Social Intelligence report-TRUE BLOOD

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
TRUE BLOOD
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA RAISED THE PULSE OF THE SEASON PREMIERE
44%
TRUE
BLOOD
35%
GAME OF
THRONES
6%
ENTOURAGE
MOST
DISCUSSED HBO
SERIES BY
GLOBAL AUDIENCE
Networked Insights’ Social Intelligence Reports explore topics, themes, celebrities and brands to uncover
viewer trends and insights that can aid decision making by network executives and show producers. In this
report, we examine social media activity surrounding the season premiere of HBO’s True Blood on June 26,
2011. The data for this report was gathered from May 26 through June 27, the day after the premiere.
Headline writers had the predictable field day when HBO’s
vampire series True Blood recently delivered a boffo season
premiere:
“True Blood premiere ratings are bloody good”
“True Blood premiere kills in ratings”
“True Blood season 4 premiere sucks up a 6% increase overlast year”
You get the picture. But the headline that sang sweetest for the cable network and the show’s producers
may well have been this one: “True Blood season 4 premiere matches ratings
high.”
The True Blood team was certainly hopeful about the new season of HBO’s most watched series since The
Sopranos. But if they had any doubts that June 26 would be an especially good Sunday night, a strong favorable sign would help allay the worry – the social media buzz leading up to the show was intense and
extremely enthusiastic.
Networked Insights analyzed the social media conversation before, during and the day after the airing of
“She’s Not There,” the fourth season opener of True Blood. Our research provided insights into who is
watching the show, what they care about, what they’re saying, and the channels they use to follow the action
and communicate their feelings.
Such information can help show network executives and show producers assess the effectiveness of
promotional campaigns and maximize marketing dollars, as well as help predict a program’s success and
highlight its weaknesses. It can also help brand marketers better understand a show’s audience and how it
aligns with their target consumer.
© 2012 NETWORKED INSIGHTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS . . . AND VAMPIRE MOMS?
ENGAGEMENT TRENDS
B C
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
A
100,000
0
5/26
5/29
6/1
6/4
6/7
6/10
6/13
6/16
6/19
6/22
6/25
6/28
A. 5/26-5/27 – FANS DISCUSS CATCHING UP ON PREVIOUS SEASONS, CHARACTERS AND NEW SEASON.
B. 6/22-6/24 – WITH THE PREMIERE DAYS AWAY, EXCITEMENT BUILDS OVER THE NEW SEASON.
C. 6/26-6/27 – SEASON 4 PREMIERES; DISCUSSION AROUND THE SHOW IS HEAVY THE FOLLOWING DAY.
Figure 1. True Blood engagement (by number of social media impressions)
SITE ENGAGEMENT
True Blood discussion peaked in the days just before and
the day immediately after the June 26 premiere (Figure 1).
From a month ahead of the premiere to less than a week
out, social media activity stayed in a fairly tight range as
fans discussed past episodes, the show’s characters and
the upcoming season.
The conversation picked up considerably around June 22
with the premiere just days away. After a lull on an earlysummer Saturday, social impressions soared again on
premiere Sunday and the day after
Twitter was the largest source of conversation, capturing
43.5 percent of all discussion, followed by Facebook with
1.4 percent (Figure 2). The high Twitter volume is understandable with a must-see TV experience such as a
premiere. Twitter has proven to be the communication
channel of choice for viewers to share real-time reactions
to broadcast programming. This is evident in significant
Twitter volume spikes during major sporting events, talent
competition shows such as American Idol, and programming with live and/or dramatic conclusions like The Bachelor or The Apprentice. Nearly three out of five viewers
were women. Of particular interest, two of the top 10 sites
for True Blood engagement were “mom-focused” sites,
Babycenter.com and Thebump.com.
© 2012 NETWORKED INSIGHTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SITES
% SHARE
TWITTER.COM
43.5
FACEBOOK.COM
1.4
FANFORUM.CM
1.3
BABYCENTER.COM
1.1
HBO.COM
0.7
TRUEBLOOD-ONLINE.COM
0.6
THEBUMP.COM
0.5
LOSTTV-FORUM.COM
0.3
EXAMINNER.COM
0.3
TRUE-BLOOD.NET
0.3
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
THE GROWING ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN A SUCCESSFUL PREMIERE
HBO created a campaign to launch the Season 4 True Blood premiere
with an interactive app and videos, along with fan interaction on Twitter
and Facebook. Simply measuring impressions and conversation volume
resulting from such initiatives won’t by itself tell a producer or network
that the show is going to continue to attract viewers and remain a popular show. However, deeper social media analysis can identify elements
of a promotional campaign that are working and how viewers reacted to
the premiere. It provides a way to delve into what viewers are most interested in, as well as topics such as main characters, featured actors, and
the unfolding storylines.
Our methodology for analyzing the True Blood social media conversation comprised four key elements:
AUDIENCE DEFINITIONS: We developed a list of social media sites from
blogs, forums and news that most effectively capture the audience
engaged in categories such as entertainment, sports, fashion, food and
travel.
IMPRESSIONS: Impressions are a calculation of the number of social
mentions of a product/brand that visitors to social networking sites,
forums, blogs and microblogs were exposed to. They provide an estimation of how social media are consumed and are a way to account for the
vast majority of social media users who do not actually create posts.
Impressions enable you to look beyond post counts to gain a better
understanding of a topic’s true social reach. However, impressions are a
passive measurement tool and do not necessarily demonstrate engagement. As with other basic metrics, it is important to layer thematic
insights upon impressions in order to understand what drives the
conversation and what actions are required.
SENTIMENT: Search strings defined keywords used to describe brands
and products and accurately capture conversation volume. Posts were
assigned positive, negative and neutral ratings in order to calculate the
sentiment for a given keyword.
TOPIC DISCOVERY: Advanced clustering technology extracted major
sub-themes expressed in the content related to a keyword. A companion qualitative analysis reveals engagement drivers and how different
sub-themes interconnect.
© 2012 NETWORKED INSIGHTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
“...I watched the show from a
recording off my DVR and even
though I’ve heard it many, many
times, I still didn’t fast forward
through the theme song. I never,
ever can either! It’s just too
good.”
-fanforum.com
“Oh god. I didn’t realize they
could make that fairy concept
anymore crazier than it already
was. I guess they realized that
they needed to do something
with that storyline without completely getting rid of it. I’m glad
they ditched the magical fairy
land and replaced it with something more sinister.”
-sherdog.net
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
BITTEN BY LOVE
Through the use of hierarchal topic discovery, we
were able to identify four key themes emerging from
the social discussion. Highly encouraging for the
network and producers, the strongest theme to
emerge was a very positive sentiment about the
show, which was reflected in 29 percent of the social
conversation. Frequent use of the word “love” to
describe posters’ feelings about True Blood strongly
indicates a loyal following.
Another important theme leading into Season 4,
capturing 28 percent of the conversation, is the
relationship between Sookie Stackhouse, the central
character in the show, and Eric Northman, a “vampire
sheriff.” Posters avidly discussed the potential for love
scenes involving Sookie and Eric in the new season.
Conversations about Season 4 itself were the third
key topic, with 27 percent of the discussion. Fans
talked about having re-watched past episodes, an
indicator of their dedication to the show.
The remaining 16 percent of the social discussion
revolved around what other programs True Blood
viewers were watching. Perhaps not surprisingly,
more than half of this conversation involved comparison to Twilight, another book-based vampire show.
Among HBO series, Game of Thrones was most
discussed by True Blood fans.
Sookie was the most discussed character, nearly
doubling the number of impressions of the second
highest character, Eric. Sookie’s relationships with
Eric and vampire Bill Compton and the attractiveness
of characters, namely Eric and Sookie’s brother
Jason, were the most popular topics around characters and major drivers of positive sentiment.
29%
POSITIVE SENTIMENT
“Love” is the most frequently
mentioned viewer emotion
28%
ERIC $ SOOKIE
Eric and Sookie love are expected
and anticipated for season 4
27%
SEASON4
True blood fans have been re-watching
past season in preparations for the season 4
16%
ALSO WATCHING
True blood is compared to twilight due
to similar themes within the show and both
being based on books
© 2012 NETWORKED INSIGHTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
THE BEFORE AND AFTER TALK
PRE- AND POST-PREMIERE ENGAGEMENT TRENDS
TWITTER
PREMIERE
3500
3000
2500
BLOGS
FORUMS
2000
1000
500
0
5/26 5/28 5/30 6/1
NEWS
FACEBOOK
6/3
6/5
6/7
6/9
6/11
6/13
6/15
6/17 6/19
6/21
6/23 6/25
6/27
Figure 3. Posting trend
Predictably, the conversations changed somewhat from ahead of the premiere to after its airing. Early discussions revolved around characters, general excitement over the show and catching up on previous seasons.
Many posters talked about Sookie’s relationships with the male characters, particularly Eric. After the airing,
discussion included episode recaps, general mentions of watching the show, and what viewers liked and did
not like about the premiere. The Twitter conversation saw the greatest spike with the premiere, jumping 137
percent on the day of it and 245 percent the following day (Figure 3).
POST COUNT
Twitter was the biggest source of True
Blood posts (Figure 4), followed by Blogs
and Fan Forums. The high levels of blog
and forum activity suggest that these
channels deserve a level of attention comparable to that given Twitter and Facebook.
POST COUNT BY MEDIA TYPE
TWITTER
22,889
BLOGS
13.732
FORUMS
11,470
NEWS
3,752
FACEBOOK
754
(Figure 4.)
© 2012 NETWORKED INSIGHTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
GIVE YOUR SHOW A TRANSFUSIONOF EXCITEMENT
The first episode of a new television
series or season needs to attract an
audience and affirm the beliefs held by
program zealots. Through social media,
broadcasters and brand marketers can
capture awareness, which builds an
audience and then inspires them to take
action – whether to watch a premiere or
purchase a product. Engaging fans
across the social web serves as a catalyst enabling advocates to promote your
brand or television show. With the
added dimension of a shared viewing
experience connected through digital
channels, fans can now have social
interactions with your show and its viewers, everywhere.
The growing supply and richness of
social data provides broadcasters,
producers and brand marketers with
insights into consumer behavior, at a
scale and speed never before seen. This
social intelligence fuels optimization for
all stakeholders. Marketers can leverage
social data to modify campaigns.
Producers can measure audience reaction and calibrate accordingly.
Broadcasters can maximize the value of
a show by better understanding the
where, when and how preferences of
the audience that interacts with their
content. It’s becoming clearer every day
that if you want your show to succeed,
you need to have social media in your
blood.
© 2012 NETWORKED INSIGHTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
“ I watched a preview on HBO this
weekend. Weird #### going on in
fairyland...”
footballguys.com
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