Andy Littledale (@andylittledale), managing director at SecondSync, discusses the way social media is changing TV audience measurement and the commercial potential of broadcast analytics.

In the UK 27,000 hours of domestic TV content are produced annually at a cost of £2.6 billion (Ofcom).

Spot advertising and programme sponsorship on UK commercial TV channels generated revenues of £4.36bn in 2011 (ThinkBox).

Both the commissioning and scheduling of this content and the pricing of the spot ads and programme sponsorship hinges on one thing: the way the TV audience is measured. Success is measured on how many people are watching.

Counting eyeballs

The Broadcasters’ Audience research Board (BARB) was established in 1981 to measure the size of TV audiences in the UK, and it hasn’t changed significantly in 30 years. It uses a panel to estimate the number of eyeballs in front of a show. That panel consists of boxes in 5,000 homes that record viewing information, and the numbers are extrapolated to estimate viewing across the entire population. When you read that 10 million watched X Factor last weekend, that data comes from these 5 thousand boxes. As a statistical method for estimating TV audience sizes, it is robust and effective but it has been accused of being a blunt tool considering the investment decisions that are based entirely on its data.

Enter social media

In the past few years something very interesting has happened. Social media, and especially Twitter, has extended the shared experience of watching a TV programme, breaking it out from the living room and onto the internet. Viewers are tweeting about TV shows in huge numbers. This behaviour is reinvigorating the traditional linear broadcast at a time when it was under threat from time shifted viewing (the effect of iPlayer and Sky+, for example). It is also re-inventing the way broadcasters and advertisers can measure their audience.

At SecondSync we map tweets to UK TV programmes and we’ve identified over 6 million individual UK twitter users who’ve tweeted about a TV show since Jan 1st 2012. We track all mainstream TV channels and on average pull in around 750,000 tweets per day. Here are the top 10 series from the last 6 months, measured purely on total volume of tweets.

The X Factor

Big Brother

The Only Way is Essex

EastEnders

Family Guy

Celebrity Big Brother

The Jeremy Kyle Show

Hollyoaks

The Voice UK

Geordie Shore

Before you write off Social TV as a phenomenon confined to talent shows and soaps, Question Time comes in at number 15 and frequently tops 50,000 tweets per broadcast.

Breaking down the stats

Our statistics enable us to compare how shows perform against each other in terms of tweet volumes and peaks in Twitter activity. We have also created a dashboard product to enable broadcasters, production companies and agencies to interrogate this wealth of audience data and mine for audience insights.

We’ve identified some very interesting patterns of behaviour. Different genres, time slots and demographics display very different patterns of engagement. Viewers of drama tend to tweet in the ad breaks. Peaks in talent shows occur during the acts. Women tend to tweet 2 minutes before a film starts. Men like to tweet their favourite lines throughout a film. Here is the top show from Thursday, 11th October, The Plane Crash on Channel 4, with over 80k tweets. See if you can spot when the plane smashed into the desert.

Future predictions

There have been some fairly bold predictions from companies in the states that social data like this will eventually replace viewer panels such as BARB in the UK. We do not subscribe to this view. We see our data primarily as a tool to help broadcasters get instant feedback on their shows, commission better programmes, and schedule them in the right slot. We see it as an opportunity for brands to target engaged audiences rather than simply trying to put their message in front of the largest number of people.

We’re working closely with industry and academic partners to shine a light on this interesting behaviour and to fully understand the commercial implications of what we are measuring.

ShareTweet

3b217b01cc31a26b9d3f9b2db95d73af

By Adam_Ketterer

Hi. Thanks, the B2B Social Media Guide, for asking me to be your guest editor. It’s a great honour, and one I won’t take lightly.

The topic I’ve chosen to cover in my month as guest editor is social media analytics. What’s that, you ask, counting Tweets and Facebook likes? Well, yes. But there’s a bit more to it than that. If you’re interested in learning more (as I am) then keep an eye on the blog throughout October as we update with posts from lots of lovely, knowledgeable contributors.

We’ve got the low-down from a marketer’s perspective, to ease us in, as well as some more in-depth discussions. An exciting tech start-up discusses the large-scale application of social analytics, and a new social media research branch of a socio-political think tank tackles a piece on the need to look beyond traditional marketing and advertising metrics in favour of an interdisciplinary, applied study of human behaviours from which to draw meaningful – and ethically sound – results.

I also got in touch with the communications team at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to find out how it’s embracing social media, and how it helps businesses that want to follow suit. The team answered my question with uncharacteristic efficiency: they didn’t respond. I mean, it’s not like I was asking Vince to retweet my granny’s birthday (she doesn’t have Twitter: she’s dead) – I just wanted some comms intern to acknowledge my good-natured approach with an agreement to pass on some self-congratulatory public campaign pumps and (dare I dream?) insightful comment. Oh well.

So why social media analytics? You’re reading a post on a blog called the B2B Social Media Guide, so I won’t waste your time with ‘the future is social’ and other pearls of web wisdom. The peddlers of social media guruspeak do that well enough to make parody redundant. I’m interested in influence: in how social networks become arenas for influence (peer-to-peer and business-to-client), how this can be recognised and – most importantly – put to good use. Your definition of ‘good’, if you’re a B2B tech business, might be ‘profitable’. At least one of our contributors will disagree with you on the semantics of good analysis.

Looking outside the business box, a report last month showed the power of peer influence over social media, as Facebook was credited with driving 340,000 extra voters to the polls in the 2010 US Congressional elections (a little retrospective, I know, but the analysis is interesting). By clicking the “I voted” button, users could share the fact with their network of friends, and invite them to exercise their democratic right too. The influence of this social notification (how many people went on to vote after viewing the message) was compared with results from two further samples: those who viewed a general invitation to vote (not from a friend); and those who saw no message at all. The report suggests that the introduction of the messages resulted in 340,000 more votes, but the interesting trends appear when you compare the two kinds of message. Those who saw the ‘social’ message were 0.4 per cent more likely to vote than those who saw only the ‘informational’ message; they were also more than two per cent more likely to share their experience over the network. The power of influence was found to be directly related to the closeness of the relationship, judged by the level of interaction between users.

There’s also the classic upshot of businesses’ use of social media analytics: how should you deal with negative sentiment and customer complaints? What do you do, for example, when one of your customers blogs about sub-standard service, broadcasting (with targeted hashtags, #obvz) a warning to other prospective customers?

It’s these questions, and more, that we’ll consider this month on the B2B Social Media Blog. Stay tuned for regular updates, and join in the conversation wherever you can – that’s the whole point, right?

ShareTweet

398b7ee63c537043b60adf4fd0b05c32

By @TopLineFounder

You are no doubt chomping at the bit for October to start. Maybe you’re planning to join in the fun activities around International School Libraries Month. Or perhaps you can’t wait to turn that frown upside down on World Smile Day or to get cracking on that popcorn necklace in celebration of National Popcorn Month.

Over here at B2B Social Media Guide HQ, we’re all a-twitter over the arrival of our new October Guest Editor, Adam Ketterer (if you’re not already amongst his many social media fans, we suggest you head straight to @Adam_Ketterer and click ‘follow’). Adam, who has an MA in English Literature and knows his way around a drum kit, is on loan from leading B2B PR, social media and video consultancy, TopLine Communications. He has promised to write all posts in a thick Scottish accent, but has given no clue as to his chosen social media theme for the month. Will it be Rocktober? Mocktober? Cocktober? He hasn’t let on, but, like you, we can’t wait for the weekend to be over as all will be revealed on Monday.

ShareTweet

8744cea286e4bd01a0129ca108c4875d

By Matt Rebeiro, Innovation Manager for social media agency RMM London

With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Yammer, and Salesforce’s continued successes with Chatter, more organisations are beginning to consider whether they move from a legacy intranet to something a little more social.

Whilst some think that an internal social network is simply a technology play, those who are enjoying the most success are taking a more business benefit-led approach. This more strategic approach can ensure that the business is getting the maximum value from its internal social network.

To gain the most value, organisations should consider the following:

• The opportunity
• The use cases
• How it is embedded in the organisation

Taking each in turn…

1. The opportunity

The first and most important thing any organisation must consider when implementing an internal social network is what the opportunity is for the business. The organisation needs to consider what business objectives or challenges an internal social network could help it meet, so that it can begin to build a robust business case for internal social networking.

For example an internal social network might help to:

• Improve or increase innovation within the organisation (e.g. IBM’s use of social media to empower employees to connect and innovate across 170 countries)
• Better connect a mobile workforce (e.g. PWC’s use of social networking to connect a mobile workforce where 75% of employees are working from client-sites)
• Promote training and development amongst the workforce (e.g. Google’s use of informal chat-show style webinars to help sales teams understand new products and service offerings).

By identifying clear business objectives or challenges that an internal social network could help meet, organisations have a much higher likelihood of realising value. Moreover, with a clear business case, it is much more likely to get senior management buy-in.

2. The use cases

The organisation must also consider use cases – i.e. working out specifically how an internal social network could be used by the workforce to realise specific business benefits.

Examples of use cases might include:

• Enabling the organisation’s innovation team to solicit feedback from groups of employees across other departments (e.g. getting input from marketing or supply chain)
• Enabling teams working across multiple locations to manage projects remotely with less reliance on conference calls and email
• Enabling teams to share and update a wiki that collects key information in one place – and which can be updated quickly and easily in real-time

Building use cases allows one to move from what sounds like a good idea, in theory, to an opportunity that is both tangible and practical.

Moreover, by developing use cases, one has created – in effect – hypotheses that can be used to create pilot projects, to ascertain whether wider implementation of an internal network would deliver the desired outcomes. (This is especially important for larger organisations where implementing an internal social network would be a significant cost)

3. How it is embedded in the organisation

To ensure an internal social network is successfully adopted, an organisation must:

• Clearly communicate the uses and benefits to employees by demonstrating how it can help them deliver against their own objectives and targets
• Embed the social network in the culture of the organisation by obtaining  buy-in, leadership and participation from senior managers

From an early stage the project team should consult with employees and senior managers, working with them to understand their needs from an internal social network. For example:

• In the planning stages: perform stakeholder research, either via interviews (for senior managers) or surveys (for general workforce)
• In the implementation stages: invite people from across the business to take part in usability tests or pilots
• At the launch stage: run workshops, seminars (or even webinars) to educate the workforce. This might include holding briefing sessions with senior managers to ensure their understanding and buy-in.

These are social networks, they rely on people; failure to get employees on side will likely result in the failure of any internal social network.  We’d love to hear what other considerations you think are key to effectively planning, launching and managing an internal social network.

ShareTweet

55efd3edc5417d925b7cdd17f30098c3

Our sister blog, The B2B PR Blog, which was launched in May, is this week celebrating its 6,000^th visitor. The blog was developed for people with an interest in everything PR in B2B industries. On the blog you will find:

• Clear guides on how to run PR campaigns, from using research in B2B PR to dealing with UK journalists and writing media releases.

• The steaming barrel, in which we name and shame examples of worst practice in B2B PR.

• Case studies celebrating outstanding examples of B2B PR.

• Opinion on everything going on in the industry.

• Resources, from reviews of relevant books, to our controversial media database review and our comparison table of omnibus survey providers.

The blog was set up to address a gap in the market for practical guidelines on using PR in B2B businesses to achieve organic growth by generating leads and building thought leadership. It also keeps a watchful eye on an industry that is entirely unregulated.

We’d welcome your comments and feedback.

ShareTweet

5b124f76d3778bd2915010f43c60438a

We couldn’t choose just 10 – so here are our top 12 posts to help you get started on making your B2B blog a success.

1. The B2B Blog Part 1: An introduction to blogging

2. The B2B blog Part 2: The strategy for your B2B blog

3. The B2B blog Part 3: Setting up your B2B blog

4. The B2B blog Part 4: A good corporate blog:

5. The B2B Blog Part 5: How to promote a blog

6. The B2B Blog Part 6: Promote your blog through LinkedIn

7. Best practices on WordPress

8. Why your business can’t afford not to blog

9. Help! My blog&#39s been hacked

10. The Google Keyword Tool: A B2B Blogger’s Second Best Friend

11. Pitching bloggers: Ten steps towards coverage on B2B blogs

12. Managing blog traffic with Google Analytics

ShareTweet

99b09cab1780dc80a9e75343141755d7

Updated 20/07/2012

ShareTweet

4f2a09d8930cf5b38f25da75465b83c7

By Bill Penn, Aspectus PR

Bad dancer? Me too. Very bad, actually. Two left feet, no sense of rhythm and a total lack of coordination between the movement of arms, legs and hips. But when the party’s hopping, who wants to be the only pooping wallflower in the place? So I do my awful best on the dance floor, hoping I blend into the background and nobody notices me. It usually works.

It’s a bit like that with B2B companies and social media. Most of them are really not sure what they are doing, but feel they ought to be out there blogging, tweeting and Facebooking like everyone else. Being seen to be doing something – anything – with social media is what matters. It’s a sign of corporate coolness, a mark of being in touch with the digital world, a statement. Or so they think.

But some B2Bs are really, really bad at using social media. You can get away with being a useless dancer, but there’s no hiding place for boring bloggers or terrible tweeters. Everyone can see what you are doing. Worse still, everyone can tell that you are only doing it because you feel you ought to be. Lack of conviction in social media is painfully transparent.

So why do so many companies, some of them otherwise perfectly adept at conventional marketing and communications, get it so hopelessly wrong with social media? One possible explanation is that senior management, generally riper in years than many of their juniors, don’t really understand it. More importantly, they cannot see the business benefits of social media – the return on investment in terms of sales and marketing. And when you start talking about user engagement, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and the importance of keywords and messages across all communications channels, they suddenly discover a pile of paperwork that needs their urgent attention.

However, in every B2B organisation there are social media enthusiasts, people who can see the benefits very clearly indeed. They know the value of LinkedIn. They understand how to run a Twitter account, how to increase the number of quality followers and the best way to engage with them in 140 characters. They blog because they can see how it drives visitors to the company website, puts a more human face on the company and can be a great thought leadership tool.

‘OK’, the senior management say to the young bucks, ‘we’ll let you do a bit of this social media thingy stuff if it’s really going to keep you happy but you absolutely must not write anything remotely controversial or indeed interesting. Keep it bland, keep it safe. Meanwhile we’ll just pretend it’s not happening and carry on with our proper marketing’.

Another reason for the B2B sector’s lack of engagement is that a lot of marketing people have got it into their heads that social media is a consumer communications channel. It simply doesn’t work when business people are trying to connect with other business people, they say.

Right. So, when you are looking for, say, a new PR company, what do you do? Call the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and ask them to send you a list of suitable agencies? Pop out to the shops, buy a copy of PR Week and start leafing through it? Or do you simply run a few Google searches, cut and paste the web addresses of some of the agencies that appear in the top ten and draw up a short list, probably in less than half an hour?

No prizes for the right answer. But, without a serious commitment to social media and a clear strategy for achieving very specific search outcomes, none of those agencies you picked off of the first page of your Google search results would make it onto your short list.

And nearly all PR agencies are B2B in that they are businesses whose clients are also businesses.

The same process is applied all day every day by companies wanting to buy products and services, whether it’s office furniture or a multi-million pound IT upgrade, from – yes, you’ve guessed it – other businesses. They use Google to help draw up a Request for Information (RFI) or Request for Tender list. They do it because it’s simply the best way for them to track down suppliers who seem to offer what they want.

So let’s just pause for a moment and pull all this together. B2B companies use search engines as their primary research tool to find suppliers. They also use the web to find people, partners and sales opportunities. In fact, you could go as far as to say that B2B organisations conduct most of their business based on results of web searches.

That is a startling fact.

Startling because none of these suppliers, people or partners that you find via web searches would appear anywhere near the first couple of pages on your screen unless they were making a serious commitment to their SEO. And it is very difficult indeed to get anywhere with SEO without proper engagement with social media. Nearly all of the people or organisations that come high on web searches will be on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and many other sites besides. They will all be using their websites as publishing engines, linking to and from their activity on these alternative communications channels to improve their site traffic as well as their search presence.

It’s also startling because, to go back to where we started, so many B2B companies still don’t ‘get’ social media; they still believe it is something that ‘other people’ do and that it really doesn’t apply to them. Yes, they might play with Twitter a bit and host a very, very occasional blog on their website, just so they don’t seem completely unengaged with the modern world.

But they are not serious. You tell from their awful, clunky, occasional tweets. You can see it in their tiresome, self-promoting blogs and posts on other people’s sites. And you can see it through their LinkedIn presence.

How can this be? How can you have a situation where B2B companies use web searches all day long in all areas of their business to find other B2Bs and yet still think that social media is not something to be taken seriously?

Odd. And it’s getting even odder because social media activity is becoming a focal point for Google search results.

The bottom line is that any B2B organisation that does not wake up immediately to the importance of full engagement in social media, based on a clear strategy, appropriately resourced and managed, is going to find marketing and communications a very steep uphill struggle from now on. Spend what you like on conventional B2B marketing, you cannot succeed without social media.

And it’s no good pretending, like a bad dancer blending in with the party crowd hoping not to be noticed. If you don’t do social media properly, you will be spotted and you will stand out for all the wrong reasons.

ShareTweet

82289706ed87397bc5d0093cc5ed9d65

@Adam_Ketterer outlines a few simple tips for building follower numbers on your company’s LinkedIn page.

A LinkedIn company page is just one web location among many where your business can set out its stall, but the growing importance of LinkedIn means it offers a valuable opportunity to increase your online presence and garner new business leads. A basic measure of your company page’s success is the number of followers it has – so how can you rack up more? (Of course, you can always pay for some LinkedIn advertising and start a pay-per-click campaign, but that’s another tactic for another blog post. And it’s cheating.) 

First steps

The first tip is a no-brainer: make the most of the company page features. Fill in as much information as you can about your company, the work you do, your products or services and the sectors you serve. The more information you present, the more likely it is that visitors will see something that interests them. Other things you should do as standard are:

• ask satisfied clients to post recommendations.
• make your employees ‘admins’ so that they can update the page as necessary.
• invite your connections to follow the page.
• post on other related group pages.

Update and analyse

Once you’re updating the page with content regularly, start using the Insights and Page Statistics tools to find out which of your updates are the most popular. Monitor the analytics graphs for spikes in visitor numbers and, whatever you were doing at these times, keep doing it.

Use your other networks

The previous tips will catch the attention of users browsing LinkedIn, but you should also cast your nets further afield. The easiest way is to place links on your other social media pages, company websites and mail-outs. You can:

• put a LinkedIn badge on your company website(s) along with your other social media buttons.
• add a link to your email signature and, if you do any mail-blasts, put it on them too.
• write a blog about it. Everyone loves a blog, right?

Don’t annoy (lose) your followers

So far I’ve looked at ways of improving member numbers, but there are also things you can do to build loyalty in existing members. Targeted status updates allow you to choose which of your followers will and will not receive your company news. This will (it’s hoped) maximise the chance that users will be interested in what they see and want to learn more, while minimising the chance that they’ll be bored or hacked off by irrelevant updates.

It’s all in the content

The most important thing is to update your page regularly with content of a consistently high standard. LinkedIn does not currently let you sync a blog to your company page so updates must be posted manually. While this is a bit time consuming, it will force you to think about what you’re posting, and the stream will therefore be more personal than an RSS feed.

If your company page doesn’t have good content you might as well not bother. You can implement all of the measures I’ve suggested (and more) to drive traffic to your site, but if visitors aren’t impressed when they arrive then you could end up doing more harm than good to your company brand. All your good efforts in sharing the page and perfecting its presentation will be rendered futile by lousy, irregular, untargeted content. After all, you can’t polish a turd.

ShareTweet

c1533e8bc3a5e444b2e30c679a708181