White Paper and Webinar: “Best Practices for Social Media for Media & Entertainment”
Last week Forrester principal analyst David Card presented research findings on how media companies are using social technologies in the context of their entertainment brands.
David conducted case study interviews with technical, business and content executives from 5 leading media companies to examine how they’re leveraging the social entertainment revolution, and to look for best practices on using this technology to engage online audience/fans.
David’s findings are interesting, if not surprising: like most larger businesses, media companies are mostly still in the experimentation phase; while many now leverage “social” for promotional efforts, few have incorporated it as an integral part of the entertainment experience.
Sorting through the data, and different situations David identified 5 best practices media companies need to consider for social technologies:
- Use social for both content publishing and content promotion – don’t just use it for marketing purposes, use it as a vehicle for creating a new format of story telling
- Use the audience’s own voice for authenticity & engagement – engage your audience in a way and voice that works for them.
- Differentiate your brand(s) and experience through social interaction – engage your fans, and use it to differentiate your content and your brand beyond the linear content experience.
- Leverage the interaction between produced content and social to add value to advertisers and sponsors – while there was early reluctance by advertisers to become heavily involved in social networking destination sites, they want the deeper engagement that can take place in social venues. With media brands standing behind and moderating the experience, there’s an opportunity to create differentiated advertising inventory and options.
- Start social colonization of content by syndicating content out to where your audience lives online – don’t limit yourself to one site or channel. Syndicate your content out to where your audience lives… while at the time trying to draw the audience back to your own site to learn more about them.
All good, solid points, but as the first webinar participant asked in the Q&A – aren’t those best practices pretty standard fare for anyone immersed in social media? Yes, but as David pointed out: this is still relatively new territory for media companies – especially for those that are looking to make this part of their entertainment experience.
To hear more of David’s commentary, and the entire Q&A session, access the webinar here. The accompanying white paper with David’s findings can be downloaded here.
What are your own thoughts, perspective, stories on how media companies are leveraging “social”? Leave me a comment here.
Posted by Scott Brown at 07:32PM PST
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