New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Even in an election year that will determine the status of our economy, MTV’s VMAs have proven they can get social web more excited about the one of the biggest nights in pop culture over the political process. “The VMAs were more social than last night’s DNC broadcast (which only had 2.5 M comments),” according to Bluefin.

Trendrr’s data puts the 2012 VMAs ahead of the Grammys and the Superbowl in terms of total social interactions (on Twitter, Facebook, Get Glue, and Viggle) and shows that the daily activity skyrocketed from 5,567,954 last year to 19,175,032 this year. Women made up 71% of all social interactions, and 53% of the tweets originated from mobile devices. Trendrr also discovered that most social markets around the VMAs were NYC, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami respectively.

Here’s an infographic from Bluefin Labs…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last year, the VMAs created an extremely advanced second screen experience that incorporated social visualizations, live streaming and more. During the show last year, Beyonce helped the network break a Twitter record and recently they decided to announce nominations via social.

MTV’s actually had a Twitter tracker since 2007, so it’s not surprising that five years later they’re doing more than just listing trends. In addition to adding social voting (like they tested during the Movie Awards, seen below) they will be ramping up their back stage live streaming of the show. They’re also working with CoverGirl on their Facebook activation.

Lost Remote: Looking back on 2007′s Twitter Tracker, how has the product changed the VMAs?

Colin Helms: The Twitter Tracker has continued to showcase the moments and topics being discussed most at the VMAs, acting as sort of a social indicator of the most important moments throughout each show.

LR: What will be new with the tracker this year? What aren’t you bringing back from last year?

Helms: Similar to the Tracker launched with the 2012 Movie Awards, the tracker is going to continue to tap into moments of the show in real-time. So while it will track Twitter activity related to different celebrities, performances, etc., it’s more about identifying the moments trending in real-time and encapsulating them into a stunning visualization across the various screens.

From a strategy perspective, the biggest differentiation in terms of how we’ve evolved the product is that we’re now building it with TV in mind first, and then mobile and web. As the Tracker continues to get more tightly integrated on-air, we didn’t want to be restricted with a web-quality product, so have focused on optimizing for every screen with different iterations of the product. For TV, we’ve made the design a lot bigger and bolder and it will showcase the top three trending moments happening in real-time from the show represented in various frames. The web version will also display trending moments, but below you’ll still see individual artists and celebrities being tweeted about the most. The web version will also have functionality to track terms, capturing what celebrities are saying in any given moment.

One of the online voting screens during the MTV Movie Awards earlier this year

LR: How will the social voting work?

Helms: Building on success we had with the Movie Awards, on August 28th, we’re going to roll out social voting for a new category: “The Most Share-Worthy Video” sponsored by Bing. The category honors artists with the most impactful music videos of the year defined by social shares and fan-made lipdubs, recreations and alternate versions of their music videos. Nominees include Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe,” Beyoncé, “Countdown,” Justin Bieber, “Boyfriend,” One Direction, “What Makes You Beautiful” and Goyte, “Somebody That I Used to Know.” It’s a fun way to get the different fan bases pitting against each other and rallying for their favorite artist with voting #’s viewed in real-time. The 2012 Movie Awards social voting received almost a million tweets for the category alone.

LR: How will you be working with CoverGirl on the Facebook part?

Helms: Holland Roden, from MTV’s hit series “Teen Wolf” will host “Timeline to the VMAs” (below) a series of web vignettes sponsored by Cover Girl that will debut online in the lead-up to the pre-show. The vignettes will document Holland as she preps for the “2012 Video Music Awards”. Fans will be able to have a hand in picking her final accessories to complete her look based on engagement around web vignettes on Facebook as measured by comments, shares and likes. Then at the pre-show, Holland will reveal the fan’s choice live on the red carpet. CoverGirl will be sponsoring the Facebook Timeline Tracker with multiple on-air integrations throughout the pre-show and during the live event.

LR: How will All Access be different/bigger from last year.

Helms: This year, we’ve focused on creating a more consistent All Access Live experience across our desktop, mobile and app extensions. Nine live cameras placed everywhere from backstage to the red carpet will give viewers an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the VMAs.

LR: Will there be red carpet Instagramming? How many dedicated social media team members will be attending the show as part of production?

Helms: We’ll be Instagramming on the red carpet and we look at all our digital production team as content gatherers for behind-the-scenes content for Instagram, as well as other platforms like Twitter, Viddy, Pinterest and Tumblr.

LR: How will you be encouraging talent to share?

Helms: Our talent know their fans are hungry for meaningful interactions and that’s why they’re so active and celebrated on social platforms. Every year we continue to see attending talent more and more active on social and were constantly encouraging it. We work directly with all of the talent participating in the show to encourage them to share content with their fans across any and all platforms that make sense. We’ve also tailored our social products and tools to be conducive to sharing as well. For example, in our All Access Live experience, there is a built-in feature that allows fans to congratulate award winners via Twitter.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

1. “How an Awkward Girl and a Teen Wolf Make Friends” – two amazing shows with two amazing show creators are MTV’s scripted series Teen Wolf and Awkward. Both Wolf creator Jeff Davis and Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich will be on this panel with Tom Fishman, MTV’s head of social. I’ll be moderating.

2. “Schedule, What Schedule? Rethinking Appointment TV” – Join myself, Tomorrowish’s Mick Darling and social TV expert Carrie Bugbee as we talk about the evolution of broadcast TV and more.

3. “Take the Power Back: How Viewers are Hijacking TV” – I’ll moderate a panel with MTV’s Tom Fishman, Food Network’s Kate Gold and Networked Insights’ Sean Reckwerdt on how TV fans are re-appropriating content from their favorite shows and more.

Let us know about any other social TV SXSW panels in the comments…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

BREAKING! @pink to perform a brand new song at the 2012 @mtv #VMA on September 6 at 8/7C: at.mtv.com/T1U

— MTV (@MTV) August 9, 2012

“[By] leveraging our digital screens to initially announce nominees and the first performers (there was no television nomination special), we generated several worldwide trending topics and helped push sales and social numbers for several of the nominees, especially nominees in our new EDM (Electronic Dance Music) category… a strong indicator of MTV/ VMAs multiplatform ability to connect artists with new fans,” the network told Lost Remote.

Here are the highlights of their success followed by an interview with two key people from the network who made this happen – Amy Doyle, MTV’s head of music and talent strategy and Tina Exarhos, the network’s EVP of Marketing.

• Best EDM video nominated artist Avicii saw Facebook likes increase 100K. Twitter followers went up 15K
• Best EDM video nominated artist Calvin Harris’ Feel So Close saw approximately 30% sales bump
• Best Rock video nominated artists Imagine Dragons saw EP sales of “Continued Silence” went from #80 to #58 (up 12%). Also jumped up the iTunes Main Album Chart to #6, and #3 on the iTunes Alternative Album Chart
• Best EDM nominated artists Duck Sauce and Skrillex both saw upticks in social #s

Lost Remote: What’s your role with MTV, how do you create talent strategy?

Amy Doyle: My role is to guide MTV’s overarching music strategy, as well as oversee industry, artist and celebrity talent relations. That’s a pretty wide net which includes overseeing music programming and development, creative music integration, and our Hype division, in which we market the music of unsigned artists and bands for commercials, television shows and movies, as well as serving as an executive producer on our tent poll events like the VMAs and mtvU Woodies.

With the VMAs specifically, I lead an amazing team whose job it is to work with the artists to help build an eclectic show that’s filled with the most amazing live performances of the year. We work tirelessly with each artist to help bring their vision to life on stage. Over the years that’s included findings hundreds of Eminems to invade Radio City Music Hall, figuring out how to help Pink sing upside down, or let Taylor Swift perform on a subway car. No idea is off limits.

In addition, my team leads the charge in booking the host, and lining up all the presenters and surprise guests.

LR: How does social media become a part of the strategy? How was the social part become larger/different in the past?

Doyle: The VMAs were the first award show to truly embrace and implement social media across all screens, including the actual show. Over the years, we’ve arguably led the industry in leveraging social to amplify the show’s narrative. Last year, we even set a Twitter record at the time for most Tweeted about single moment ever. We have remarkable social, marketing and digital teams that continually iterate and raise the bar each year. I can’t wait for you to see what they’ve got up their sleeves.

My team works with artists and talent to have them leverage their own social accounts to announce their nominations, that they are performing or presenting. Increasingly, we’re also having them live tweet and update during the event to help spur on conversation and audience reaction in real time. This has become standard practice, not only for the VMAs and other award shows, as well as for video premieres, live stream concerts and interviews.

Social media gives us the option of alternative creative strategies too…like how we announced our host this year. Kevin Hart, Kim Kardashian and Kanye’ all tweeted out a comedic short video which spread like wild fire and became Kevin’s host announcement.

LR: Is it as valuable for you to get talent to share on social media as it is to show up to an event like the VMAs?

Doyle: The emphasis is to create a memorable show and then leverage all of our screens, including social, to make the show moments as big as we can.

LR: Why was the recent announcement so successful?

Doyle: We saw a tremendous reaction when we announced the nominees and that One Direction and Alicia Keys are performing. We saw an uptick in web traffic, generated 7 trending topics and generated more than 10 million fan votes. It also helps when artists activate their social like One Direction did once they were announced.

In addition, we were pleased to see that the nominations helped spike both sales and social followings for many of our nominees. To us, this is a strong indicator that fans are looking at the VMAs to discover and embrace new artists… which we love.

LR: How did the recent nominations announcements help market the VMAs?

Tina Exarhos: The marketing group works closely with the show, digital and press teams to coordinate ho, when and where we announce every bit of information we have. That includes video content we’ve produced as well . We try to leverage all relevant media – from our own MTV platforms to external news organizations, social platforms, as well as talent followings, to help amplify every message we release. It’s actually really fun trying to figure out how to best take advantage of all the great content and information we have for a show like the VMAs.

LR: Any thoughts on the age-old, can social drive ratings?

Exarhos: I think it really depends on the show. For an event like the VMAs, creating and re-fueling the social fire has been a key component to the show’s continued growth and success. From a marketing standpoint, successfully activating fans and ensuring they show up at 8pm on September 6th means a combination of tactics. Social is a top priority, but it works in concert with a variety of marketing tactics.

LR: What part of your marketing strategy for the VMAs are you most excited about?

Exarhos: Personally, I love seeing how our promo campaigns develop in the months leading up to the show, and how they evolve based on talent involvement and input. But even better is then seeing how the audience reacts to those campaigns. The spots showcase the spirit of the show – and seeing how fans react – like they have this week with the KimYeKev spot, is beyond exciting.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

TV producers are increasingly relying on live streams — usually via Skype — to book guests from around the world with minimal set-up. In the old days, booking a “talkback” (as it’s often called) requires sending a microwave or live truck to the location, but as the quality of live video increased, web video chats are increasingly common on the air, from newscasts to syndicated talk shows. The Al Jazeera show, The Stream, is a great example of a show that relies on web streams to lower the barrier to booking guests all around the world.

As live web streams become increasingly common, Watchitoo’s new device is designed to help producers coordinate up to 25 at once, just like they’re studio camera shots. And you can imagine the possibilities for social TV: viewers could tap a button on their second screens to ask to be streamed live on the air. We spoke to Aviad Arviv, Watchitoo’s Chief Operating Officer, about the new device.

Lost Remote: How does the new tech work?

Aviad Arviv: Basically, it allows producers to stream multiple composite videos from the Watchitoo Live Show and broadcast directly into the studio with green room controls. These controls allow producers to prep guests and adjust audio and video feeds. Virtual guests can beam in from anywhere in the world. All the guest needs is a web cam and an internet connection.

The physical output from the WCE is HD/SDI. With the Admin the WCE comes with output resolution can be adjusted to support 1280×720 with a frame rate of 59.94 as needed in most TV studios.

LR: Why do TV broadcasters need this?

Arviv: This is a cost effective and innovative solution for bringing remote guests in virtually. The traditional model of having guests travel to the studio or sending production crews to broadcast via satellite is expensive and inefficient. There are other solutions that broadcasters have used and tested, but they do not have the capability of bringing multiple guests in remotely with the ability to control the source feed and pre-screen guests. This solution also allows broadcasters to move away from the linear approach of having multiple solutions to broadcast via TV & Web. The Watchitoo WCE is an integrated solution that allows broadcasters to bridge the gap between TV & second screen. We allow them to bring audiences from their web environment.

LR: How much will it cost?

Arviv: There are 2 models available – a solution that can be installed in the studio or a SaaS-based solution. The cost varies and is customized based on the set-up and scale of the production, but typically covers set-up & installation and a subscription fee.

LR: How will it make TV more social?

Arviv: More and more, TV is moving to the web, and we see this as an effective solution for broadcasters to provide second screen or original Web content programming. The Watchitoo platform enables web viewers to become part of the conversation with video chat, text, Twitter & Facebook posts; allowing anyone to be the star of the show.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We saw frontman Wayne Coyne and crew light up Memphis in the first two hours. Ten hours in we were deep into Mississippi picking up Lips friends such as Grace Potter and lighting up fireworks.

Eighteen hours in and a few Red Bulls down we made it through the night and spoke with Viacom’s Van Toffler and CMT executives about the media company’s major online tent-pole in Hattiesburg.

Finally, we made it to New Orleans, watched The Lips make it to the House of Blues (in a scene right out of HBO’s Treme) where they broke the record.

As we caught up with the MTV crews stationed in New Orleans towards the end of the journey, we got a first hand look at how they executed a 24-hour live streamed event.

In the following video interview we spoke with Executive Producer Lee Rolontz, VH1 President Tom Calderone and Jeff Jacobs SVP of Production for Viacom. While asking them questions we were actually in the middle of the final run of the production. She describes how they had to fill content for two hours in the middle of the night, dealing with talent fatigue, why they chose to hire the director (who was the only one the talent could hear), how they dealt with live video from a moving bus and how VH1′s morning show used footage on linear.

We wonder what MTV will come up with for the next iteration of the O Music Awards and how they will try and incorporate traditional TV in a bigger way. Alex Rawls, who was covering the event for Spin Magazine and is the publisher of MySpiltMilk.com described how he saw a side of MTV that he hadn’t seen in a while. “I’d watch MTV more if it were more like the OMA stream, which reminds me of classic MTV minus the videos,” he told Lost Remote. “The O Music Awards reminded me of old-school MTV when it was unpredictable with self-proclaimed stars, real stars and stars who should be bigger.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Lost Remote: Why do you think social TV is important?

Jeff Davis: More than ever TV is becoming a social medium. Through Facebook, Twitter and other sites, people can share their experiences of watching TV at the same time. In a way it’s similar to the “community of emotion” we find at movie theaters. The excitement of plot twists and turns, romance, scares and thrills, all of it is now a shared event. It makes the show an elevated experience. Instead of just talking about it the next day at school or at work, people can talk about it while they’re watching, experiencing it together. Doing something like The Hunt is a way of extending that social element beyond just the 41 minutes of programming.

LR: Why did you create extra content for The Hunt?

Davis: We wanted to give our fans a story that both complimented Teen Wolf and added new layers. We’re always trying to give fans more content, more ways to interact with their favorite characters and stories.

LR: Why is social media important for Teen Wolf fans?

Davis: Teen Wolf fans want to experience more of the show. They always seem to want more. I get hit with requests to make more episodes all the time on Twitter. The Hunt is another way to bring the audience new stories for an audience that loves to be entertained, an audience dying for new content all of the time. I personally think TV has never been better. There’s so many good shows out there and so much good entertainment to be had, people want to share the experience.

MTV’s “Storytelling Without Borders” and why they launched The Hunt:

The network’s official anthem has gone beyond extending a show’s social media strategy for a few months. Kristin Frank, GM of Digital Media for MTV described that. “There are these false confines that exist around season and episodes that end,” Frank described. “It doesn’t mean that fans stop being fans, in fact it’s just the opposite,” she added.

Teen Wolf was the perfect show to launch a second storyline, especially with their intense fan base. “It’s the perfect fan base – it’s the first show that we’ve had in the first season get to a million fans,” Frank described. One example of these passionate fan groups was rap video creating “Wolf Pack Girls” who even got to go down to Atlanta and make a video with the cast. “If you’re a fan of this show, good things are going to happen to you,” Frank told Lost Remote.

How The Hunt works:

Built on SocialSamba’s technology The Hunt, lives only within the Facebook. “In this experience, we have a created a character for you,” Danielle Garre, supervising producer for MTV Digital described. “That nice thing of this graphic,” the student ID card, “it is pulling in your profile from Facebook,” she added. “This immediately calls out to you and says this is a personalized experience…pulls you into the story out of the gate..the same as the tone of the show.”

As each week of the show goes on you will continue to have the opportunity to join in on this scripted social TV storyline. Based on your responses to the different characters, you’ll head down different paths of the story. “The bigger mystery will play out over the full eight weeks,” that the show is on, MTV Digital’s Executive Producer Tom Akel described. “You will occasionally have touch points with the linear show,” he added.

Throughout The Hunt, fans will have access to numerous pieces of exclusive content that was filmed for this social TV experience on set with the talent. “We spent an entire weekend shooting, each actor has given us about three assets,” Garre described.

Marketing The Hunt across traditional and social mediums:

MTV’s also pulling out all the stops for a complete 360 campaign to get the word out about The Hunt. We spoke about the launch of season two with Tina Exarhos Executive Vice President of Marketing and Multi-Platform Creative for MTV, MTV2 mtvU and mtv.com.

“We thought what can we do to really engage fans – knowing how enthusiastic and engaged the fans are,” Exarhos described. “We thought what additional content can we give them to play around with, basically thinking about 52 weeks of the year and what that would look like,” she added about their marketing strategy.

Exarhos also described how they’re using traditional media to get the word out as well as the season continues. “We are also really focused on ‘traditional media’ – promos on air and significant digital buys.” She added that, “I just started looking at radio and TV spots that will be focused on The Hunt.”

MTV has proven that they can innovate and work cohesively across departments, especially when putting fans first.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Flaming Lips, infamous for the beautifully long, electric and stunt-driven performances couldn’t be a better fit for an awards show that will be sure remind the world that the internet has no borders. While Coyne isn’t bouncing around crowds in bubbles while dropping wads of cash from Dave Matthews Band, he’s using Twitter to engage with his nearly 95,000 followers.

In our video interview above, he jokes about tweeting naked pictures of his wife, the love he has for talking to his fans on social, how him and his wife enjoy Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and how excited he is to perform across the 24-hour OMAs.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.