Social Media Analytics: The Next ‘Poster Boy’ of TV and Entertainment Industry

As a social media enthusiast, I am impressed by the number of TV shows that have active social pages on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube etc.

Yet, I believe that the entrainment industry still has a lot to learn from social, especially from social media analytics. That said, I can’t deny that I pleasantly surprised by RTL Nederland’s successful use of social analytics.

This Dutch multimedia and entertainment company has successfully and very, very effectively used Predictive and Sentiment Analytics for market research, program formatting and ideation, improving the quality of current shows and most of all, incorporating audience feedback into their shows and give them customized content.

For their two popular shows, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD, Dutch version), a dance reality show and X Factor, a singing reality show, RTL collaborated with InSites Consulting^*, a market research agency to monitor and measure the two shows’ audiences’ comments on the social media.

Here’s what RTL Nederland achieved from social media analytics –

      a)    Improve decision making and market understanding:

Found out which topics (relating to the two shows) created the most buzz.

      b)    Analyze positive, negative or neutral sentiments:

Sentiment Analysis measured the viewers’ thoughts after the show and found that there always was an increase in the positive buzz – a clear indication that the show was hit.

      c)  Measure audience attitudes and quickly adapt the show accordingly:

When it was found that a certain contestant on SYTYCD generated no vibe at all, the show’s programmers went on to give the said contestant a complete style makeover. This new development instantly became the ‘talk of the social’ and generated much positive sentiments.

   

       d)   Understand customer needs and preferences:

 Learning that the songs and themes in X- Factor were much talked about, the show’s programmers increased their audience involvement during the finals week. They let their audiences to pick the songs that the finalists would sing in the finals.

So you see, social media analytics empowers broadcasting and entertainment businesses to effectively tap into their audiences’ psyche, and with razor sharp precision ascertain what they expect from new shows and how they want their existing favourite shows to progress.

 

As Emilie van dan Berge, RTL Nederland’s Senior Research and Intelligence Project Leader puts it, by listening to our viewers, we give the power to contribute to the creative process – helping us produce better, more compelling television for our audiences.

If you are a TV production house aiming to explore and exploit the power of social media analytics, then write to us at info@shoutanalytics.com.

Social Media and Entertainment: Truly Made for Each Other

What do Psy, Varun Agarwal and Dhanush have in common?

Psy’s Gangnam Style and Dhanush’s Kolaveri Di went viral on the social media and set the world tapping its foot to its rhythm.  Varun Agarwal’s blog and Facebook posts were compiled to make the book, How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-founded a Million Dollar Company. These entertainers owe their success in the entertainment industry entirely to social media. It brought them unprecedented fame and success.

Social media in itself is considered as the biggest entertainer. But social media’s power to influence and drive the entertainment industry is even bigger. The relationship between entertainment and social media and also with individuals consuming the two is quite strong. In fact, statistics reveal that while watching TV, 83% of people surf the web, 79% visit Facebook and 41% tweet about the show that they are watching.

People go to watch movies based on the reviews in the social media, reality shows are the topic of discussion on Facebook, photos from a rock concert are shared and liked all over the social media and sporting events are the hottest  topics on Twitter.

Social Media and Entertainment in India:

Today, more and more individuals rely on social media for deciding whether or not to watch movies. Knowing this well, directors and production houses are now using social media to promote their movies and generate a positive buzz around it through exceptional engagement ideas and other marketing strategies.

In India, Bollywood and Cricket are two of the biggest entertainment forces. For a nation that simply swoons over its celebrities and yearns to get every little detail of their personal and professional life, the social media was a custom made solution. The celebrities too have made the best use of social media. Most of the leading actors and cricketers are active on Twitter and Facebook and they are among the most highly followed people on social media. It has brought the celebrities and fans closer to each other like never before. What is even more interesting is the active and engaging presence of distributing companies, directors, scriptwriters, lyricists etc on social media. Even TV stars are not far behind in sharing news and photos from their shows.

So, at a time when movie-goers are turning real-time critics by tweeting reviews, wannabe authors are writing their manuscripts as status updates and musicians and theater artists using Pinterest and YouTube to promote their works, we know for sure that social media and entertainment are truly made for each other.