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Do You Facebook While You Watch TV? You’re Not Alone
Did you know that your activity on Facebook has an impact on your favorite television shows? From “Liking” your favorite show, adding them as a favorite on your profile or discussing them in your status, you can help or hurt a television show.
You can think of Facebook as the new office water cooler and television executives are watching—wanting to know the type of reaction their shows get week after week. As a matter of fact, television executives are now seeing social media as one of the quickest ways to gain viewership. This is probably because people are likely to watch shows that their friends deem interesting or worthy. The best advertising a television show can receive is to have it recommended by a family member or close friend.
Rather than watching shows together (since it’s become the norm for everyone to have internet and cable packages, people are engaging in dialogue via Facebook and other online networking sites. They share information and opinions about episodes and talk to each other. Television networks spend a great deal of time and portions of the marketing budgets reviewing the discussion about their shows to determine how people feel about each season. You may notice that on Twitter, television shows and their content become trending topics during prime time, for example.
Television networks are trying to find new ways for people to interact with their favorite shows as they watch. Network executives know that people often use social media platforms as they watch their shows, so they want to allow people to provide feedback online as they watch.
ABC has experimented with iPhone and iPad applications for its shows, allowing polls and trivia surrounding popular shows such as Grey’s Anatomy. The feedback from these applications are used as data for the networks to provide better shows that people are more likely to watch.
According to Facebook’s Director of Media Partnerships, Justin Osofsky, more than 275 million users have “liked” a television show on Facebook and the average individual likes an average of six television shows. This could be why so many television executives are relying on Facebook to improve viewership, fan loyalty and to sell products related to their shows.
Nearly 40 million people follow Family Guy on Facebook. Another 35 million like South Park and more than 17 million are fans of Glee. It’s no surprise that Facebook and other social networking sites offer an immediate way to gather data about television shows. According to DigitalSpy.com, the television show House has been the most talked about television show on Facebook for the year 2011. This assessment was made after looking at data compiled from various status updates by users. House’s fictional character Dr. Greg House (played by Hugh Laurie) was the most named fictional character this year. It’s no doubt that the executives of House are looking to Facebook to determine how they can gain even more viewership as well as sell House-related items.
So, next time you’re watching your favorite show and posting about it on Facebook, think about how you’re actually supporting your favorite show. Television executives are taking note. When you comment about a show online or take a view poll, you’re actually providing direct feedback for the people in charge of making the show.
Social media is providing fans of all types—whether it is television shows, music or sports fans—to provide valuable feedback and be heard. We all know that social media is a great tool for retailers and service providers who want to provide excellent customer service, but we should all start thinking about our activity online as great ways of interacting with our favorite pop culture icons including actors, musicians and the like.
