Social Media Lifts TV Show Ratings

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Written by Brett H. Pojunis | 14 December 2010

The head brass at television networks are finally embracing what most people have known for awhile: that social media is where the action is. With social media sites taking up more time than TV for television's favored demographics, the industry has finally decided to stop competing with social media and are finding ways to partner with it.

The catalyst for much of this newfound synergy might be found in the report that The Real Housewives of New York City, a much-advertised show on the Bravo network, received a 10 percent boost in ratings when the station advertised a partnership with social media.

Bravo told its audience to watch the Real Housewives show in the "Bravo Talk Bubble", a forum in which viewers can hold real-time conversations during episodes of the show. Viewers can also view real-time tweets from the stars of the show, and they can also incorporate Twitter if they are more comfortable with that platform.

Conan O'Brien did the same experiment with his recent debut on TBS, and the late-night talk show continues to advertise an online forum during the airing of the program. Ratings show that subsequent boosts were even higher for Conan than for The Real Housewives of New York.

With tools like Trendrr, which tracks real-time Twitter conversations, businesses are now receiving for cheap or free what they used to have to pay dearly for in the form of focus groups. There are now many websites dedicated to tracking, interpreting and compiling Twitter results, seemingly legitimizing the value of this data. With the recent updates of Twitter creating its own attention streams and nicheverses, businesses can see more than ever exactly what demographics they affect and what their target markets really want.

If the big corporations are any indication, utilizing online tracking analytics and partnering with social media are essential for any business. Analytics that were once only available to large businesses are now available for free to anyone smart enough to access the correct sites and interpret the data. And not only are these tools free market research, but also real-time tools to test reactions and even provide boosts to productivity.

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