Television and online social media

What is the relationship between television (both programming and advertising) and online social media? What impact do they have on each other? What are the general perceptions on the use of social media as a communications vehicle and how do these compare with television?

Consumers become more resistant to advertising messages and consequently need to be targeted in more subtle and subliminal ways. Communicating with consumers have changed significantly with the emergence of social media: Businesses need to take advantage of social media as a communications and marketing tool in order to raise brand awareness and build customer relationships at a low cost (New Zealand Management, 2010). Compared to television advertising, social networking media display more possibilities to directly target specific consumer segments as well as communicate directly with customers in order to gain knowledge about their wants and needs (Berman, Battino et al., 2009; Harris & Rae, 2009; Johnson, 2010; Mangold & Faulds, 2009; O’Connor, 2009). However, a multi-media approach is necessary in order to be able to reach all possible consumers as the steady increase of audience fragmentation is visible. Although some studies suggest that consumers are turning away from traditional sources of advertising (TV, radio, print) and that television is increasingly becoming a background medium, television advertising in particular has the ability to enhance new or social media and needs to be continually relied on in order to overcome the limitations of online advertising and social media (Brennan, 2009; Pfeiffer & Zinnbauer, 2010). Overall, television campaigns have the highest efficiency level compared to other traditional media and TV as a whole remains the ultimate mass medium capable of reaching vast numbers of viewers. Television still has a very high reach and declining ratings are “only” due to fragmentation (= more channels) and not due to reduced TV viewing levels, as people of all ages watch television (Romaniuk, 2009; sharp, Beal et al., 2009). Although new technologies will undoubtedly cause changes, television as a whole will remain the ultimate mass medium capable of reaching vast numbers of viewers as well as the preeminent advertising medium, if however, a more complex and expensive one (Lafayette, 2011; Neff, 2009; Winslow, 2011).

• Online advertising budgets are expected to experience a major increases in the coming years (Pfeiffer & Zinnbauer, 2010)
• Time that is being spent on social networks and blogs is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth (Johnson, 2010)
• 30 % of online activity takes place while simultaneously watching TV (Dodd & Doe, 2009)
• Personal PC time now rivals TV time, with 71% of respondents using the Internet more than two hours per day for personal use versus just 48% spending equivalent time watching TV (Berman, Battino et al., 2009)

TV viewing levels are resilient to social and technological changes and to the emergence of “new” media (Sharp, Beal et al., 2009)