How to Stimulate Sharing and Find the Dollars in Social TV
Social TV is here, but where's the money? Right or wrong, companies want an immediate return on their social TV investments. To help them find the business opportunities in the connected living room, representatives of Turner Sports, Socialite, and the Padem Group met on a panel at the recent Streaming Media West conference.
"There's a clear disparity between consumer behaviors and engagements, and how we're monetizing them," said Erin Gargan, president and CEO of marketing and public relations company Socialite. "There's definitely a chasm to be crossed with that. I think what's interesting is, when we look at the behaviors around social TV it's extremely similar to the sharing behaviors on any other social media strategy."
As with other online behavior, it turns out that what people share and what they engage with are often two different groups.
"One of my girlfriends is the chief scientist at Bitly -- you know, the link shortener -- and what she said is it's interesting that what people are looking at is not always what they're sharing," Gargan said. "You may be looking at sexy Halloween costumes and adult entertainment and cute puppies and kittens, which are the top three most looked at URLs across the whole internet, but they're not the top three most shared. The top three most shared are Forbes "How to Be Successful," "Top 10 Ways to Be More Efficient," politics. People want to appear a certain way to their trusted network."
Knowing that, content companies need to understand how to drive a discussion. Think about the content that people will share with friends and strangers online, and think about what drives chatter.
For more on the business side of social TV, watch the full panel discussion below.
ROUND TABLE: Social TV, Where’s the Money?
In a world cluttered with badges, check-ins, stickers, hashtags, likes, plusses, apps, and so many other terms, is there any real money being exchanged in the world called Social TV? Are users “engaging” with “conversations” about “social” programming, or are they sitting on their couch texting with their friends? TV is inherently a social medium, and people are tweeting and liking things, so there’s some smoke—but where’s the fire? This panel dives into the fire and tries to emerge with some real answers about what’s happening today and where the business opportunities are tomorrow.
Moderator: Jeremy Toeman, CEO, Dijit
Speaker: Pete Scott, VP, Emerging Media, Turner Sports
Speaker: Erin Gargan, President and CEO, Socialite
Speaker: Allan McLennan, CEO, Padem Group