social media

The new tools allow local media sites to add relavant social media content from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube below their own content and integrate weather content from Weather Central.

The ABC owned-and-operated station has the largest like/follower count across both Facebook (344K) and Twitter (78K) of any TV station in the country and the first time any TV station tops both the Facebook and Twitter list.

Television news promotes itself better than any other form of journalism. TV stations routinely set aside valuable airtime to advertise stories set to appear on upcoming newscasts. Now, though, the most effective promotions may be airing on cellphones.

According to a new study, 76% of people say the primary reason for their social media activity is to “keep my favorites on the air.” This data is up from a 66% level in 2011.

TV stations are using social media to extend their coverage and conversations with viewers. They’re also working to create more integration with advertisers and device companies, according to panelists at the Socializing Local TV session during the 4A’s Transformation Conference in Los Angeles.

TV station officials and their Web producers encourage the social media back-and-forth between their viewers and on-air talent because it can cultivate news tips and foster loyal viewership.

Mathilde Piard, the social media director at Cox Media Group, says that currently there is no silver bullet for monetizing social media. Instead, it’s more like shrapnel — making money here and there. But the biggest reason CMG and other media players are concentrating on social media is because their advertisers want it.

Everyone knows that the “screens” (TV, laptop, mobile device, another mobile device) are colliding and overlapping, but how exactly do online behaviors and TV viewing interact? TV Guide took a whack at understanding the relationship between social media buzz and TV watching with a new survey of 3,041 U.S. adults, and found that social media buzz does indeed help drive TV watching.

With mobile utilities wanting to keep users engaged, big events like the Oscars are golden opportunities

With consumers spoiled by choice, app providers are forced to innovate in order to keep pace. This year, the cutting edge lies in highly relevant content, social media integration, streaming media and smart aggregation. In part two of NetNewsCheck’s Special Report on Apps, we turn to content. Yesterday’s story examined the challenge of monetization.

Millions watch “after shows,” a growing television phenomenon dedicated to deconstructing that night’s program, with tweets, Facebook posts and old-fashioned call-in questions from the audience. They are an old-media solution to a new-media problem: they keep audiences and sponsors engaged with a network by joining in the online conversation, rather than competing with it for viewers’ attention.

In the age of Twitter and Facebook, many Super Bowl viewers will use the commercial breaks to go online and see what people are saying about the game. This year, advertisers want them to tweet about their favorite commercials as well.

Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc is leading a $12 million round of funding into Bluefin Labs, a start-up company that analyzes tweets and Facebook posts as people watch their favorite TV programs.

An erroneous tweet by a student newspaper was amplified by media organizations across the country and retweeted uncounted times. The incorrect information found its way onto media websites, including CBSSports.com, People.com, The Wrap and the Huffington Post.

Networks large and small are using social media to engage second-screen viewers like never before. Integrating social media from viewers following along with computers and smartphones fosters greater engagement while also broadening the audience for programming. Best of all, it provides consumer data. The question now is not whether networks should utilize social media but how they can use it most effectively and monetize it.

Starcom MediaVest Group has a signed a deal with analytics company Bluefin Labs to utilize the latter’s tech platform to monitor social media chatter about TV shows and ads.

The iPhone photo sharing app has been integrated into the NBC Owned Stations’ production systems, to make it quick and easy to use viewer images on the air or online.

Social media tools are quickly becoming a hybrid powerhouse for both driving viewership and empowering account reps to offer advertisers the cross-platform marketing promotions that can transport viewers from programming to their digital destinations. When it comes to the consumer, we’ve demonstrated that TV is social media’s killer app. Now is the time for us to demonstrate to advertisers that TV can deliver killer results for their social media ad spending.

After two “Tweet Weeks” this year, CBS is rolling out “Social Sweep Week” to kick off the November book. CBS talent will take over the network’s various Facebook and Twitter accounts at points throughout the week, beginning with tomorrow’s big LSU-Alabama football game.

In a modern twist to a TV pledge drive, PBS ran a Facebook “Like Drive” last week that rewarded fans with exclusive video clips for helping promote some of PBS’s most beloved people and shows. The drive helped land more than 18,000 in all for the week, stopping just short of 950,000 total likes for the page.

Next week, viewers of The X Factor can vote for a singer via Twitter in a partnership intended to strengthen the symbiotic relationship between television and the website.

Daytime is Facebook time, not TV time, for most media consumers. Facebook is closing in on being a mass medium — just like TV, according to a study by Frank N. Magid Associates Generational Strategies. More consumers use Facebook during work-day hours, 9 p.m. to 5 p.m,. than watch TV.

Media firms are working hard to realize the enormous benefits of using social media to engage consumers, creating relationships that ultimately result in increased audiences and, in turn, appeal to advertisers.

Social media continues to influence how consumers interact with brands and share content every day. Increasingly, TV viewers leverage social media as a platform to talk about and engage with TV content. A recent analysis by NM Incite and Nielsen sheds light on which demographics are engaging with TV across social media and highlights some differences in composition between the general social media population and the population on social media sites talking about TV specifically.

The most jam-packed sessions at the SPJ/RTDNA conference in New Orleans dealt with how news teams are using Twitter and Facebook to both disseminate news and find scoops for hot stories. Twitter is now akin to an AP wire service, and at least one journo expert considers Twitter followers to be a journalist’s most important assets.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has released a social media handbook for NPR and PBS stations, which is hosted at the National Center for Media Engagement website.

KOMU Columbia, Mo., in DMA138, has taken the plunge into social media news, last week launching a 4 p.m. newscast that makes viewers an integral part of the show. And there’s a social media desk that includes two reporters tracking bloggers, Tweets and online conversations about topics making the news. Industry watchers applaud KOMU for pushing the envelope in its use of social media at a time when many stations are still trying to figure them out. But some question their heavy use in what has always been a sit-back, passive medium.