Social Media, SEO Can’t Be Ignored in Promoting TV on Any Platform, Executives Say
SILICON VALLEY -- TV executives promoting new and old shows can’t ignore the power of social media and search, executives at the OTTCON show said Wednesday during a panel on TV program discovery tools. It’s driving TV networks to think about metadata they provide to companies like Rovi and Tribune Media Services in new ways, they said. “One of the things we've had to do is make sure our shows are titled in a way that’s going to attract attention,” said Rob Demillo, chief technology officer at Revision3, a unit of Discovery Communications. And show descriptions need to be search-engine optimized to make sure they come up when people are looking for them, he said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Tribune Media Services ran into problems when Downton Abbey became a hit, said Rebecca Baldwin, general manager of its Zap2it.com. The show, which was originally made in the U.K., was carried by PBS on its Masterpiece Classic program. When a Zap2It user would search for “Downton Abbey,” only results showing the original British version, which was not available in the U.S., would be returned, she said. “We had to say ‘hey, PBS, we've got to break this out as a separate show” so people could find it, she said.
Reality TV shows can cause DVR search problems, executives said. For instance, every season of Survivor has a new name. That means a DVR that was set to record one season won’t automatically record the next. “My DVR is still looking for Top Chef: Texas,” said Dijit Media CEO Jeremy Toeman. Last year Fox had to scramble to update the metadata it provided to partners when it realized the second season of a hit show wasn’t going to be automatically recorded by viewers’ DVRs, said Sherry Brennan, senior vice president-sales strategy and development for Fox Networks.
The value of social media in driving video programming’s popularity can’t be ignored, said Philip Lynch, senior vice president-digital networks and games for Sony Pictures Television. It essentially built the popularity of Revision3, Demillo said.
Networks need to do more on social media than simply tweet about when to tune into shows, said Colin Decker, vice president-audience development at Revision3. “To get on Twitter and tweet: ‘hey watch our TV show at 7 p.m.,’ is one way to use Twitter and it’s a way to not get a lot of followers,” he said.