55% of your audience consume video content and other live broadcasts with a second screen device in their hand (be that a phone, tablet, or laptop). Second screen experience is a simple concept that takes advantage of this, helping you to draw more people into your broadcast or brand and grow your audience.
In this article, we’ll be looking at how the second screen experience works, what the business benefits are, and what you can do to boost your rates across your content/messaging. Our experts have put together everything you need to know about social media and the second screen experience, so let’s get started!
What is the Second Screen Experience?
The second screen experience is the process of implementing engagement methodologies in your content that actively encourage current viewers to post about your content using relevant hashtags or groups. This is then seen by their friends and family, who may then join your broadcast to see what all the fuss is about.
It’s an incredibly powerful snowball effect: the people who join your broadcast may then post, attracting more people and so on. However, just slapping on a hashtag and hoping for the best won’t work; you need to get creative with your content strategy in order to give your viewers a genuinely good reason to engage with your content.
So, what can you do to encourage engagement and maximise the second screen experience?
4 Key Strategies to Maximise Fan Engagement
The first, and most important, step is to plan out your content strategy. By getting your strategy prepared well in advance of your broadcast(s), you’re ensuring a much smoother process.
Here are 4 key tips on growing your audience via a powerful second screen experience.
1. Understand Your Audience
No content strategy is successful without a good understanding of the audience. You need to figure out:
- What your audience wants.
- What your audience needs.
- Where/when your audience is consuming your content.
You don’t need to know everything from the get-go; you can actually use your audience engagement strategies to get a better feel for what they like and don’t like, simultaneously collecting valuable first party data.
2. Feature User Generated Content (UGC) in Your Broadcast
Sourcing and featuring social data using real-time engagement tools is incredibly powerful. If your presenters or hosts can actively engage with your audience’s comments, even better.
Imagine you see someone tweeting about the above broadcast, you watch to see what’s happening, and then you see the host actively engaging with that comment. Many users on social media will also want that experience, so they will join the conversation in the hopes that their comment (UGC) will also be picked up and discussed, further spreading your content.
3. Use Live Social Polls with Interactive Graphics
Everyone loves a poll; it’s a low-commitment engagement, meaning that you’re more likely to engage a much wider percentage of your audience. Displaying the poll results with interactive graphics on your broadcast will start a conversation using your hashtags. More people see this and want to chime in; perfect. This is a simple, effective method for driving audience participation.
4. Gamify Your Content Strategy
Gamification includes polls, but can also incorporate other engagement strategies such as:
- Scorecards (fill out your scorecards and share them on socials).
- Rewards and prize draws (share this to be entered, etc.).
- Leaderboards (scoring points for certain actions).
Many businesses, brands, and content producers use this to great effect, successfully engaging people who would not ordinarily join in. This is usually because a prize is a tantalising prospect, so get creative! For some inspiration check out our work with Sky Sports below.
Industries Benefiting from the Second Screen Experience
While many live content creators (traditional broadcasters, YouTubers, Twitch streamers, and more) are actively benefiting from the second screen experience, there’s a whole other side to the coin.
Businesses across the world are beginning to tap into this and live content to great effect; it’s a superb way to get potential customers talking about your products or services. Successful campaigns boil down to a few key parts that you need to nail:
- You need to perfect your brand messaging.
- You need the right audience engagement tools.
- You’ll need to be able to source and moderate UGC.
- Finally, you’ll need to be able to create dynamic interactive graphics to display your content.
Once you’ve properly sourced, moderated, and displayed your content, social interactions will naturally begin to flow, organically growing your audience and generating excitement around your brand.
Increase Second Screen Engagement with Dizplai
We get it, it can be a lot to take in, but with the right tools and support, growing your audience and spreading your message can be smooth sailing.
At Dizplai, we believe that audience engagement and the second screen experience are incredibly powerful tools that organisations should be taking advantage of. We work with broadcasters, brands, content creators, and organisations of all shapes and sizes. If you’re ready to revolutionise your content strategy, get in touch with our specialists today.
Talk to our specialists.
Sources
YouGov
- Tags: Brands & Agencies, Broadcasters, Sports
