A BOCCONI STUDY AMONG 820 USERS OF SOCIAL TV WEBSITES IN EUROPE AND THE US SHOWS THAT TELEVISION CAN BOOST THE PUBLIC'S LOYALTY BY ALLOWING IT TO INTERACT WITH SOCIAL NETWORKS

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Social TV is one of the top 10 technological innovations of 2010 and represents the new frontier for television companies in which online contents allow users to interact with their social networks. And the results of a study by Margherita Pagani, of Bocconi University’s Department of Management, show how the perception of this sense of community and engagement positively influence the use of online tv contents and allows tv channels to retain customer loyalty.

The study was elaborated on the basis of a questionnaire among 820 users, 60% in the US and 40% in Europe, of the top seven Social TV websites in the world for registered users: Joost, Justin TV, QOOB TV, Veetle TV, Loom TV, Hulu e Sidereel. On these websites it is possible to gather content from online fonts, share the data of social network users, show videos and allow viewers to post comments, ratings and suggestions to their networks through mobile terminals (such as the iPhone).

First of all, results show that social interactive engagement (the possibility of interacting with a community) impacts positively on active and passive use whilst the greater the personal engagement is with the content, the more negative is the effect on active use (comments, peer review with one’s social network, etc.).

Personal engagement thus leads to less active participation (content upload, forum participation, etc.) whilst social interaction encourages the engagement of the user in the social activities of the website, only marginally influencing though an increase in users. Social tools are thus more useful as a customer retention tool than as customer acquisition.

Further analysis then highlighted that the possibility of interaction within one’s social network produces more effect on the active and passive use of European users than US users. Analysing invariances across gender, the study shows that for males the sense of belonging to a community impacts more on personal engagement whilst for females being part of a community influences social engagement, and thus interaction. Testing for invariances across types of websites, results show that the more social tools and social interaction tools offered by a website, the higher the active use by the user.

“The managerial implications which emerge from the study indicate that for carriers, tv networks and content producers, the possibility offered to the user of staying in contact with one’s network of friends, in an easy manner, allows tv to retain its audience,” concludes Pagani. “And the opening of tv to social networks offers advertisers and content producers new possibilities to offer personalized content.”