• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 10, 2013

Digital marketers are quick to depict TV viewers as supreme attention dividers, ceaselessly shifting their gaze from TV to social media on their tablets to smartphones. TV execs, meanwhile, like to think it’s their programming with which these multitasking viewers are so socially engaged. 

As new research shows, however, both assumptions are somewhat overstated.

In fact, while half of consumers report viewing TV concurrently with social media, far fewer -- just 12% -- say they tweet, “like,” “pin” or post anything TV-related on a daily basis.

On a weekly basis, the number of consumers "talking" TV on social media jumps to 37%, according to new findings from the Social Media Committee of the Council for Research Excellence (CRE), which included a quantitative study by the Keller Fay Group, an ethnographic study by Nielsen Life360, and social media analyses by NM Incite and Bluefin Labs.

While the weekly numbers bode better for cross-channel marketers, the findings show how little is still known about evolving consumer viewing habits.    

“There has been a lot of buzz about the relationship between social-media usage and TV consumption, but until now, there has not been a lot of thorough analysis,” said Beth Rockwood, senior vice president of market resources and ad sales research Discovery Communications and chair of the CRE’s Social Media Committee.

In terms of social-media influence, a mere 1.5% of some 1,700 adult respondents reported being drawn to existing TV shows by social media. That number increased to 6% when asked about new shows, however.

Some TV genres seem to lend themselves to social media more easily than others. Sci-Fi, sports and talk/news show strong interaction overall -- both while people are watching and while they are not watching, the CRE found.

Interaction for reality programming is much stronger while people are watching, but decreased significantly after the program. Comedy follows an opposite pattern, with less interaction during the program, but more interaction in reaction to the program.

Influencers, or “super connectors” -- defined as those most actively involved in social media usage related to TV viewing -- represent 12% of the public.They tend to be younger and are more likely female, according to the CRE.
These super connectors are far more likely to be involved with all means of communication about television -- online, marketing and word of mouth. More to the point, they were two to three times as likely to interact with social media related to television as the general population.