New York—Getting viewers to engage on your social platforms is all well and good, but from a pure business perspective the next question becomes: how do you monetize that fanbase?
"That’s the challenge," says Cesar Diaz, VP, media distribution, Cisneros Media. "That's where the good stuff is going to come from; we have to get that formula."
Diaz was part of the "Latin Social TV and OTT: Monetizing the Content Business" panel during B&C/Multichannel News' Next TV Summit on Wednesday. The conversation was moderated by B&C programming and digital media editor Dan Holloway.
David Beck, senior VP & general manager, social media, Univision, argued part of that formula includes social interaction that is not happening live. "As you talk about social it's not just that live conversation that's important," he said, adding there is "tons" of social conversation that goes on after a show has aired.
"That level of conversation, number of audiences we're aggregating across social networks, not just during the hour that show is on, is ultimately what we have the opportunity to monetize."
He touted novellas as a great way to engage audiences on multiple platforms, touting them as the "original" binge-viewing experience. "Imagine if you had House of Cards five nights a week," he said.
Raphael Correa, executive director, international business division, TV Globo, agreed that there is a lot of non-live social engagement. "There is an enhancement on how you relate to the content, how you become a fan around the content with social network," he said. "It's not only live comments."
During the discussion José Néstor Márquez, VP of digital video production & development, Telemundo, spoke about ISA, the company's first production to come out of its multiplatform studio Fluency.
The multi-platform movie will air across NBCUniversal networks mun2 and Syfy as well as a variety of other platforms.
Márquez said the rollout for ISA was a culmination of what they had learned about their audience for nearly a decade.
"We've been listening to the audience for about 8 years now," he said. "And getting a sense of what they want to see [and] how they want to see it."
