While Oprah and Piers Morgan recently live-tweeted their shows, tonight Conan O’Brien live-blogged along with his show on Facebook. “Sorry, Twitter. I’m going to be unfaithful to you tonight,” Conan said in a tweet linking his Facebook page.
And live-blogged he did. Conan’s show is pre-recorded, and he was parked in front of a monitor and his laptop on the Warner Bros. lot typing out a steady stream of status updates — sometimes just a minute apart. Each post received hundreds of “likes” and comments. “We don’t run credits because I do everything myself,” he joked at the end of the show, which received over 1,600 likes and 700 comments.
He also answered Facebook questions in a couple video clips posted on his wall. A producer rattled off questions from Facebook fans while Conan blurted out short answers.
It’s the first time we’ve seen a major TV talent post behind-the-scenes updates on Facebook during a broadcast — especially at this frequency. The real-time genre typically belongs to Twitter, not Facebook, and you have to wonder if some of Team Coco’s 1.5 million Facebook fans will enjoy waking up to a barrage of one-line updates.
But the Facebook event is smart for a couple reasons. First, Conan has been a “Twitter guy” for the most part, with fewer Facebook fans than Twitter followers. This outreach engages a new audience. Second, Conan’s updates received many more “likes” and comments than his usual fare, which will help boost the visibility of subsequent posts with his Facebook fans. (Facebook uses engagement as a measure to weight posts that show up in your “top news” feed.) Think of it as a Facebook SEO booster.
Unconventional? Yes, but we wouldn’t be surprised if other shows did the same in the near future. Our only gripe — and it’s a biggie — Conan only live-blogged during the East Coast airing, which yet again, leaves the West Coast out to dry.
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