Twitter and Facebook are ramping up their proposition as TV's "second screen" social media in order to get some of those TV Ad budgets...but they've a good bit to go. They're not getting traction.
16% of online Americans use second screens when watching TV prime time says Nielsen. Only half of them then use their Social networks to talk about TV shows - so that's all pretty low numbers. A big jump perhaps, but still in its infancy and becoming a struggle.
Consequently, Social Media isn't yet the way to use product promotion in relation to TV advertising. And this game might be up for Twitter/Facebook, or at least, be a much longer term play than they anticipate.
The problem here is that Social Media is an alternative to TV not an add-on.
Relating them together under the "second screen" proposition, isn't effective.... rather than, what they should be doing, is driving Twitter/Facebook as being different and offering other choices to TV.
But Twitter/Facebook want to get their hands on TV advertising spend now to show revenue potential because of share price issues...they'll be waiting.
The fact is that traditional TV broadcasting is dying, nothing surer, as audiences get fed up with scheduling of content at times that don't suit them and see better alternative content through either online broadcasts (Hulu, Love Film, Netflix) or online video (YouTube, Vimeo).
TV audiences are in terminal decline and TV stations are compensating that loss of viewers by increasing their rates to compensate. So advertisers are paying more for lower views and that simply won't stand. They are diametrically opposed.
So in time, advertising budgets on TV will switch to online. They've been slow to thus far, but like big ships, they take time and they will. Basic inertia, largely on the part of their Media Agencies, coupled with a generational belief in the power of TV advertising, means it will take time.
A lack too of new digital media understanding and confusion about formats, still gives digital media a "fog" over it. But that will clear.
Already there is an understanding amongst large brands, the traditional TV advocates, that they "need to do more online", but they're just not clear about what.
Social Media second screen offerings from Twitter and Facebook are not it.
Social Media alternatives to TV, such as broadcasting their own content, are it. In other words, they should be taking TV on and not be part of it.
Twitter TV? Facebook TV? online newspaper TV?
What Twitter/Facebook are currently doing is seeking short term revenues, whilst at the same time, being deflected from where they should be long term. They should be content providers onto huge platforms which they already have with massive subscribers.
Traditional TV is over as broadcasters and the TV stations need to realise that their long term play is as content providers into Social media platforms. And not, as Nielsen shows, the other way around.
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