Must see TV is now must tweet TV, says Twitter

Must see TV is now must tweet TV, so says Dan Biddle, head of broadcast partnerships at Twitter, at yesterday’s Future of TV Advertising conference in London.

There are ten million Twitter users in the UK, and of those, 80% are using it on their mobile.

Biddle spoke of Twitter’s close connection with TV, stating that 40% of peak time tweets are about TV content.

He stated that Twitter itself is now operating as type of TV guide, where you glance at your feed and think “OMG, The Apprentice is on” and immediately switch channels, almost as a “bat signal”. Taking the analogy one step further, Biddle said that “the ultimate bat signal is the hashtag”.

TV producers are becoming savvy to the importance of the “noise” that the Twitter audience makes in relation to the programmes, often reading out tweets on air in live programmes such as X Factor or Million Pound Drop.

Twitter is working with producers on when to bring in the audience “noise”, much as turning up the crowd noise during football match coverage at the stadium when the goal goes in. It all adds to the viewing experience, ensuring there is the right noise at the right time.

Leveraging celebrities to use your hashtag can create an incredible uplift in tweets, e.g. One Direction’s Harry Styles mentioned that he was watching The Bachelor in one tweet. Next minute, tweets around The Bachelor went through the roof, according to analysis charts Biddle displayed from SecondSync.

Channel 4 took this one step further recently with its Hotel GB coverage, employing Sara Cox and Tim Lovejoy to be celebrity Twitter cheerleaders for the programme, even though they were not actually featured in the show. With half a million followers each they created quite a noise.

Advertisers are increasing using the power of the hashtag for their own brand benefits, with Audi recently creating an amusing advert with the hashtag #solongvampires. Biddle showed a chart that illustrated the speed with which interactions to that unique hashtag began, straight after airing.

In addition, Mercedes recently created quite a buzz around their advert where viewers could choose the ending. Airing in the first of this season’s X Factor, the first advert showed the start of the story, with two hashtag options at the end which would decide the conclusion.

The ads were highly favourably received across Twitter, demonstrating the positive way brands can utilise Twitter to their commercial advantage.