Last week, we were invited to participate in NBC Universal’s second symposium on SocialTV.  The goal of the event was to provide advertisers with a deeper and more detailed understanding of the opportunities created when the combination of television programs and social media is used to drive deeper engagement with the content and integrated advertising.  We joined NBC Universal’s Ad Sales and Research teams at the event along with CEOs from Trendrr, BlueFin, and ComScore.  I had the opportunity to present on the topic of this post: “How SocialTV Drives Advertising Effectiveness”.  

Ben Straley, Meteor CEO, presenting at NBC Universal SocialTV Symposium.

The take-aways from the day for me were as follows:

1. A growing number of us use social media like Twitter and Facebook to enhance our viewing experience.  Watching TV with a virtual community of “friends” and fans of the shows is fun.
2. Social Media are driving people to watch more TV.  A bit counter intuitive when you see the statistics about how much time people are spending with social media until you realize a portion of that time is being shared across media (TV + smartphone + tablet).
3. Social engagement and sharing increase advertising effectiveness as measured by heightened levels of brand recall, favorability, and likehood to recommend.
4. SocialTV represents a HUGE opportunity for media companies to drive much richer and deeper engagement with brand advertising.  The future of advertising is transmedia, interactive, and social.
5. NBC Universal is doing some very exciting and innovative things to lead the way and create this future.  Some of the things we saw and heard about the integration of social media and games into programs is pretty phenomenal.

Ben Straley, Meteor Solutions CEO, on panel with BlueFin, Trendrr, and comScore CEOs. Moderator is Alan Wurtzel, NBC Universal's head of research.