Do You Talk Back To Your TV? Well Now, It Can Hear You!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 | 5 Comments
Tags: Alexa Chung, Community, conversational listening, customer engagement, MTV, power of social media, radian6, social media tracking, twitter, twitter tracker, visualization
Posted in: Community, Listening, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring, Technology
& MTV is listening….
MTV is changing TV – yet again. It’s listening and engaging with its audience – which at first glance, just sounds smart, not new. But when you consider the audience is engaging from Twitterville, it starts to sound really interesting.
TV and Twitter Talking Together?
What do Tiger Woods, Adam Lambert and Twilight’s movie cast have in common? While it sounds like the start of a bad joke, they’re actually the hot topics among the at-home TV audience for an MTV pop culture show – where real-time conversations from Twitter are integrated into the content of the TV show; “It’s On With Alexa Chung”.
Alexa Chung is a 26-year-old former British model turned TV host. Her American MTV show debuted in June featuring celebrity interviews, live music and videos: a mash up of TV and web to attract a young audience who spends time on Facebook and Twitter.
The audience interacts across a number of platforms: TV, online and mobile. There’s a large and active following on Twitter. The show engages that Twitter audience who tweet their thoughts about the guests and the show. Then MTV takes the pulse of viewers by aggregating the themes of those Twitter conversations. What’s cool is that MTV then reflects that picture back to the audience via a visualization called Twitter Tracker.
MTV’s Twitter Tracker visualizes the volume of tweets around a guest or show topic based on the Twitter activity generated by MTV’s hosts, guests and fans. An individual who will never step inside the MTV studio is still able to engage, contribute content and become a catalyst to generate even more conversations – while becoming part of a community of fans and part of the story.
The show broadcasts weekdays for 30-minutes but the Twitter Tracker keeps the pulse of conversation going for the other 23.5 hours a day on its website — giving fans the opportunity to engage anytime. This builds on MTV’s continued leadership in being a brand that engages its audience where, when and how they want.
The Genesis of Twitter Tracker:
The potential to use this innovative application with a daily audience has its roots in a couple of successful one-time shows. Twitter visualizations were first used during the MTV Video Music Awards show September 13th and again during the European Music Awards show November 5th. As the shows were being broadcast, the Twitter Tracker was reflecting what people at home were tweeting about the show, connecting the at-home audience with a TV host who was reporting what was being tweeted. The show inspired the tweets and the audience’s tweets fed the show. What celebrity doesn’t want instant feedback?
Here’s a taste of the first MTV Twitter visualization at the VMAs:
How it works and why it’s important:
These applications and content are created through a partnership of MTV, Twitter, Stamen Design and Radian6. Stamen creates the great visuals and applications that plug into the Radian6 platform.
For Radian6, it’s great to have clients like MTV who use the Radian6 platform in new and different ways. It also shows the potential of integration of social media with TV and other forms of offline media.
More importantly it shows how MTV works on growing a community. Engaging their audience and fans online at any time of day keeps them connected with content, not just during a broadcast. It also enables a window into the audience to discover what they’re thinking and talking about. It’s no longer just about watching TV; it’s about enabling a live interaction between the show and the audience. By bringing the community into the content, brings new people into the conversation and reinforces to the audience that they are part of the whole experience.
So what’s next?
MTV has been a leader in pretty well everything in media since it launched in 1981. It’s a network built on firsts: in programming, technology, popular culture and personalities. They’ve continually shaped and reflected the new and the emerging and no doubt will challenge us at Radian6 with new ideas to engage their community in the experience.
About Rob: Rob Begg is Radian6’s Director of Business Development for the media and entertainment industries. You can connect with Rob on Twitter @rbegg.
5 Responses to “Do You Talk Back To Your TV? Well Now, It Can Hear You!”
Mark on December 21st, 2009 at 9:43 pm
This is the future of marketing.engaged viewers watching and involved in the shows content.Viewers have a vested interest in their show.
Hismaiel on January 13th, 2010 at 11:31 am
When the first X Factor 2010 Auditions Start as I miss my last one
Tweetbacks
chrisramsey (Chris Ramsey) on December 8th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Great post on MTV, VMA, Alexa Chung and the fusion of social media and TV by @rbegg http://tinyurl.com/y85tqef
Jeremy Fischer on December 8th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
This might be the best thing MTV has done since they basically stopped playing music. This could almost make up for Real World, which issued our society in the reality television everyone-gets-your-fifteen-minutes-of-fame era.