--
Four sure-fire social drivers to boost TV audience engagement
November 25, 2020
Never.no's Innovation Consultant Tom Bowers shares his thoughts on four social drivers that producers should consider when looking to create relevant content to increase audience engagement or a range of show formats.
Traditional and digital media has grown exponentially over the past couple of years, with a growing number of platforms and TV shows pumping out more content than ever before. Commissioners and producers are competing for viewers and are now challenged with creating more engaging, relevant content that keeps their audiences hooked for longer. With audience's attention-spans quickly fading, what social drivers can production teams exploit to create incredible audience engagement and TV viewers happy?
Create An Emotional Response
We all love talking about things we love!
Drive conversations from content that evokes a feeling and makes viewers want to react and get onto social media to react. Drama shows and other similar types of entertainment, such as sport, has a massive emotional driver attached to it.
Producers of these types of shows and events need to understand what evokes their audience's emotions and when to capitalise on a call to action to get people to send their opinions into the show. The best approach to do this is running social media in parallel with what's happening in the show. As the narrative develops on screen, their community management team will post cues related to the content and motivate viewers to respond with images, videos and messages, sharing their anger, sympathy, happiness, or even distaste via social.
Make Opinions Count
This revolves around talk shows, news and lifestyle programming predominantly. Talk about a hot topic, celeb trend, or a political argument during your show and create a call to action for viewers to get involved. Run live polls to gauge opinion and include the results within your live programming and post questions on your social. Viewers will engage and share opinion, which in-turn will motivate audiences to get involved in the conversation. Successful show producers know exactly what people will want to talk about, so do some research online to see what the hot topics are and jump onto the conversation.
Martin Lewis included social opinion during his ITV Show
Do you remember that time at Wimbleon?
Bringing Back Memories
Ideal for lifestyle and documentaries that look at past events, whether that's historical, sporting or political. Activating your viewer's memories is a great driver for engagement as they'll relate to past experiences or have a link to a historical event from a family member. Again, create a call to action on the live / pre-recorded content and on official social platforms to share memories, you may not want to include in the live programming, but creating a conversation on social will extend reach.
Imagine, you're building up to Wimbledon and want to create as much exposure as possible and entice potential tennis fans to watch the upcoming tournament. Run a classic replay show, showcasing the highlights of legendary encounter between Federer and Djokovic. Reach a wider audience by posting clips on social using the hashtag #JoinTheStory to encourage fans to share their memories of the previous event. Producers can then use this type of content within their shows to engage audiences and potentially create more tennis fans!
Making Shared Experiences
Finally, boost engagement through shared experiences. Live events are the ideal situation where everyone wants to get involved the more the merrier. Eurovision is a great example. We've seen Eurovision parties broadcast across the globe, featuring the most captivating content including videos and images of fans sharing their love for Eurovision. Individuals and groups are highly likely to get involved and show off their parties on social media, so it's a great opportunity for producers to capitalise on the shared experience and bring that content into the live coverage, creating a much more communal experience for everyone watching, bringing this into the show editorial will be showcasing how far reaching your event is and how well it is being received - giving on screen engagement payoff to the viewer.
Welcome to the party - create a shared experience
No One-size-fits-all
There isn't a one-size-fits-all for social engagement with every type of genre and show on TV, but by applying the four drivers to the DNA of your show this should help decide whether you should include social interaction as part of your strategy. If so, then you're on the path to a sure-fire way to producing captivating content that will keep the audience engrossed and engaged,
The key is that social engagement should enhance a viewers experience, not diminish or detract away from it. Social content woven into the on screen presentation for instance, doesn't always add value to the experience, but could be fuelling an active and engaging conversation in tandem to the main broadcast.
If you'd like to enhance your broadcast, streamed or branded content, then contact us now to arrange a demo.
Broadcast Multi-platform
FacebookTwitterLinkedIn
Sales Director Harry Macey joins the teamPrevious
Europe Stories
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
19 Dec 2025
VEON's Mobilink Microfinance Bank Launches Islamic Banking Oper...
19/12/2025
The six-part drama, set in a close-knit Welsh town fractured by an unspeakable c...
19/12/2025
Rohde & Schwarz drives the future of mobility at CES 2026 At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Rohde & Schwarz will present a powerful lineup o...
19/12/2025
RT is proud to return to the RDS to support the 2026 Stripe Young Scientist & T...
18/12/2025
Canada's largest indoor arena has transformed its live production capabilities with a full ST 2110 infrastructure and Calrec's compact Argo S console. S...
18/12/2025
Long-term agreement includes the SES SCORE platform and hybrid distribution worldwide to deliver more than 5,000 hours of golf tournaments annually featuring th...
18/12/2025
18 Dec 2025
VEON Upgraded to Nasdaq Global Select Market, Enhancing Investor Visibility Dubai, December 18, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital o...
18/12/2025
Thursday 18 December 2025
Sky Sports remains the exclusive home of the Masters ...
18/12/2025
Using the additive process of 3D printing, layer after layer gets printed until an object is as close to the final shape needed as possible. Historically, machi...
18/12/2025
In 2025, RT proudly supported 185 arts and cultural events across the island of Ireland, reflecting significant growth since the scheme was re-launched in 2014...
18/12/2025
RT Sports Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
18/12/2025
RT lyric fm presents a very special Winter Solstice edition of Ambient Orbit, l...
18/12/2025
At 7.45pm on 1st January 1926, the precursor to RT , then 2RN, delivered the fledgling new Irish state's first public radio transmission. From those first c...
18/12/2025
December 18 2025, 05:30 (PST) The Movie Experience SLO Becomes First U.S. Exhib...
17/12/2025
Investigative journalists across the Western Balkans and T rkiye continue to con...
17/12/2025
The right playlist is essential on New Year's Eve, building the energy as you get ready and keeping it high as you count down to midnight. This year, Spotif...
17/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
17/12/2025
Wuppertal December 17, 2025
Riedel Builds Global Communication and Commentary ...
17/12/2025
December 17 2025, 17:00 (PST) Dolby and LG Unveil a New Era of Home Audio With ...
17/12/2025
Wednesday 17 December 2025
Heated Rivalry will be coming to Sky and streaming service NOW on 10 JanuaryTurn on cookies to view this content. Go to Privacy opti...
17/12/2025
RT has announced that Kathy Fox has been appointed Commissioning Editor with re...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
16/12/2025
RT Sport Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December.
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
16/12/2025
Singer -songwriter Brian Kennedy has been announced as the final celebrity dance...
15/12/2025
Cape Town, November 13, 2025 - SES and International artist and humanitarian, Fo...
15/12/2025
Luxembourg, December 15, 2025 - SES, a leading space solutions company, and Abra Group launched fast and reliable multi-orbit inflight connectivity service on t...
15/12/2025
15 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan Delivers First Starlink Direct to Cel...
15/12/2025
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor finds himself the topic of year's cracker jokes
Oasis, David Harbour, Celebrity Traitors and Angela Rayner all feature in this y...
15/12/2025
Comscore Expands Cross-Platform Campaign Measurement to Include Audio and Social New capabilities strengthen cross-platform campaign reporting suite; CCR rebran...
15/12/2025
RT .ie has reached one billion page views this year and is on track to finish 2025 2% ahead of last year. Average time spent on the site is up 3% on 2024, with ...
12/12/2025
Last month, Spotify announced a new collaboration with the ATP Tour, the global governing body of men's professional tennis, aimed at bringing the next gene...
12/12/2025
Friday 12 December 2025
Ted is back! Seth MacFarlane's live-action comedic ...
12/12/2025
Uachtar n na h ireann, Catherine Connolly visited RT Raidi na Gaeltachta's...
12/12/2025
Ireland AM host Eric Roberts has been revealed as the sixth contestant taking to...
-- 
