Is Social Media the Secret to Reality TV's Success?

The Voice, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, So You Think You Can Dance and The Real Housewives franchise- ever heard of these shows? Of course you have, because all of these highly successful shows  have social media elements built in to them. Coincidence? I personally think there are no coincidences in life and social media is the secret ingredient that raised the bar for reality TV.

In an interview the Social Media Examiner did with Mark Burnett, Survivor's executive producer, Burnett states that social media has expanded what was known as "water cooler conversation." These discussions you used to have at work with co-workers are now constantly happening through social media. That original bond people had with reality shows began because people could relate to the stars, but now, social media has fed people's fascination with reality TV and made it grow. People live tweet with other fans during shows, write blogs about the shows (just as I am doing now) and read up on gossip about their favorite reality TV stars. Social media has increased reality TV's access and reach by leaps and bounds.

Here are how some of our favorite reality shows incorporate social media into its platform:

The Voice: All contestants have Twitter accounts, the show has a live Twitter feed on its website where it posts viewer's tweets throughout show. Viewers can vote for their favorites on Facebook, NBC.com or NBC apps. This season, the instant save was introduced where the audience had five minutes to tweet and save an eliminated contestant. Fans also had the chance this season to participate in the Kia Voice Fans Sweepstakes, where fans submit a video or Twitter question to one of the contestants and one grand prize winner is awarded a new Kia. Finally, contestants songs are put on iTunes for purchase and their rank on iTunes plays into their vote tallies each week.

Dancing with the Stars: All of the show's pros and celebs have accounts on Twitter. In recent seasons, Dancing with the Stars has run numerous contests on Twitter to get fans involved in the show such as voting for an encore dance, voting for prom king and queen on prom theme night, and voting during the infamous partner switch-up week. Many of the shows pros and celebrities also blog about their training on different media outlets and viewer's tweets are posted during the live show each week. Lastly, in addition to phone line voting, the audience votes for their favorite dancer each week through Facebook, Twitter and the abc.com website.

Survivor: The Survivor webpage includes videos, photos, live footage of Ponderosa, the jury camp, a message board and interactive fan activities. The best aspect of their site though is the watch and chat function, where you can watch the last episode and live chat with other fans. Survior contestants write blogs and the audience picks their "fan favorite" by voting on Twitter. Then, on the live reunion special, fan questions from Twitter are answered and people are live tweeting.

So You Think You Can Dance: Fans are allowed to vote online through the website by signing in with their Facebook accounts. All top 20 contestants of each season are required to have Twitter account with certain names pertaining to that season (ex: @Dance11Bridget). A new element to the show this year is the addition of dance crews. Fans will vote for their favorite dance crew on Twitter and the winners will perform on one of the live shows.

The Real Housewives: All Real Housewives shows are aired a second time as the "social edition" of the show and feature tweets from fans throughout the episodes. Housewives are required to write weekly blogs and a number of them live tweet with fans during their respective franchise's episodes. Andy Cohen's talk show "Watch What Happens Live" regularly features the housewives as guests, who answer questions via phone and Twitter.

I think it's safe to say that social media is crucial to the success of reality TV now. If your fans are not engaged in the show, your show will flop. Reality TV shows have to be a two-way street complete with fan interaction in order to rise to the top.

Visit the following link to watch the Social Media Examiner's interview with Mark Burnett that I reference above:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-and-reality-tv-how-mark-burnett-is-leading-the-way/