HIghlights from a presentation made to a major UK broadcaster. Does not claim to be a full audit of activity in this space.

1. Social media:
Making it work for entertainment brands
Ann Longley, Digital Strategy Director, MEC Interaction

2. What is social media – why important?
First and foremost – it is behaviour
supported by technology.
Social media is media designed to be
disseminated through social interaction, created
using highly accessible and scalable publishing
techniques.
Social media supercharges traditional word-of-mouth so can influence what is
Social media supports the human need for
popular. It has also catalysed new forms of entertainment.
social interaction with technology, transforming
broadcast media monologues (one to many) into
social media dialogues (many to many).
It supports the democratisation of knowledge
and information, transforming people from
content consumers into content producers.
Source: Wikipedia

3. Social media and entertainment brands
Entertainment is being enriched with social features
Recommendations Audience Community Immersive
Viewing circles
and reviews participation integration experiences
A spectrum of social entertainment

4. Social media and entertainment brands
Social entertainment spectrum
Easy
Recommendations
and reviews
Community
Viewing Integration
Circles
Near Far
Immersive
Experiences
Audience
Participation
Difficult

5. Social mediaSocial media and the BBC
and entertainment brands
Quickscan of market activity – lots of it is going on
Recommendations Viewing Circles Community Audience Immersive
and reviews Integration Participation experiences
BBC :iplayer – allows audience BBC: Good radio club: a BBC: Apprentice Predictor BBC: Lost Zombies - crowd- BBC: BAFTA award winning
to forward to a friend/ share a bunch of fellow radio4 fans effectively helped viewers sourced internet movie; Spooks ARG, Savannah –
moment in the programme + tweeting along in real time actively engage and share a BBC Internet Documentary - educational project with
more social features coming listening to a 30 minute unique experience while audience invited to get Futurelab – great projects,
radio show chosen in watching during the involved in its making. underpromoted?
advance broadcast
Lost: Blogger engagement to Lost : fan generated Football 3Cs – a game for fans MySpace – Faintheart – Lost ARG
build anticipation and demand content – evidence of to play while watching crowd input (shallow
success scheduled football on TV participation)
Television without pity – Splashcast Social TV (closed C4’s Picture This, We dig tv (who wants to be a The Truth about Marika from
Audience reviews that can be due to funding problems) Landshare, millionaire); viewer in the Sweden’s Public Broadcaster
shared Sexperience programme; league tables – (produced by Company P)
C4 Skins/SkinsLife, – worth 3m viewers. Is it still going?
looking at for their long term
synergistic approach
Blinkx – great video search Jaman – find, watch, review Freak/MySpace (Internet A Swarm of Angels – a crowd Last Will, still in prototype
engine but no real social films online. Social network drama/does not involve TV) sourced film making project stage. Multi-touch
features integration/facebook with sustainability challenges entertainment – something
connect. (example of deep more near field to consider
participation) with RAD
New idea: What are the Jaman – find, watch, review Social games, e.g. Playfish, Lost Ring, Superstruct (good xbox Project Natal ;
implications of applying films online. Social network Zynga – low cost and examples but do not involve MIT’s 6th sense computing***
Amazon’s e-commerce engine integration/facebook popular/could be developed TV); Star Trek ARG for latest
to BBC program planning? connect. as able programme film release
extensions

6. Social media and entertainment brands
What could be coming to the UK?
Recommendations and reviews: V-loggers and others rate and
review television programmes

7. Social mediaSocial media and the BBC
and entertainment brands
An idea before its time?
Viewing circles: Sharing the viewing experience by watching
together and creating your own channels

8. Social media and entertainment brands
WE dig TV – still in Beta
Audience participation: Puts the user in the programme –
claims to have 3M players

9. Social media and entertainment brands
Social media and the BBC
Making it easy for the audience to take part
Audience participation: SKYNEWS has launched a free citizen
journalism iphone app; gives attribution for contributions

10. Social media and entertainment brands
Social media and the BBC
But full audience participation is difficult
Audience participation: A swarm of angels is a participatory film
community that has experienced some growing pains

11. Social mediaSocial media and the BBC
and entertainment brands
Community building is a way to reach new audiences
and have a longer term impact
Community Integration: C4 has developed a number of long term properties
linked to programmes but with a life independent of them

12. Social mediaSocial media and the BBC
and entertainment brands
What is some of the best that is out there?
Audience participation: Interactive Emmy Award Winning ARG
from Sweden’s Public Broadcaster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX_ZJkwvKR8&eurl=
http://www.thecompanyp.com/site/%3Fpage_id%3D7&feature=player_
embedded#t=421

13. Social media and entertainment brands
Schematic’s in-programme gaming
Audience participation: Enable seamless switching from watching
to playing
http://www.schematic.com

14. Social media and entertainment brands
Last will – a prototype MITE*
Immersive experiences: A compelling collaborative effort
but one that may need mass reach to succeed
* Multiplatform Interactive Theatre Experience
http://vimeo.com/groups/playful/videos/2445637

15. Social media and entertainment brands
The evolution of TV
Immersive experiences: Public and portable multi-touch screens will become
more ubiquitous in the future.
How could they work with (live/on-demand) TV?

16. Social media and entertainment brands
Identifying potential threats
Immersive experiences: to what extent will such exciting
game play erode TV viewing?
http://www.youtube.com/user/xboxprojectnatal?blend=2&ob=1

17. Social media and entertainment brands
The future of augmented reality
Immersive experiences: augmented reality and reversed
augmented reality create new pervasive programming possibilities
http://vimeo.com/5595869

18. Social media and entertainment brands
Pervasive computing: 6th sense technology from MIT
Immersive experiences: When the future arrives what will it mean
for TV and media as we know it? Time to start planning now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg&feature=related

19. Accessible
How ‘social’ do
your entertainment
brands want to be?
Curatorial Inclusive
Distant

20. Thank you
Find me here:
www.twitter.com/AnnMargaret
www.annlongley.net