My Boys on Kaneva: Using Social Media to Extend Broadcast TV
This evening at 10:00 PM Eastern Time, traditional media meets new media, as the cast of the Turner Broadcasting System show My Boys will do a live chat in the Turner HQ in Kaneva, an online social entertainment world.
My Boys, which airs Thursdays at 9:30 PM ET, is a comedy about a Chicago sports writer and her group of guy friends. Actors Jordan Spiro (PJ), Reid Scott (Brendan), Jamie Kaler (Mike), Michael Bunin (Kenny), Kyle Howard (Bobby), and Kellee Stewart (Stephanie) are all scheduled to participate.
It’s an example of how social media is helping TBS to extend the viewer experience of its fan base and how Kaneva is using broadcast television to draw traffic to its site. (Turner is also taking advantage of fan forums and widgets to extend the brand.)
As Kaneva founder and CEO Christopher Klaus said, “Kaneva provides entirely new ways for audiences to watch, participate and interact with their favorite TV programming.”
Kaneva combines elements of social networks and virtual worlds. Its members create digital versions of themselves — avatars — and then meet up in a modern day 3D world. Every Kaneva member gets a Kaneva City Loft — their own 3D space – which they can decorate and furnish in their unique style. Tonight avatars will be able to interact with cast members.
While Tricia Melton, senior vice president, marketing for TBS, TNT and Turner Classic Movies “is always looking for new ways” to extend the TBS brand and market My Boys, she candidly admits that the Atlanta connection helps. Both Kaneva and TBS are based here in Atlanta.
TBS’s New Products Group signed a one-year deal with Kaneva last fall to build and test virtual world extensions of its entertainment properties.
For producers of network television, social media opens new worlds for an audience demographic that tends to be younger. Fans who meet on Kaneva are “super fans” seeking a more visceral experience.
Greg Foster, left Turner in March to join Atlanta-based venture firm Noro-Moseley as a general partner. He witnessed the forging of the Turner/Kaneva deal and feels “the The Turner-Kaneva relationship is a great example of how Atlanta’s media community should be working together.”
He also believes the Southeast is ready for entrepreneurs to develop digital media businesses along side traditional media companies like Turner, Cox and the Weather Channel that are all based in Atlanta.
As he recently told Tech Journal South, “Ad dollars are flowing from traditional to digital media, including social networking and Web 2.0 sites and gaming. There’s a critical mass of dollars moving to digital media and a lot of businesses are taking advantage of that.”
At the same time, firms like Turner are attempting to stay at the forefront of consumer technology trends. According to Melton, it’s too early from a ratings perspective to determine if social media is a success, but Turner is listening to its fans.
As Melton explained, the marriage of social media and fan enthusiasm has spilled over into other TBS properties. Turner created Embrace Your Grace — a blog for fans of the show Saving Grace, which stars Holly Hunter.
Research found that viewers were writing about the show on their own and using Holly Hunter’s character as a launching pad to discuss issues raised on the show – often in very personal ways. The Embrace Your Grace site was a way to channel that enthusiasm and explore personal issues in a positive way.
The marriage of real and virtual worlds and traditional and new media does raise some interesting questions. What is the best way to leverage virtual worlds? Should the actors interact as themselves, as their characters or avatars? And how should fans interact with the avatars?
A live chat represents an early experiment in social media. Having actors represent themselves is a logical first step. It gets even more interesting if avatars extend plot lines and virtual worlds extend back-stories that can’t be captured in a traditional episode.
How do you manage the brand at the same time you extend it in ways you may not have anticipated? And who controls that interaction – the producers, the network, Kaneva, the fans?
In creating a platform to engage its viewers, TBS will experience the same issues that any company faces when they try to take advantage of user generated content.
Like it or not, customers are going online to talk about companies and their products. Companies like Turner are going to have decide if there are going ignore, restrict or embrace what their customers or fans are doing.
Despite the challenges, I think we need to recognize that companies are no longer in complete control of their brands. To be successful, they need to understand that they are now sharing the brand with their customers.
Let me get back to you.
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