Although I am in the middle of writing another blog post, I was inspired to delay it a week to discuss the NBC television series Smash which premiered in Canada on CTV last night (although there were online sneak peeks throughout this past Super Bowl weekend). The series is about the creation of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe and is scheduled to run 15 episodes in its first season. Smash has been promoted like crazy through conventional TV ads for months (rumours have NBC’s marketing costs sitting at between $10 and $22 million) but I propose this series is the perfect vehicle for over-the-top social media integration and storytelling. If I was God, aka Steven Spielberg, executive producer of Smash, this is what I would want to see for the promotion of this television show and why. Continue reading “My Smash Social TV Wish List” »

The holidays are rapidly approaching and I have decided it is only fitting that I finally deliver my long promised keyword research and analysis about “transmedia storytelling” as my gift to you. There has been impassioned discussion about this language and what it means throughout the past year. I would never claim to have the definitive answer, but this research does reveal  what and how people are searching for projects like this. I am not including all the data in this post, but please contact me if you are interested in the master list. It may not be exhaustive, but it is extensive and provides you with some important  information that could help draw a potential audience to your transmedia project. Continue reading “The Language of Transmedia: My Keyword Research Gift” »

For the past two weeks I have lived in social TV app land, first looking at all the statistics on this trend and then test driving a wide variety of them to get a wider understanding of the audience experience in this context.  This week I try to distill what I have learned into some recommendations and my opinions about what is working and what is not. I’d love to hear what you think as well. Continue reading “Social TV Apps Pt. 3 – Finding, Sharing, Extending Television Story” »

Last week, I summarized some of the statistics in the current social TV landscape that show this trend is alive and well and making a measurable impact. However, as someone recently said to me, the phenomenon is a little like sex in high school – everyone’s talking about it, some people are doing it, but no one is really doing it as well they could. And, I would add, many are not necessarily thinking about their partner in this – the audience. So this week, I have spent many hours being that audience. I used all the apps I could and read reveiws and watched videos for many I could not. Next week I will go into more depth about what I think is working and what isn’t from a digital marketing and audience perspective, but in this issue of From Search to Screen I put together a kind of inventory of some of the ways mobile apps are helping to find, share and expand TV content through “push,” “pull” or “conversational” functionality. Continue reading “Social TV Apps – Pt. 2: A Sampling” »

Back in July I wrote my first article on the social TV phenomenon (the practice of using social media and the second screen to engage with friends while watching TV). Since then this trend has seen astronomical growth with fall premieres and November Sweeps becoming dominated by social TV campaigns and an explosion of apps for tablets, smartphones and connected TVs.  I am also sure the Canadian Media Fund and the Bell Fund are seeing social TV on every single application they get this fall for a television series. But how many of the broadcasters, funders and television producers are digging deep into this trend, spending time using the existing apps and understanding what works and what doesn’t from the audience perspective? Most won’t have the time, so to get you started From Search to Screen is going to take a deeper look  over the next three installments. This issue examines the first part of the equation, what is the current social TV app climate (and the data already available); next week I will look at some examples of these apps and their functionality and features; and finally the third issue will share my experiences as an engaged audience member and my opinions about what the next generation should include to grab the largest audience share possible. Continue reading “Social TV Apps – Pt. 1: The Current Landscape” »