NBC’s The Voice has been airing live episodes (East Coast) as it nears its season finale this Wednesday night, and the show is featuring a social media room to shine a spotlight on live Twitter reaction. Hosted by “social media guru” Alison Haislip — sporting a phone, then a tablet — the room features live tweets on the bottom of the screen and monitors in the background.
Twitter’s Chloe Sladden watched the production backstage. “While you tweet at home during ad breaks, a platoon of make-up artists & the ubiquitous @MarkBurnettTV descend on the coaches,” she tweeted. “Really fun watching coaches tapping away on their phones during non-live parts, SMSing, tweeting.” NBC aired several of the tweets, like Blake Shelton’s above, spelling error included (does it matter?)
As we wrote after the premiere, The Voice has been one the most aggressive shows to integrate Twitter on the air. Beyond the tweets displayed on the screen — from coaches and viewers — it also periodically displays #TheVoice hashtag, which often becomes a trending topic. Sladden says as many as 70% the show’s tweets during the first live episode included the #TheVoice hastag — about twice the industry average, which the The Voice attributes to higher ratings.
“So many tweets came in saying, ‘What’s The Voice? I’m switching over from Glee,’ or from Dancing with the Stars,” explains The Voice’s Nicolle Yaron about the premiere episode. “It helped propel our ratings, which increased every half hour.” The show routinely tops our social TV leaderboard, powered by Trendrr.
Now that the show is nearing the season finale, you can vote for your favorite contestants via phone, iTunes (by buying a single) or via NBC.com. When you vote, you can share your selection on Facebook, which carries an innovative link to a sponsor’s Facebook page (above). Smart.
