Bravo Conquers Social TV

Anyone who’s read my blog posts over the past years or knows me in real life must know how much I LOVE Bravo.  Now, the whole Housewives series leaves me cold, but I was hooked by Jonathan Antin and Jackie Warner way back when and watching Top Chef is sacrosanct in my house.  (Don’t get me started on Top Design.)

This past Monday at The RealTime Report in New York, Lisa Hsia, Executive Vice President of Bravo Digital Media, and Mark Ghuneim, CEO of Wiredset Trender, presented a case study of Bravo’s foray in to social tv.

Bravo’s fans are passionate and the majority are early adopters who engage online often, both true of this blogger.  The first attempt to combine social media and traditional broadcast grew into Bravo’s real time social viewing party.  Viewers can express their opinion on Twitter with a chance to see their tweets during breaks in the show, tweet with stars like Top Chef Judge Toby Young, vote in polls during the broadcast, interact through Facebook Connect, view behind the scenes content, and have a chance to win some swag.

Who doesn’t love swag?

Hsia saved the best for last: Bravo discovered that 40% of the online participants weren’t watching the show. Growing their audience using social media created more interest and I’m sure future viewers and any traditional advertising accomplished. The creation of a “coviewing companion app” for iPad provides the ability to push content to the viewer during both the show and commercials increasing the impact of advertising.  By making their on air ads interactive, Bravo allows customers to request for information or answer a poll while an ad is running which provides vital consumer data to their advertisers.

Bravo discovered that an users spend an average 23 minutes engaged online.  In response, they created Tweet Tracker, a visual interactive timeline of tweets about their various shows, conducted tweet battles where viewers can debate the merits of various contestants, and the Talk Bubble with celebrity and viewer tweets.

Bravo’s highly successful social TV formula:

Get that? Ok, I couldn’t resist using Data for data, but here’s the equation:

real time + data + social + video = social tv

Simple huh?

Social TV combines the swarm behavior of apps like Groupon or Foursquare with openness and real time engagement through Facebook and Twitter.  By increasing the interaction and enjoyment for the fans, Bravo benefits with a larger audience which drives content and advertising which promotes interaction and enjoyment for fans …

… and we’re back at that virtuous circle again!