Engaging Viewers Through Social Television

Chances are your attention is focused on more than one screen when you’re watching television in your living room. By using your laptop, tablet or smartphone while watching TV, you are actually enhancing and socializing your experience during a broadcast.

Social television used to be about watching a television show and waiting until the next day to talk about it with your co-workers and friends. Today, social television revolves around mobile apps, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, mobile TV and advertisements.

Last week, Randy Matheson and I led a Lunch & Learn for the Delvinia and AskingCanadians™ teams to talk about the shift in consumer behaviour and the trends that are emerging in social TV.

The idea of being interactive and social started more than a decade ago with the debut of shows like American Idol, a live reality show that encouraged viewers to vote via text message or phone. Today, American Idol has opened up its voting options by allowing viewers to vote on Facebook—for free. This demonstrates how social television has become an essential part of the viewer experience. And, being part of that experience makes it more appealing to watch live.

When you look at recent live events that have tied in social media, the statistics surrounding viewer participation have increased significantly. For example, during the live broadcast of the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, CNN created a Facebook integrated status update next to the live video stream on its website, resulting in more than 600,000 status updates by the end of the broadcast. The inauguration was streamed to 5.3 million viewers, setting a record for the network.

Fast forward to 2011 and the royal wedding, which sparked more than 2.7 million social mentions, with 94.7 per cent coming from Twitter. At one point during the April 29 event, live streaming peaked at 1.3 million. Statistics like this provide great insight to companies that want to use social television to engage viewers.

Television series such as Glee encourage fans to continuously use the hashtag #glee while watching the show live. Glee cast members also tweet to their fans during the show, driving the conversation levels up by 300 per cent.

Because of social television, networks and companies are also extending their websites and shows to become more compatible with mobile devices, which makes the two screen experience even better.

Delvinia-Designed Website Launched by Ivey Publishing

Ivey Publishing, an extension of the Richard Ivey School of Business, is a world leader in business case production and distribution. The organization’s website, iveycases.com, is its primary promotion and sales channel to its worldwide audience.

Faced with a shift in client behaviour and a desire to grow the company, Ivey Publishing called on Delvinia to redesign the site to make it easier for customers to search for materials and more convenient to order case studies. To shape the website strategy and design activities, Delvinia engaged the end users throughout the life cycle of the project, developing a series of consumer profiles based on interviews conducted with internal stakeholders and Ivey customers from around the world.

“The improvements to the site are rooted in an understanding of the digital behaviours of Ivey Publishing’s customer base,” said Delvinia President Steve Mast. “The new site provides greater choice in the ways customers can shop for products and lays the foundation for future growth by allowing customers to better self serve.”

Developed in collaboration with Affinity Systems, iveycases.com provides customers with easy access to more than 23,000 case studies in categories like finance, operations management and marketing. An express order section offers convenience to existing clients and a faceted search function allows for continual refinement of results based on a number of criteria. The design, anchored in customer insights, enables Ivey Publishing customers to self-serve, reducing the staff-to-customer ratio and allowing Ivey Publishing to grow in a scalable way.

Gregory Yantz, Associate Director of Ivey Publishing, applauded the approach to the project. “Delvinia’s collaborative approach created a great sense of ownership internally and a lot of pride in the outcome,” he said of the process. “It was clear from early on that Delvinia recognized our needs. The team also focused on our end customers’ needs and designed the site based on those needs.”

Since 2009, Delvinia has worked closely with the Richard Ivey School of Business in developing its overall online strategy and digital design, successfully launching the institution’s home page, Executive Development website and the Honors of Business Administration (HBA) website. In March 2011, the institution selected Delvinia as its preferred vendor for web development for the next three years. In addition to being selected as a preferred vendor, Delvinia continues to work with various stakeholders at Ivey.

New Faces at AskingCanadians™: Roy Gonsalves

Hi everyone!  My name is Roy Gonsalves and I’m taking on the role of Director of Sales with AskingCanadians™. I’m joining AskingCanadians™ with 15 years of experience in the market research industry, specializing in data collection, which has provided me with the insight to provide unparalleled support to clients.

I am passionate about market research and aim to ensure that every project is executed with integrity and a high standard of quality and service. In my new role with AskingCanadians™, I look forward to having the opportunity to deliver superior customer service by helping our clients navigate through the ever-changing digital landscape.

When I’m not talking shop with colleagues and clients, I’m most likely cooking for family and friends. Hungry?