Twitter and TV are a perfect match for live events

Whether it’s the excitement of the playoffs or the glitter of the red carpet, live events are happening — and the conversation is happening on Twitter.

There are two main reasons people flock to Twitter during live moments:

1. To make events more engaging and fun
2. To make sure they don’t miss anything, even if they aren’t in front of a TV.

To better understand the impact of both of these use cases and what they mean for consumers, broadcasters, and brands, we used advanced neuro technology to measure consumption across different media: using Twitter only, TV only, and a combination of the two.

What did we measure?

• Engagement: measures the personal, emotional connection between the content and viewer.
• Memory: the process in which information is encoded and stored.

What Did We Learn?

Twitter improves the way that people experience events on TV.

1. Making events more engaging for Canadians

Event-related content is more engaging and memorable on Twitter. Both engagement (+72%) and memorability (+80%) were significantly higher on Twitter vs. on TV alone. Adding Twitter to the TV experience, however, made TV event content more engaging (+28%) and memorable (+30%).

2. Helping your TV advertising work harder

TV ads can benefit from adding Twitter. Responses to TV ads were significantly higher in terms of both engagement (+40%) and memorability (+28%) when Twitter was included in the experience. In fact, Twitter users were able to correctly recall slightly more TV ads than those who were watching TV alone.

3. Adding incremental reach to TV advertising

People uniquely turn to Twitter during live events and spend more time on the platform. ComScore dayparting research shows that Twitter sees an increase in both unique visitors and time spent for tentpole experiences (while competitive platforms see decreases in both metrics). Plus, Nielsen TAR shows +22% incremental reach to a TV buy when a First View is included.

How to get started…

• Pair TV + Twitter: Target specific shows, events, keywords, or hashtags to reach live event fans.
• Extend event campaigns: Rethink how long events last. Excitement on Twitter starts well before the event airs and extends well beyond the broadcast window. The most efficient campaigns were active for over a week around the event.
• Conquest events: Can’t sponsor an event or want to increase your sponsorship awareness? Leverage event targeting. Use Twitter’s event calendar to discover and plan for opportunities to engage with your audience at scale.
• Align creative: Tap into the conversation by participating in the excitement, drawing meaningful connections between the event and your brand, supporting stars/athletes, sharing useful information/highlights, and/or reacting to live moments in real time.