It’s that time of year folks—the air is cooler, the sun sets sooner, the leaves are turning, and my TV-obsessed friends have shared the Fall TV Premiere schedule. I admit I have a couple of favorite shows I’m anticipating, one of which aired last night, and was part of the CBS Social Media Event for Fall Premieres.
Survivor, anyone? It was fun to simultaneously watch and monitor it (#survivor) in Visible Intelligence. The prominent terms below indicate excitement not just over shows like Survivor, but also the Amazing Race, Criminal Minds and a handful of others:
And if you’re a Survivor fan, you know that two former survivors made their way back to Wednesday night’s show and will again compete this season. By the looks of it, Ozzy beat out Coach in the popularity contest:
Having watched it live, I can attest that Coach’s team released their coconuts first, but obviously it was tweet-worthy when Ozzy released his:
And you either like or dislike his long hair. For the record, “LIKE” for me:
It is interesting to see this year that television networks are increasingly looking to social media to understand audience trends and grow fan engagement. With the high volume of conversation on Twitter for the Survivor premiere there is a lot to be gained by the networks from analyzing conversations in social media across the Web, such as what show plots they like/dislike, where there might be opportunities to improve the show and which characters are attracting eyeballs.
But what happens when a social dashboard is incorporated while a TV show is airing? Cool, right? I can’t wait for Comedy Central’s Charlie Sheen Roast next Monday, September 19th. Move aside #MondayNightFootball, #SheenRoast and #CrazyTrain will likely own the Twitter-sphere this Monday night. I, for one, will be watching the online red carpet to see how people are talking about the roast.
Social media has certainly brought new engagement to TV. By creating multiple ways for viewers to explore their favorite series, episodes, actors, storylines and back-stories social media has opened up a lot of new opportunities for the networks to understand not only why a show is a success but it has given them a whole new promotional engine to build buzz and extend engagement beyond the TV wall. Survivor‘s Jeff Probst, for example, is not just live tweeting during the broadcast, but also answering viewer questions using a video service called “Tout” during commercial breaks.
Which TV fall premieres do you think are worth tweeting about and what “top term” do you think will be trending as Comedy Central’s Charlie Sheen Roast airs on Monday?
