5 Recent Twitter-TV Partnerships

According to Nielsen, 19 million people in the US wrote 263 million tweets about live TV in the second quarter of this year alone. That’s a 24 percent increase in authors compared to last year, and a 38 percent increase in Tweet volume. So it’s no surprise that partnerships between the social network and TV networks—and now operators as well—have popped up with increased frequency. Here are 5 recent partnerships between Twitter and TV content creators. Expect many other creative integrations to come.

 

 

This month Comcast announced a deal with Twitter that directly involves social media activity in immediate content creation, with the end goal of driving ratings and viewer engagement. A “See It” button embedded in TV tweets, which lets viewers change the channel, record programs and watch on mobile, is launching in November. NBCU shows, both broadcast and cable, will be the first to use the feature this fall season. For more details go here. 

 

As of today, British Sky Broadcasting will share highlight clips of global soccer tournament UEFA Champions League via its twitter feed. Instant replays, goals and behind-the-scenes interviews will be promoted by the social outlet with the goal of enticing viewers to try Sky Sports’ pay TV channels and its pay-as-you-go service Internet service. According to The Financial Times, the company went through a trial of the free offering on transfer deadline day in September, and approximately 6,000 clips garnered more than 570,000 views in 12 hours. As the FT points out, it’s a big step in Twitter’s TV strategy ahead of its initial public offering. 

 

 

ESPN has partnered with Twitter in the past, such as an strategic integration during last year’s NBA finals, in which fans tweeted photos of their #GameFace. For this college football season, the net partnered with Twitter for the #DidYouSeeThat campaign, which entailed embedding replays in tweets with college football handles and using Verizon Wireless as the sponsor for the social video ads. Another sport that’s using Twitter Amplify is tennis. During the U.S. Open the United States Tennis Association offered video highlights, with Heineken on board as sponsor.

 

Viacom inked a deal with Twitter across its channels to develop a Twitter Amplify social video advertising campaign in and around the ’13 "MTV Video Music Awards.” And thanks to Miley’s twerking antics, which notched up 306,000 tweets per minute (that’s more than Beyonce’s performance at the Superbowl), we’re guessing the campaign went well. Using massive tentpole events—whether an award show or a huge premiere like “The Walking Dead”—to drum up social activity has become a critical part of the TV marketer’s toolbox. Take the audience of 16 million that tuned into the recent Dead premiere. In the first minute viewers posted 39,994 tweets about it, which amounted to 88% of all TV-related tweets. The grand total was 1,171,994 tweets and, not surprisingly, the show was the #1 program that day on social media platforms.

 

 

And of course, we can’t forget the recently launched Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, which aims to capitalize on the efforts from the above-mentioned campaigns. It uses analytics from SocialGuide to measure the size of an audience participating on social—and also those who are simply observing yet still exposed to the social activity. You can learn more about the ratings here.