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/

Do the Most Before You Post: Everyone Needs A Social Media Strategy

Long gone are the days of spontaneously posting content on your social media channels and having it result in impressions. All of the big guns (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) are getting smarter, and with that, it drives us to be more strategic with our social media schedules.

Public Relations professionals and marketing strategists know that in order to do our jobs to the best of our ability, we have to treat the profession as an ever-changing industry. With that being said, I attended a very informative talk this week on the things people need to focus on before publishing posts on social media.

Content

Content is king, but you must post this content with purpose. Start out with an old-fashioned mission statement that will give you direction to later fill in details. You also have to know something about your audience, so listen and send out discovery questionnaires to learn everything about these people. Once you discover who you are talking to, you can create personas representing the different types of consumers you are trying to reach.

What you want your audience to do? Engage in conversation and get them to take an action on your behalf. Test content (messages and types) out on your audience in variations that include video, images, text. Once it's obvious what types do not connect with your audience, don't be afraid to purge the bad and introduce the new. Lastly, calendar everything. An automation content calendar is your friend so use it!

Time of Day
What are the best times of day to post content on social media so that your audience sees it? This is a very important question because the time of day you post truly matters to your business. If you receive no impressions, you receive no value and your time is wasted. The answer to the question is probably not what you think: it depends on your audience. Everyone does not look at their social media channels at the same time, so people really need to research their audience's social media viewing patterns and schedule posts to coincide with those times. If you manage more than one company's social media, or multiple channels for a company, you might want to make an audience viewing chart for reference.

Paid Ads
In today's social media world, you have to pay to play. This sentence refers to Facebook the most. Simply put, when Facebook went public it changed. Organic reach plummeted, and now, if you don't pay on Facebook, a lot of times your content is not seen. Sometimes, as little as boosting a post for $5 can make a difference. Facebook's algorithm, Edgerank, rewards you when you pay to boost a post. After you promote a post, every post that follows for an extended period of time, gets a lift. Start small and buy smart when it comes to promoting posts; figure out who you want to reach and why. As with most paid advertising, there is a threshold where Facebook ads are concerned and your posts can become saturated.

Channels
According to social media experts, Facebook and Twitter are not going away, but they are considered to be plateauing. Suggested reading on the plateau of Twitter is an article by The Atlantic titled, "A Eulogy for Twitter." On the other hand, LinkedIn has gotten a lot more interesting in the past 6-12 months. LinkedIn signs up two new members per second and around 40% of members check their LinkedIn account daily. The site just hit 300,000,000 users, made enhancements to company pages, and launched university pages.
Slideshare is a social media channel than a lot of people aren't familiar with yet, but it is highly useful. Companies often post presentations with detailed information of certain products on this channel. It's a good research tool when deciding to try a certain product or brand. Lastly, experts believe that blogs will once again trump other social media channels in the future. Let's face it, the content that really matters is the content that you control and the content you own. Blogging allows a person or company to show a more personal side and share knowledge that is important to them.

I'll leave you with a list of some great tech sites to check out on the web: mashable, techmeme, digg, reddit
thenextweb, buffer, and socialbro.

Be sure to follow Blake Killian, social media director, at Zehnder Communications, and the person who shared all of this knowledge with me, on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/blakekillian. Oh yea, catch me on Twitter too: Bridget Conrad: @bridgec17.

Five Tips to Take Full Advantage of Your LinkedIn Profile

When you are in the communications profession, it's especially important to stay up-to-date on ways to make social media work for you. Admittedly, Linkedin was a social media network that I use on a regular basis, but knew the least about. So, when I saw that the university I work for was offering an executive education class on how to get the most out of your LinkedIn profile, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to brush up on my skills. Below you will find five simple tweaks that you can make to your LinkedIn profile to make you more searchable and relevant on this social media network.

1. Take note of your profile strength- In the bottom, right hand corner of your profile, LinkedIn takes it upon itself to rank your profile basically from zero to hero. If you want to make your profile stronger, under profile, hit edit profile, and LinkedIn takes you through a series of steps to brighten up your online presence. Your ultimate goal should be to make it to "all-star."

2. Edit your default tagline- The default setting for your profile tagline is your current job title, which, if you think about it, makes no sense. Change this tagline to keywords that set you apart and make you unique- for example, mine is, "Experienced Public Relations Professional, Marketing Strategist, Social Media Manager, and Event Planner." You will see the option to edit this once you are in the edit profile function.

3. Customize your profile so you are easier to find- Your default URL on LinkedIn is a bunch of random letters and numbers, which is located at the top left of your profile underneath your picture. Change this URL to something you can remember. My profile URL is www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetconrad/  . Also, make sure that your profile is visible to everyone. You can do this under the edit profile function, go to the bottom of your profile under connections, and click customize visibility.

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  Make the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile
  

  
  

4. Remind people of you profile- Put the link to your public profile in the signature of your email. You can add a LinkedIn graphic button to your emails- click the following link to see directions http://slidesha.re/1jmzbOn 

5. Include a summary on your profile- A summary on your profile helps people make a personal connection with you through industry, school or hometowns. Who knows- this could be the deciding factor on whether someone calls you for a job! You can do this easily under the edit profile function, in the background section.

I hope these tips are helpful! Do me a favor and add Heather Esposito on LinkedIn- www.linkedin.com/in/heatheresposito . She taught the class I attended and changed my views on LinkedIn completely. In fact, just this week, LinkedIn hit the 300 million user mark, so it's definitely a worthwhile network and it pays to keep your profile current. Oh, also add me on there too: www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetconrad .Have a great Easter everyone!