8 Ways Broadcasters Can Engage With Their Audiences

Most people understand that bridging the gap between TV and social makes broadcast more engaging. Increasing viewership and sponsorship value is something everyone wants to achieve, but perhaps the path to get there isnt always clear. Here are a few points we think are important when it comes to engaging audiences across TV, digital and social.

1. Listen to your audience

Your audience is speaking to you - listen to them. TV is not a passive medium - millions of people use social media share their thoughts about the content they're consuming live. In fact, live TV drives up to 87% of Twitter engagement during primetime. It's important for broadcasters to understand what their audience is actually saying around programming and where possible action it.

2. Encourage viewers to share content

Ask your audience to share content with you - thoughts, pictures, video, etc, and use that content as part of your programming output. It will give people a reason to watch at a certain time to see if they've been featured.

3. Let your audience be a celebrity - Reward social audiences

People love having their 15 minutes of fame, which is more like 15 seconds of fame in today's multiscreen world. Viewers get excited to see themselves or their friends and family on screen. Being part of the primary screen (TV) is still a huge audience draw, friends and family then start sharing the broadcast content back on social. Today we at never.no have seen this drive huge increases in audience followings. We've even seen people share photos/videos of the TV when they've been onair.

Still cant get over the fact that @Missguided featured me in their TV add!!! Instagram: xmariayx #cantisabadword pic.twitter.com/ayNZBT59Zf

- Maaaarrrriiiaaaa (@xMariaYx) November 16, 2015

4. Look further than official hashtags

While using a hashtag for your program is a great way to generate discussion and awareness, it's important to look beyond content associated with it. A Nielsen study found only 47% of Tweets about primetime shows include an official program hashtag. This is where tools which track trending keywords around a topic are helpful to discover what audiences are actually saying about a program.

5. Use network and onscreen talent

Use onscreen talent to engage with the audience. We've seen far greater uplift in engagement when it's presenters making a call-to-action rather than just on-screen graphics solicitation. Even though organic content makes up the majority of social activity, Owned Content - posts by network, program and talent accounts - attract more engagements per Tweet. Creating quality content around your broadcast and having your talent share it will help extend the network's reach on social.

6. Get rid of the social corner

Avoid shoving your audience in a social corner. Don't make your audience interaction something you just plonk on screen - embed it in your editorial strategy to make it seamless. Lower third tickers are great but there's a lot of other interesting ways to get viewer content on air!

7. Enable Audiences to drive content

Enabling simple polls that that give real-time results can keep the attention span of multi-tasking audiences. Turning those polls into real-time draw competition mechanics gives the audience another incentive to participate. (e.g. A winner from the entries will be drawn at X o'clock).

8. Understand Social TV isn't a distraction

Believe that including social content as part of your broadcast isn't a distraction to your audience. You're giving your viewers the opportunity to shape the show and drive discussion, resulting in increased engagement, viewership and loyalty.

never.no works with broadcasters to help increase TV engagement to drive audiences or increase sponsorship value. Contact us for more info.

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