By Dave Mainella

Earlier this week, we wrote about the VMA’s groundbreaking voting method, encouraging fans to vote for their favorite artists with hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, and Vine.  But this is just one of the ways the MTV Video Music Awards, now just a few short days away (Sunday, 9pm), has incorporated social media on a large scale.

The VMAs have always been on the cutting edge of combining social media and live television.  They were the first to employ second screen tactics with 2009′s Twitter Tracker, an aggregate of all the VMA related tweets presented in real time.  This year’s show goes a step further, replacing the Twitter Tracker with the all-encompassing Social Radar.  Understanding that Twitter is but one component of the vast social media space, the Social Radar pulls information from all VMA-related artists and tags across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine.  The Social Radar can be found online and on mobile devices, eliminating the need for fans to check different places for related content. 

It’s apparent that the Viacom-ownd MTV aims to qualify and capitalize on social interaction rather than simply encouraging conversation.  The most important development in terms of second screen engagement is, perhaps, the specific content MTV is producing for the second screen.  From photos and videos to facts and behind-the-scenes interviews, a synchronized viewing companion brings the MTV brand into the frenzied social media dialogue and, conversely, brings the fan back to the product.

The convergence of brands, consumer/audience, and social media doesn’t end there.  Viacom is partnering with Twitter to sell promoted tweets to sponsoring brands, including Unilever and Pepsi.  Dubbed Twitter Amplify, this opens the door wide open for social video advertising campaigns. 

Viacom already has additional campaigns lined up.  “The availability of Twitter Amplify in the MTV Video Music Awards — an annual trending topic behemoth — generated such a great response from advertisers that we’re accelerating our plans to roll it out across our networks,” said Jeff Lucas, Head of Sales, Music and Entertainment, Viacom Media Networks. “We look forward to connecting even more advertisers with our audiences through video content on Twitter, starting with every burn in Comedy Central’s Franco Roast.”

This is the strongest case study to date of advertising in the context of social media and live television.  Twitter first announced the general availability of TV ad targeting a month ago.  But the partnership with Viacom represents the next step of targeted advertising, one with the potential to tap into an often record-breaking social media space.

There’s also been equal emphasis on building anticipation leading up to Sunday’s show.  Besides the aforementioned hashtag voting, the VMAs have been incorporating a series of clever methods that make full use of social technology.

Vine, in particular, has been instrumental in MTV’s #RoadToTheVMAs campaign.  VMA nominations were unveiled in series of stop-motion videos created by Khoa Phan, the first time an awards show has made such announcements through social media.  Even if the nominations are no longer a surprise, it’s worth checking out the fun videos.

The #RoadToTheVMAs has already established a large social media footprint; MTV announced last week that the campaign had collected over 100 million impressions.  It will be interesting to see how the additional components add to the numbers during and after the show.

Comments

comments