Page 343 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Making SMM Work with TV

Second screen experiences (where a mobile device interacts with social media in
addition to a TV set) that support the primary television experience of an ad have
grown increasingly important. In fact, Nielsen has weekly social media ratings
that track the number of social media interactions between TV shows and social
media platforms (https://www.nielsensocial.com/socialcontentratings/
weekly/). This explains why marketers are increasingly focusing on how they can
make their television advertising support their social media marketing efforts, and
vice versa.

Some traditional advertisers believe that nothing can replace television to build
awareness for a brand. These advertisers scoff at the notion of digital advertising
displacing television advertising. Asking marketers to choose between the two is
a false choice. Each form of advertising has its place, and each one can comple-
ment the other effectively to meet the objectives of the marketing campaign. In
the following sections, we outline two scenarios of how digital SMM campaigns
can effectively complement a television campaign.

Social media has created a perfect storm in the advertising world, which results in
new advertising units, such as social ads and the rise of earned media, working in
conjunction with paid media. And the technological innovations in live streaming
is changing the nature of television online, leading to a whole new set of market-
ing implications for traditional TV advertisers.

Awareness through TV; engagement
via the Internet

The reach of television is still insurmountable for any other marketing channel.
Television advertising provides awareness for a brand, a product, or a new cam-
paign better than other techniques. But television is most effectively used when it
serves to build awareness and drive consumers to more deeply engage with a
brand on other channels, such as the Internet.

Take Levi’s 501 Project Runway Challenge, for example. Levi’s 501 sponsored the
reality television series Project Runway, in which up-and-coming fashion designers
compete against each other in a string of design challenges for a big prize.

Levi’s sponsored the TV show to build awareness for its jeans among young
women, a target customer that had eluded the brand. Levi’s also created a Project
Runway design challenge of its own on a specially-built website. On this website,
users were asked to submit their own clothing designs for a competition. Other

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