Hollywood Studios Still Don't Get Social Media

I almost titled this post, So Close, Yet So Far because last night, NBC had an incredible opportunity to leverage social media to promote the new season of America's Got Talent and well, they were so close but yet so far from pure awesomeness.

They gave me the opportunity to embed the video above and if you haven't yet, play it. It's only about 3 minutes long but you'll see what kind of freaky stuff was on the opening night of auditions. And this is just the stuff that they showed... I'm guessing a ton of awesomeness (think hilarious viral video) was sitting on the cutting room floor. But even the stuff that did make the broadcast was an utter treasure trove of linkable video ranging from the truly bizarre to the really cool. Now we all know this isn't live, it's taped so NBC is sitting on this huge vault of video that is just begging to be shared. But instead of letting me share what I want, they give me only a single option - share the 3 minute advertisement for the opening night.

What a shame.

Instead, why were they not uploading each contestant's audition mere minutes after completion and making it easy to share each audition individually? Or better yet, why didn't they have some of the more likely viral candidates loaded into viral seeding campaigns? NOTE: maybe they did and I just don't know it...but I'm guessing they didn't because they haven't given me the chance to share individual auditions. But I could be wrong.

What I'm proposing would certainly have been a bit more laborious, but there are numerous services out there that will let you pre-type blog posts, tweets, updates, etc., and then schedule those to go live at the correct time. And by doing so, brands have a way to capitalize on my immediate interest. And that can generate a lot of free advertising.

More importantly, for event oriented or live TV brands, my ability to light up my Twitter or Facebook followers with a real time video share of "OMG, you have got to watch this. Just saw it on America's Got Talent" could send viewers over to the broadcast. Do you think the shows advertisers would like that? Better yet, let the advertiser brands have access to the best videos and let them share them via Twitter/Facebook as a reward to their followers. Would you follow an advertiser that promised to share the funniest auditions from America's Got Talent before they were available anywhere else?

The essence of great social media strategy is understanding how the platforms work and understanding how you can leverage and intertwine the platforms to extend your brand beyond it's current platform (in this case TV). I hope NBC sees this post and decides to get into the game... if for no other reason than we could all use a bit more humor floating around our Twitter feeds ;-)

But hey, that's just what I think. What about you? What do you think?

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