Social media and technology continue to evolve the TV-viewing experience, and Fox, Syco Television, FremantleMedia and Sony Music are at the forefront of the evolution. Some of their social initiatives included using Twitter content through audience voting via Twitter, integrating real-time social data visualizations in-studio and on-air, and using their social hub (twitter.thexfactorusa.com). Their partnership with Mass Relevance, a premier curation platform, was key in building and powering much of the integrated social experience including the curation of an average 3,667 Tweets per minute and the deployment of on-air data visualizations that caused Tweet activity to jump 600% when displayed. The X Factor’s innovative and playful approach to social TV integration has made them a standout in live entertainment production. The X Factor Fall 2011 premier and subsequent episodes achieved new levels of social TV engagement becoming the most social TV show with 11% share-of-voice (AdAge, 2011.) As part of their social media strategy, The X Factor used real-time Twitter content in several different ways, including: encouraging audience participation by allowing them to vote via Twitter, integrating real-time social data visual displays on-air, and extending the social media experience to the X Factor social hub on its microsite twitter.thexfactorusa.com. Mass Relevance, a unique social engagement and curation platform, was used to filter and power multiple visual displays on-site and on-air. A Tweet counter, Tweets per minute graph, segmented Tweet streams, and Twitter photo wall were all used on the microsite to drive engagement and amplification. On-air, Mass Relevance developed various visualizations of the voting data that were projected on 2 main in-venue backdrop screens. The data visualizations included: a Tweet Display featuring Tweets about the show, a Graphic Equalizer and a Judge Silhouette showing the judges’ tallies from audience votes, and a Graphic Equalizer projecting the total Tweet count. At the beginning of every episode, fans were encouraged to Tweet using a specific show-centric hashtag. Over the 8-week period the show implemented this social strategy, the specific show-centric hashtag was a trending topic on Twitter. The X Factor’s unique, innovative, and playful integration of social media fostered audience engagement and quickly made them one of the most talked about television shows of the season. Results: - Tweet activity jumped 600% when social data visualizations were displayed on-air. - Over an 8-week period of social TV integration, each show trended on Twitter with its unique hashtag. - The X Factor generated an average of 3,667 Tweets per minute. - In its first year in the US, The X Factor became the most social TV show with 11% share of voice (Ad Age,2011). - SocialGuide, a platform that tracks social media activity and engagement for television, rated The X Factor as the number 1 social TV show for the Fall 2011 premieres, with more than 50,000 unique viewers and more than 100,000 comments across all social networks.
http://goo.gl/GfCaV http://goo.gl/cScgX http://www.massrelevance.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/xf-pics.zip
