Last weekend, ABC flashed the hashtag #Oscars on the screen during the Academy Awards, and tweets skyrocketed to the second highest point of the night.
Then on Monday night, the Travel Channel show “No Reservations” popped up a graphic a few times promoting that host Anthony Bourdain is “tweeting live now on @noreservations. Here’s what happened:
The yellow line signifies @noreservations mentions, and the blue line illustrates new followers. Bourdain’s tweets brought out the backstory in sync with the show, and viewers clearly responded.
“The Travel Channel demonstrated an on-air Twitter integration that was simple but powerful—a new template for any TV show,” writes Twitter’s Robin Sloan. “This is a simple, powerful, repeatable strategy: Tweet live during an episode’s first run. Tell your viewers about it with an on-air mention. (I like the Travel Channel’s implementation: clean and simple.) Then prompt them to tweet, too.”
Then this Friday night, Dateline NBC popped up the now-famous Charlie Sheen quip in the form of a hashtag, #winning. While that hashtag (and #tigerblood) have been trending off and on for days, Dateline NBC appeared in the top trending topics as the show aired.
Whether it’s setting a hashtag for real-time conversations or attracting people to get the backstory in real-time, sometimes the most simple graphic on TV can make a difference.
