HBO Connect – a success story!
HBO is soon to enter the Scandinavian market with its video-on-demand service, titles such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex And The City are already now well-known for the audience here up in the North and now, the successful company will be even more visible. HBO were pioneers within social TV when they launched their HBO Connect in 2011 and e-zine Co.Create recently published an interesting interview made by Christine Champagne with HBO’s Head of Social Media Marketing Sabrina Caluori in which there are a lot of interesting stuff regarding how this TV-giant work with social media and social TV in order to reach the masses.
Initially, HBO worked with third-parties such as GetGlue and similar application companies but they soon felt that they needed to improve their own digital products in order to better fit with the needs from the market. An advantage that HBO has is that their company brand and not only its programming brands is well-known, therefore it can use it as an umbrella brand for products such as HBO Connect. This product has been very successful and will now be re-launched with some new features. Another advantage that HBO has is that they are not ad-driven which, according to Caluori, gives them some freedom in developing applications withing risking loss of ad revenues.Sabrina Caluori talks a lot in the interview about how HBO thinks when it comes to digital products in order to support their TV-formats and here are some concrete advices from her to broadcasters that are on their way into social TV:
- Before launching a social TV-app, ask yourself: “Who is the audience for this show and what are the behaviours that they’re doing already that maybe we could encourage them in an HBO/your company-kind of way?”
- Experiment on every platform as a user! Let your employees try them and think about how we can benefit from them and use them for our purposes?
- Do not only think Facebook and Twitter! What can we do on Pinterest, Tumblr etc, how can these platforms help us improve our own service?
- You don’t have to be # 1 to use a platform. Take your time to study it in order to find the best approach!
- Work closely with program creators and learn all about their vision if possible? Do not launch anything that’s not in line with the program idea.
Caluori also give some concrete ideas of how they work with directors and actors on Connect as well as features that the new version of the platform offers in this very interesting interview. I personally look forward to HBO:s arrival in Scandinavia, will they as well offer local versions of HBO Connect?
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Source: “The connector – meet the woman behind HBO:s social scene” – Interview by Christine Champagne, Co.Create
DOUBLE VISION 