all the rage these days and there are many case studies proving their worth.  But the landscape is also littered with the remains of campaigns gone bad, or those that never had a chance because of their structure.  Follow the rules of engagement and prevent your campaign from becoming one of them.

While the movie Twilight is about a month away from being released in theaters, fans are starting to rally around the movie on Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks.  Since September 1, TVLoop’s Addicted to Twilight application has exploded from ~19K users to ~103k as of October 22.  That’s an astronomical growth of 444% in just over 50 days.  There are some other applications that have had triple digit growth rates in the same amount of time, but the next closest application in terms of raw number growth is Addicted to The Office with ~35K new members.

So what’s the story with Twilight?  For those of you not female and under the age of 20, Twilight is based on a vampire romance book series of the same name in which the main character, a teen girl, falls in love with a vampire.  The book series has had a cult-like following for the last 3 years with hundreds of fan sites, blogs, and forums dedicated providing passionate fans a place to be heard.  As a result of the early fan reactions, the highly anticipated movie is predicted to be a resounding success.  If the TVLoop numbers are any indication, Twilight is off to a great start.  The movie hits theaters on Nov 21, 2008.

Who doesn’t like sitting around with friends and family to discuss the craziness of Lost plotlines?  Whatever happened to those polar bears anyway?  Now, thanks to Internet properties such as TVLoop, consumers don’t have to limit discussions to the people around them, but can bring them online for a more wide-scale and interactive experience.  As social media and social networking in particular continues to permeate all aspects of our daily lives, it was only a matter of time before it impacted our television viewing behavior.

In retrospect, it’s really just a new slant on an old idea.  The birth of the Internet allowed people to start fan blogs and discussion forums for their favorite shows, extending the viewer experience through conversation. But social media is not only transforming the way you discuss TV, but also the way you consume it as well.  For instance, ABC recently won a Webbie award for its online video player by Move Networks while CBS.com has announced the implementation of Social Viewing Rooms where viewers can chat it up with other CSI fans while they’re watching the episode in real time.  And of course at TVLoop, we make it easy for members to view full-length episodes of ABC, NBC, FOX and other broadcast network shows within our individual applications.

The key question is whether viewers want to be social while actually watching an episode, or should that come in the post-episode discussion?  Personally, it drives me crazy when my wife wants to discuss the intricate details of Kate and Sawyer’s relationship while I’m trying to watch John Locke kill something.  Are there more people like me, or are there plenty of social butterflies looking to multi-task?  Which brings me back to my original question: Is watching television a social experience?  There is no right or wrong answer there, but we’ll continue to explore that question and others dealing with the role of social media in television on this blog.

The TVLoop Blog is the official blog of Watercooler’s TVLoop television fan communities. Watercooler currently develops sports and TV communities for Facebook, MySpace and other top social networks. As such, we have a front row seat for how consumers are interacting with television content within social networks and social media in general. We’ll share those insights on this blog and welcome feedback, questions, and discussions. If you have any suggestions regarding topics, please feel free to add them here send us a note.