Networks Try 'Twittering' To Spread Their Message
Web Community's Users — Are Seen as Ideal Group — To Help Promote Shows — TV networks are all a-Twitter about the latest marketing play for their new TV shows. — NBC, CBS, ABC Family and MTV are among several networks experimenting …
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-rebuild for NBC's digital strategy: the network just shut down its NBBC video aggregation service and folded its remains into the still-unnamed NBC/News Corp joint venture for online video distribution announced in March. Against that backdrop, the network's marketers are reaching for a cheaper, faster channel — Twitter — where the service's open API has already drawn praise from commentators as its key advantage over rival Pownce.
The experiment spans broadcast and cable alike — NBC, CBS, ABC Family and MTV — which suggests the appeal is not any one network's slate but the platform itself: a small, tech-forward user base seen as ideal amplifiers for new-show buzz.
First-order effects
- Marketing teams at NBC, CBS, ABC Family and MTV gain a zero-cost promotional channel aimed directly at early-adopter users, shifting show-buzz campaigns from paid spots toward conversational outreach.
- Twitter gets its first mainstream-media validation as a marketing tool, reinforcing the API-driven openness that commentators had already flagged as its edge over Pownce.
Second-order effects
- Rival microblogging services face pressure to court entertainment marketers too, since networks choosing a default platform will concentrate promotional spend and audience habit on whichever service wins.
- The NBC/News Corp video joint venture now sits alongside a free social channel in the same portfolio — forcing NBC to reconcile paid distribution infrastructure with unpaid viral promotion of the same shows.
Third-order effects
- If the networks' experiments stick, show promotion migrates from scheduled advertising into continuous audience conversation, making fan chatter around broadcasts a measurable marketing asset rather than background noise.
- A pattern of media companies building distribution ventures while simultaneously feeding free social channels points toward an industry structure where control of the conversation, not just the content pipe, becomes a competitive battleground.
The trend: Television marketing is starting to treat social messaging platforms as a core promotional channel, the first step in networks chasing live audience conversation as a measurable asset.