traci gregory AGENCY » social media

How Social Media is Changing the Business of Television

Posted on: March 30, 2011

In this article, Bravo Digital Media’s Senior Vice President Lisa Hsia writes about how social media is reshaping the television business. Social media has opened up means for people to share real-time to practically anyone in the world, and that is helping quality television get more people engaged and watching.

Real-Time Participation Generates Buzz and More

[F]riends tell friends when things happen on the air, and that viral conversation turns TVs on,” says Hsia. At the core of it, what social media has done is to give TV viewers a voice and the power to influence programming and other audiences via this avenue for instantaneous feedback.

Bravo is still starting out on measuring and utilizing statistics that show how much social media use affect TV ratings. Yet the means available to them through social media measures not only the number of people who are tuned in, but also the sentiment of a specific group, with the help of tools such as the Trendrr dashboard and Sysomos.

“From Must-See TV to Must-Tweet TV”

Because the activity from social media is now easily archived and measured, social media is ever so inclined to influence the development of programming. The same tools mentioned above can be used to determine future programming decisions, such as whether to keep a program running for another season or not, or which pilot to develop going into a new season based on viewer votes.

Keeping the Conversation Going

Online conversation about a TV program typically increases during prime time and the day after airing. Naturally, the next step would be to get the discussion going all day, everyday, and this goal is what has inspired Bravo to create Bravo Talk Bubble and @BravoTV, where fans, producers, actors, and others invested in a program can keep the conversation going in a more meaningful way. What that also means for advertisers is an ongoing possibility of opening discussion about their own product.

Hsia recommends any TV network must strive to gain access to real-time conversation about shows, brands, and TV personalities to help in programming development and tap into its potential in keeping audiences engaged.

Learn more on how Bravo Digital Media makes the most of the social revolution.

Categories: Social Media

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50,000 Twitter Tools

Posted on: March 28, 2011

Third Party Twitter Application Usage

In its early days, Twitter was only accessible through a personal computer with Internet access. But as its popularity grew and opened doors to third party developers, unofficial applications lent different dimensions and even improvements to an otherwise simple service. Experts may go as far as to say third party applications played an important role in boosting Twitter’s popularity over a short period of time.

50,000 Twitter applications

In November 2009, Sysomos sampled 5 million tweets gathered over the previous 5 months to find out the most popular Twitter clients. Collectively, third party twitter applications made up 53.21% of all tweets in that time period. By the end of that year, the number of applications built around Twitter reached 50,000. In April 2010, that figure doubled to 100,000 around the time of their first developer conference.

KISS defined the need for stricter policies for third-party developers

It did not take long before Twitter developed its own suite of official applications to cater to various user segments, including mobile apps Twitter for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android. Meanwhile, Twitter seemed determined to fight off third-party developers for reasons such as Terms of Service violations. Security issues and keeping the service simple for users also became the hot topics behind Twitter’s stricter policies in allowing access to third-party developers.

Twitter’s API changes kill hundreds of apps

In March 2011, Twitter published changes to its application programming interface or API, that discourages software developers from creating clients that allow users to write, view, and respond to Tweets, while saying those existing clients should keep serving their users. Twitter stated that 90% of its users accessed the service through official apps. Shortly after the announcement, Sysomos conducted a study that found third party applications still brought in 42% of tweets to Twitter, based on a sample of 25 million tweets. These non-official apps include TweetDeck, Seesmic, Echofon, and HootSuite.

Apparently, TweetDeck Rocks

In this latest study, TweetDeck is still among the most popular, accounting for 5.5% of all tweets, although it is down from its 8.48% share in 2009. As TweetDeck accounts for 13.1% of all tweets from non-official clients, it is flanked by two other UberMedia owned apps, UberSocial (16.4%) and Echofon (9.2%).

In future posts, we’ll explore what these applications do, and whether or not we’d use them!

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12731343

http://mashable.com/2011/03/15/twitter-apps-stats/

http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/clients/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/15/urnidgns852573c40069388088257705006cb8b-idUS318835875620100415

http://www.enterprisemobiletoday.com/features/otherapps/article.php/3902171/Twitter-Details-Mobile-Growth-Third-Party-Client-Use.htm

Categories: twitter

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Your Social Connection

Posted on: January 31, 2011

If you aren’t a GenY Facebook user, or any generation FB user, and are planning a foray into social media for the purpose of becoming a ‘known’ entity, or making your company or brand a known entity, Prepare Yourself. Facebook isn’t all that it seems. And it is more. I know. Confusing.

Time Magazine Person of the Year

Well, really, who else could it be? Person of the year, I mean. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the youngest billionaires in the country, if not the world, since history began keeping up with billionaires. The brain behind Facebook and its 500 million users. We’re told he is the brains behind Facebook, although he may not be the brains behind the idea of facebook. † See Winklevoss Twins Video below

Lev Grossman, writing for Time, gets into the conversation about the movie. There is so much controversy there! (to which he isn’t going to contribute via Time).

He describes the movie, The Social Network, as

a rich, dramatic portrait of a furious, socially handicapped genius who spits corrosive monologues in a monotone to hide his inner pain. This character bears almost no resemblance to the actual Mark Zuckerberg.

The reality is much more complicated.

Translation: See the movie for details.

While he writes in glowing terms about how Zuckerberg’s co-workers really like him, he also includes remarks like

His default expression is a direct and slightly wide-eyed stare that makes you wonder if you’ve got a spider on your forehead.

Translation: You can almost see it on the Time cover, but really, you’ve gotta see the movie for this!

Grossman comes back with more of the nice stuff

… Zuckerberg loves being around people. He didn’t build Facebook so he could have a social life like the rest of us. He built it because he wanted the rest of us to have his.

italics mine

Perhaps because I’m not GenY, I don’t find Facebook very sociable

I’m thinking maybe I don’t want the social life of Zuckerberg . . . I long for a glass of wine and a quiet conversation where people aren’t interrupting for texts or phone calls, or to check in on Facebook and Twitter.

In the social life he grants me (Facebook) I read narcissistic banter that details minutia

… Almond milk for breakfast. Can’t get enough.

and announces new friends

… Billy Bob is now friends with JC, Onjolina, Ricky Ricardo and 19 others …

And, then, when I question one of my daughters on a remark she made on Facebook, her response is

Why are you Facebook Stalking me? That’s Facebook stuff, that’s not real life stuff.

Oh.

So here we are, Non GenY Facebookers, counting the likes on our Pages like teenagers reading remarks in a slambook. (I’m a child of the sixties, what can I tellya?) And we are thinking we are going to ride the Facebook wave to our own version of 500,000,000 users.

Lately I’m thinking, maybe not.

We should be realistic about what we expect from Facebook. It isn’t sales nirvana. It isn’t going to be your online retail outlet.

It can only be the connection YOU form with the people you come across. And then, you can only introduce yourself, your company, or your brand. Or all three as the case may be. Whether or not the people you introduce yourself to befriend you, listen to you, and eventually wander over to your website and purchase your wares . . . That is a known unknown. Unless, of course, you sell Almond milk!

Zuckerberg wants you to have his social experience. Given a choice, I’d rather have his money.

Other Former Facebook Players I met in the movie

The Real Winklevoss Twins Defend “The Social Network”

YouTube Video of the tall, good-looking twins promoting The Social Network. Interesting to see the real deal.

Sean Parker in Vanity Fair

In a recent article in Vanity Fair, Sean Parker’s life is described as

a cycle of vertiginous triumph followed by humiliating failure . . . and himself as the hard-partying, press-shy genius of social networking, a budding billionaire, and about to be famous.

about to be famous?? Are you kiddin’ me? Maybe the VF author isn’t GenY either.

Previous Posts of Relevance: Social Media Bottom Line: What do you get, and what does it cost?

Next Up in this Series: As a Company, or a Brand, What Can You Really Expect from Social Media

Excerpt: I found a recent survey taken by Bazaar Voice regarding satisfaction of results from Social Media. You can see the full size graph here . . . . And you can see that satisfaction is growing for Facebook and Twitter, but the author of the article voiced surprised at the numbers. Could it be the survey was taken on a good day, and the actual numbers aren’t going to be revealed to us at all?

Categories: facebook

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Reputation Management (a/k/a Damage Control)

Posted on: January 17, 2011

Start Reputation Management Before You Need It

There are systems that you should put in place before you’re in trouble . . . true damage control comes with being prepared, not trying to put out fires as they pop up. The worst instance of the need for damage control was the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf in 2010, but they made it worse with their efforts to downplay the level of contamination. Then Tony Hayward, chief executive, visited Venice, Louisiana, to apologize for the disaster (the worst oil spill in American history) and said “no one wants this over more than I do.” But he added the remark,

I would like my life back.

Damage control for their damage control

That faux pas actually made it to the number one spot in “the year in Briefing’ in Time magazine’s person of the year issue for 2010, along with John Tyner remarking on his “junk”, Hillary Clinton denying another run for the presidency and Pope Benedict XVI acknowledging fault in the child-sexual-abuse scandal.

Talk about bad company.

Cinéma vérité, better known in Los Angeles as Reality TV

I use both Google Alerts and StepRep for some assignments I’m working on – the most amusing are for a couple of C-List Los Angeles actresses (who shall remain nameless, less I shoot myself in the foot here) who have more bad press than good. And, who shudder every time they think a producer or casting company may ‘google’ them before making casting calls.

There are probably a dozen instances of reality tv catapulting people into prominence (and with that, a successful career in entertainment) but there are even more instances of reality tv ‘stars’ being vilified in the press. The very nature of reality tv, to show the viewers how absurdly the reality personality lives, encourages the very worst press coverage. Actors who think they will use reality tv as the path to fame and fortune seldom realize that path is wrought with peril – particularly if they really do live the drunken debauchery they portray in their particular reality series. When the reality tv ride comes to an end, and they don’t have, and can’t get, a decent gig, all that ‘hot’ press they got for their last job may not be the answer to moving to A-List (or even B-List) status.

Get Rid of the sleaze or Replace it with some Sparkle

Unfortunately, getting rid of the avalanche of bad publicity is never an easy task, however, in this day and age of blogs and social media it is possible to actually push the trash to back pages by simply overwhelming the media with better info. A blog that is indexed by Google will, in pretty short order, have every page listed at the top of search results. Ditto with Facebook and Twitter: they are indexed almost immediately, and a search for an actor or actress will bring up the fresh content first, moving the bad PR to page 2 or 3.

There is such a thing as “bad publicity”

It is simply a matter of getting an organized view of the trash talk and working the tools to get ahead of it. Way ahead. We can do that.

Damage Control Tools

There are several methods of keeping up with what is being said about you or your brand that are better than taking the time to ‘google’ yourself or your company. Google Alerts is a great tool, but can be overwhelming if you aren’t precise in your settings. Google tells you you can monitor the web for “interesting new content” but the people I know use it to monitor it for interesting new content relevant to them.

Google Alerts suggests

monitoring a developing news story
keeping current on a competitor or industry
getting the latest on a celebrity or event
keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

Designing your Google Alerts

Once you’ve set up an account to get Google Alerts, enter your topic, and choose the level of results you want to receive:

Choose from news, blogs, realtime, video, or everything
Choose to get the results as it happens, every day, every week
And then it is the volume you are willing to receive. Your choices are All and only the best

StepRep: reputation intelligence for small business

An alternative to Google Alerts, is StepRep, who advertises as “reputation intelligence for small business.” I use StepRep as a supplement to Google Alerts. StepRep gives you all the data that Google Alerts does, and gives you the opportunity to go through their findings and mark your personal content along with things that are not relevant to you or your search.

I was dismayed to find the number of people named Traci Gregory on the internet. Not that it seems such an unusual name, but I had to go through a lot of data that was irrelevant to get to the instances of my Traci Gregory.

Start Now, Before You Need It

Set up your alerts on either service (or both) and think of all the worst phrases you would hate to see in connection with your brand. Think also of what you’re going to do on your blog and your website if worst comes to worst and you’re fighting some really bad press. You can’t catch it all, and you certainly can’t contain it if you haven’t got a plan.

But you can call me; or send me an email: traci@tracigregory.com

Other Surprising Moments in the Press

Former Pres. George W. Bush, and brother Jeb

From Twitter to Hollywood, A Success Story

From Blog to Book . . . to Movie!

Categories: Reputation Management, Social Media

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Real-Time Participation Generates Buzz and More

“From Must-See TV to Must-Tweet TV”

Keeping the Conversation Going

Tweet MORE?

Blog MORE?

Days and Times to Blog, FB and email

New Twitter Tools I Like

Twitter Signature Tool