TV stations adopt social media strategy to boost TV ratings

Surin Krttayaphongphun, executive vice president of Bangkok Entertainment Co – the operator of Channel 3 said the station developed a social media strategy after learning that many brands were using social media to boost sales.
  “It really works. So our station established a social media team to take responsibility for creating content to promote our top-rated TV shows and engage with target audiences,” Surin said.
Channel 3 said the number of social media users engaging with the public continued to rise.
However, some advertisers believe that social media has hurt TV stations by weakening ratings.
Surin hopes that Channel 3 being equipped with a social media strategy will result in the country’s second largest TV channel being more attractive to online users.
The country’s No 3-ranked station, Workpoint TV, aims to monetise its social media strategy efficiently.
Chalakorn Panyashom, chief operating officer of Workpoint Entertainment, the operator of Workpoint’s TV digital channel, said that after the channel offered top-rated programmes via social media, it resulted in a rating boost for its live TV shows.
“We use the social media network to remind our audience to get updates about which TV shows are live. We believe that when they see those live shows on their Facebook Live feed, they will turn to the TV screen to enjoy the programme,” Chalakorn added.
“We do not see Facebook Live as a threat for entertainment shows, but we have found that this new feature appears to attract viewers from news programmes.”
The strategy has also created a new revenue stream for the station, he said. So far this year, the station’s content supplied to YouTube has generated more than Bt50 million in revenue, compared with Bt20 million for all of last year, he said. Total revenue from all social media platforms has reached between Bt60 million and Bt70 million so far this year.
Chalakorn said Workpoint Enter-tainment was working with social media platforms such as YouTube, Line TV and Facebook, with a significant share of its revenue for video content provided via those platforms.
He said this new revenue stream was continuing to rise. Therefore, the company was seeking further collaborations with big players in this market like Facebook to reach a global audience. In the meantime, the company would expand its social media team from 10 people to 30 people next year.
Michael Namatinia, president for the Asia and Pacific market at the Thai unit of Norway-based Vizrt, said that apart from having a professional TV-programme production team, TV stations should have a strong social media team to create and publish stories with compelling videos and high-quality graphics for distribution on-air, online and via social media, such as official websites, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram,
Dew Waratangtragoon, deputy chief executive officer of One31, said the country’s No 5-ranked station collaborated with social media giants to help increase its audience share and revenue. “We believe that revenue from our live programmes via main screens [TV screens] will represent 80 per cent of our total income while the rest will come from revenue sharing with online media platforms like You Tube and Line TV,” Dew said.
Ongart Singlamphong, executive vice president of television business for RS – the operator of Channel 8 said the station also used social network to communicate with its audience and update them on shows and promotion campaigns.