How to build new revenue streams and fight micro-attention? How to retain and grow audiences under the growing competition of new channels, streaming platforms and social media? These are the million dollar questions all content owners are asking these days.
Estonian company, Votemo, building real-time interaction tools, has been working with these questions for already two years now and believes that the key to success lies in instant and two way communication with the audience. They shared with us some interesting statistics and trends to prove their point.
Smartphones always on hand while watching TV
The statistics show that we’re so attached to our mobile phones that not only do we feel the need to reach out for our mobile phones on average 52 times a day but according to different studies, 88-96% of smartphone users also like to have their smartphones on hand while watching TV content (Deloitte 2018, FB IQ 2017). According to the Deloitte 2018 report, with the At Work and Out Shopping being the top 2 activities to which we like to have our phones right on our hand, watching TV ranks on a strong 3rd place.
While the first two make perfect sense from the practical aspect, watching TV coming 3rd is rather interesting as at first glimpse there is no practical reasoning behind why we should need our mobile phones while letting the content entertain us. But numbers speak for themselves.
This trend is something that content owners, creators and TV channels should consider when creating new content or repurposing old.
Provide audience with social experience
According to Ericsson (2016), the underlying reason for consumers to perform activities on a second screen can partly be attributed to the basic human need for instant gratification as well as never wanting to have a dull moment.
Content owners, creators and TV channels are not only competing over who has better content but in its core, are competing over time. The time that audiences spend on entertainment. In this regard, social media is one of the strongest competitors for any content creator, owner or channel.
Instant gratification is something that social media has nailed perfectly. Interactivity and personalised content is something that keeps us hooked on social media. Considering that on average each user spends approximately 136 minutes of their day on social media, content owners need to start considering how to give the audience the kick they get out of social media within their curated content.
Votemo believes the key here is instant and real-time interaction between the audience and the content creator. Making digital interaction part of the show, the creator has immediately ticked the boxes of providing a social experience, instant gratification and gathering data, which are the key features driving social media today. On top of that, digital interaction opens up new opportunities for collaborations with brands and sponsors.
Votemo is currently working with TV channels to enable them to provide their audience with interaction opportunities. Their recent projects include collaboration with All Media Baltics in Latvia on the famous talent show The X Factor. Channel TV3 Latvia implemented Votemo's technology to provide digital voting services to audiences as a more convenient and playful alternative to Televoting.
Project manager of local productions and content at AMB Latvia, Baiba Saleniece said she is happy with the outcome. “We wanted to offer our audience something new and Votemo’s digital voting system was a perfect solution for that. We were very satisfied with the final results. Our show's ratings were up from previous years and we were able to see a trend of more audience visiting our digital platform and also opting for digital voting.”
About the author:
Dagmar Mäe’s driving force is a desire to innovate and create exciting and fun user experiences and new business models within the content creation industry.
She started her professional career as a Producer at Estonian production company Allfilm, then moved to Spain for a bit and worked for Spanish production company The Brownie Film Company. She then switched to the IT sector and joined NEXD an AdTech startup based in Tallinn. Currently she is building up her own company Votemo, which is working on figuring out the future of TV and providing Broadcasters with tools for converting audience interaction into revenue and passing on her findings and experiences to the new generation of crossmedia content creators as a teacher at Tallinn University.
Dagmar has been involved in the creative industries since graduating from Film School in the UK in 2010. In 2013 she completed a Master’s Degree in Crossmedia Production with a multi platform concept/project Nullpunkt, which had a very successful run in Estonia and also won several awards internationally, including HBO's best project award at Filmteractive 2013.
Contact:
www.votemo.eu
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