Broadcast Delivers Monologue, Social Delivers Dialogue

Broadcast is anything that is one way! TV, radio, traditional advertising, seminar, printed book, magazine, exhibition and even theatre and its been struggling to adapt to the digital world. However, we may soon witness a renaissance of broadcast if it integrates with social in a marriage of convenience. But it will need to obey the new rules of social. Social media integration will soon become a comfortable bed fellow in almost everything we do, even when we watch the TV. Its a huge opportunity not a threat for traditional broadcast media.

They say sometimes we make the best decisions when in survival mode and TV seems to have awoken albeit slowly. TV has become dull but it is beginning to change its monologue tones into a swan song of dialogue. There are a number of example applications that we soon will all be able to experience:

1.  A company called Zeebox, is due to launch an app aimed at making television a more social experience. You are able to see what friends are watching and view with them using a “companion” device. From a business point of view this is where recommendations amongst viewers with a common affinity to a programme is very powerful.

2. Today we are not just satisfied with a product or radio programme, we want and need additional information around that. We want the conversations to be shared, debated and even evolved well after an event. Social has the ability to continue that conversation and take it to another level. Take a museum, it can have an exhibition or special attraction and use social to continue the conversation for months, spreading word of mouth and amplifying the message to a whole new audience.

3. Cisco’s Videoscape platform aggregates content from TV, online, and on-demand sources. Its customised to suit the individual person. It can use ”likes.” The system will scan our Twitter feed and give recommendations based on what conversations the people we follow are having.

We can all learn from this change. Every business needs to look at what it broadcasts and turn it into something that breeds discourse. Most websites have become static. Brochures are the ‘dodo’s’ of communication. We all produce content, we are all publishers. In the past we could get away with broadcasting that content and shouting.

Not now, we don’t have a choice. That same content needs be reinvented and shaped for the world of digital and social media. We are going to have to take a long, hard serious look at how we integrate that content into a medium that doesn’t howl but actually stimulates and starts conversations amongst our audiences that augments. Thats how word of mouth and viral happens. It needs a catalyst and that agitation does not come from monologue it comes from dialogue.

And if that great bastion of broadcast TV can do it, so can we! So I’m just off to look at everything we do that is broadcast in my company and see how we make it conversational! I’ll be back in a bit!