2017 could be broadcasters’ breakout year monetizing social media, if they make the changes in sales required to do so, according to a new report issued by BIA/Kelsey and Share Rocket.
The report, issued Tuesday, says social media ad spend is expected to rise to $31.5 billion by 2021, up from $14.9 billion in 2016. About $10 billion of that will be spent on local advertising, a portion of which broadcasters are well-positioned to capture, it says.
“Local TV broadcasters can use their high value and premium news content to develop news packages specifically for social channels to attract and sell different audience segments than they can reach over-the-air alone,” the report said.
In order to capitalize on that growth, however, the report says broadcasters need to adopt four major strategies in building out social media platforms including: audience amplification and extension; revenue diversification and growth; product lifestyle and platform strategy; and audience targeting.
“The win for TV broadcasters in social media is to monetize content published on social platforms with incremental ad sales and to increase on-air viewing via social channel promotions and audience engagement,” the report said.
The study finds TV stations can benefit from Facebook being the dominate social platform for broadcasters, as sponsored content on the site can be particularly attractive to advertisers. That kind of advertising is relatively inexpensive, BIA/Kelsey and Share Rocket say. The addition of premium video has created money making opportunities, they say.
(Photo via GotCredit's Flickr. Image taken on May 3, 2016 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
