Twitter talks TV, brands and hashtag engagement before upfronts
Twitter has been making a significant push to engage with TV content providers in recent times. Ahead of tomorrow’s upfronts, Robert Burton-Bradley spoke with Twitter Australia’s head of TV partnerships Tony Broderick.
Why the push into TV?
“Quite simply, because we’ve seen that Australians love using Twitter to engage with TV. Twitter was never designed to be this default second screen for television but that’s how the audience has naturally adopted it, so it makes sense for us to respond to that.”
What is the value here for Twitter, and what about for the the creators and owners of TV shows?
“It’s our ambition to create a platform with the largest daily audience in the world, and with TV such a big part of how people consume media today, TV is a natural partner for Twitter.
“For the creators and owners of TV shows, we know that TVxTwitter drives tune in, and sustained tune-in at that. We’ll be releasing some new research into this on Thursday night at the TVxTwitter Upfronts event.”
What is the value to brands of having strong Twitter hashtags associated with a TV show during broadcast?
“Hashtags make it easier to filter and search for a topic, so viewers don’t have to following the same people or hunt around. TV hashtags are great for things like pinpointing moments, drive voting and even creating content from fans. Getting fans Tweeting around a hashtag can also increase loyalty and keep people engaged with the show longer. For shows themselves, comments using the hashtag can also act as an instant focus group on audience reaction.”
Why do some shows perform better than others on Twitter, is it the nature of the show/audience or is it more the strategy employed by the team promoting the show on Twitter, for example the performance of Q&A versus MKR or The Block in terms of hashtag use?
“Entertainment and Reality TV drives masses of conversation on Twitter because they contains many of the elements that make these sort of shows Twitter friendly. They have lots of results or decision moments throughout the show that the audience will have strong opinions on, there are regular contestant feedback points for people to Tweet about, and, perhaps best of all, they are funny.
“It’s also worth nothing that the show with the highest Tweet volume won’t necessarily translate to the show with the highest reach as who tweets about your shows (and their influence, number of followers) can make this vary. The NTTR (Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings being launched tomorrow) will be the only metric that measures this for TV partners.”
