Getting Involved in Social TV
Social media are having an ever-increasing influence over consumer decision making, both in terms of product information and the sharing of opinions and feedback with other consumers over the web. For this reason, traditional retailing and online brands are progressively integrating the new digital media into traditional marketing strategies.
A new opportunity is offered by social TV, which embeds into traditional television programming (which can viewed via satellite, the web, optic fiber or ADSL connection) the presence of social networks, enabling online users to share their viewing experience and exchange information about the program being viewed with their network of peers. Such interaction can revolve around a brand or can be prompted by an advertiser during a traditional TV commercial (e.g. an online game). This way, the data gathered from individuals, product of their interactive behavior, afford a better profiling of users and strengthen the CRM policy of the advertiser.
From a recent research study (Pagani and Mirabello, 2013) published on the International Journal of Electronic Commerce, and conducted on a sample of 800 social TV users in the EU and the US, it emerges that it is important to leverage consumer behavior during his/her viewing experience to induce an active stance on his/her part. If on one hand high personal involvement with content (e.g. a highly-immersive program like a movie) leads to user passivity, on the other hand the experiences associated with feeling part of a community and the possibility of interacting with one's peers during viewing (socio-interactive involvement) stimulate active user behavior. It also emerges that social TV sites that offer socialization and communication tools are able to foster more active user participation. The various experiences of user involvement and the differential effects it has on consumer behavior have important implications for marketing metrics and information that content producers and advertisers can tap into.
Social digital technologies, including social TV, are changing the degree of consumer involvement and the very relations between web users are opening new opportunities for social commerce, which prevalently uses social media to support user interaction and provide customer assistance to online purchasing processes.
In fact, social media enable the free discussion of brands by users, who exchange information on the brand's website, so that gradually consumers, in addition to becoming a source of information and trust with respect to the brand for other consumers, also become a source of knowledge about the brand, complementing the knowledge generated by the brand itself. The novelty and popularity of television systems that integrate social media, like YouTube, iTunes, AmazonUnbox or Hulu, has not only affected business models in the Internet and TV industries, but it has also deeply transformed marketing and advertising strategies.