Social networks have become millions of worldwide users’ favorite space to talk and share things they like for a long time now. Users share everything, starting from memes and personal stories to what happens around them or what they’re watching on TV. This is a trend called ‘second screen’.
There are lots of consumers that use their smartphones or tablets to share their impressions about what they’re watching on TV in real time. The two social networks that consumers prefer using for this kind of actions are Facebook and Twitter. This might be a huge opportunity for both platforms, so they’ve been working for a while to get a spot in TV advertising.
According to one of Nielsen’s latest reports, TV was the most important advertising media in 2012 investing 300 billion dollars in TV commercials worldwide, which represented 62.8% from the overall advertising investment. The investment in digital advertising in the same period of time accounted for 1.9%. The difference is overwhelming, but seeing how fast consumers’ habits are changing marketers believe that these figures will change in the near future.
Twitter and Facebook are gaining more and more percentage in the digital and mobile advertising market. However, they don’t stop there, but mean to compete with advertising’s black belt rival – TV advertising, taking advantage of the second screen effect. According to a recent study published by The Cocktail Analysis, 51% of Spanish users usually use their PCs, smartphones or tablets while watching TV.
That’s why recently both social networks have manifested a set of initiatives that mean to prove two fundamental aspects. On the one hand, both are leaders of the second screen phenomenon. Facebook has signed partnership agreements with several North American and European TV channels, offering detailed reports about the number of Likes and Shares related to TV shows generated on their platform.
Twitter, on the other hand, has become Nielsen’s ally to offer a similar service to TV channels’. Twitter will offer public reports about which was the most popular TV show or series on Twitter (the one that got more tweets). Twitter’s current CEO, Dick Costolo, said that it’s likely that in the near future Twitter will offer the possibility of watching TV shows on their social platform via Twitter Cards.
Both social networks want to prove that they’re the favorite social network when it comes to users sharing their impressions in real time. Another aspect shared by both Twitter and Facebook is that they both want to prove that this phenomenon – the second screen effect – benefits audiovisual programs, meaning that the fact that more and more users talk about TV shows on their platforms means that more TV audience is generated. Although this fact remains to be seen.
