Lessons from Saturday Night Live’s

Digital Word of Mouth Strategies

Matt Allen Sarah Hofstetter

NBC.com 360i
Twitter: @mattla31 Twitter: @Pezmeister1
The plan for today

• Social media & digital word of mouth education

• Saturday Night Live case study

• Best practices so you can do it too!

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360i: Social media advisors to leading brands
CONSUMER
PACKAGED
GOODS

RETAIL &
E-COMMERCE

MEDIA &
ENTERTAINMENT

TRAVEL

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Holistic social media practice

Listen &
analyze
conversations

Report & Educate you &

optimize your team

Execute with
Devise
SM best
strategies
practices

Build platforms

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 Conversations in social media are…

Disorganized Vibrant Energetic Insightful Monetizable

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Social marketing strategy must revolve around
consumer behavior

Internet As Focus Group Customized Experiences Old Playbooks Obsolete

Strategy & execution require uncommon integration

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Winning over even just one customer can have
a huge ripple effect in social media

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The Importance of word of mouth, and blogs as
pivotal online influencers

Of consumer purchase decisions are primarily

67% influenced by word of mouth

68% Of blog readers visit their most trusted blogs

daily

300% Growth in monthly blog readership in the past

four years

56% Of social media users feel a stronger connection with

companies when they can interact with them in a
social media environment

Sources: McKinsey, AdAge, Jupiter Research and Cone, eMarketer

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Don’t fall into this trap!

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…or this one
Bright Shiny Object Syndrome

BSO Approach Strategic Approach

Set benchmarks
Listen
for success

Evaluate Strategize

Measure &
Participate
Optimize

Results: Results:
• Something to • Engage target audience
show the boss • Achieve KPIs

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If we want to succeed in social media, then we
need to…

Measure
Be Present Listen Up Participate &
Optimize

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Case Study: Saturday Night Live
Digital Word of Mouth (DWOMSM)

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NBC Digital Entertainment │Who We Are
Online & Mobile Destination for NBC Programming
Home of super-fan communities including Heroes, Dunder-Mifflin
Infinity (the Office), Biggest Loser and more…
The promotional arm for the TV Network

INNOVATION QUALITY ENGAGEMENT

− NBC’s online video player − Winner of Four Webby − NBC.com has the highest
offered the FIRST full- Awards & Twenty market-share of visits of
episode streaming with Commendations all network broadcast
closed-captioned and sites.
will be the FIRST to offer − Two-Time Emmy Award
user viewing parties as Winner, with Eight − NBC.com has the highest
part of the streaming Nominations time spent/user
experience − Led all networks with Six − MyNBC: A thriving social
− NBC is the first network Wins and Eleven network for the NBC
to offer high-quality, Nominations for the super-fan with more than
downloadable video of inaugural TV Guide 450,000 active members
your favorite TV shows Online Video Awards

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Audience Development │ Tactics NBC On-Air Digital Toss:

• TRADITIONAL PLATFORMS
• On-Air:
• Digital promos
• In-show integrations Publicity:
• Digital tosses
• Snipes
• Print & Radio
• Publicity
• Out of Home (NBC Everywhere)
• NBCU Cross-Promotional Support

• DIGITAL PLATFORMS Print:

• Mobile
• Online
• Promotion & Partnerships
• Media
• Search
• Digital PR, Syndication, Widgets

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 Widgets │ Types We Use

• SINGLE-CLIP VIDEO WIDGET MULTI-CLIP WIDGET CONTENT WIDGETS

(Embeddable Video Player)

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Widgets
Deployment Strategy

• NBC.com
• Digital Media
• NBC Publicity
• Distribution via 360i
• Viral Propagation
• Facebook Applications

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Audience Development │ Measuring Success
Viral syndication drives site traffic

Blogs MySpace
Embedded
links
Message Boards Other Websites

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When looking at social marketing, there are so
many platforms; but so little time….

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Let’s evaluate social marketing
through a strategic lens

SOCIAL MARKETING STRATEGIC LENS

Does it leverage
our social media
arsenal?

Does it follows
Does it meet our
social media best
objectives?
practices?

Does it provides
value to the
consumer?

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What are our objectives?

Preferred Site Traffic Advocacy

Player

Objectives Arsenal

Rules Value

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NBC’s incredible social media arsenal

ssets
rand
itizens
Objectives Arsenal

Rules Value

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Rules of the social media road

Listen to Understand & Empower your When using the

audience & acclimate to fans to express brand voice, be
cultivate each of your their opinions consistent
relationships environments about your brand

Make as much of Recognize you’re Always be

your content in an always-on authentic &
portable & environment transparent
sharable
Objectives Arsenal

Rules Value

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Ensure effective value exchange

Conversation Access Utility

Entertainment Social currency

Objectives Arsenal

Rules Value

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SNL Video Case Study

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Strategy Overview

Find Engage Nurture/Fuel Synchronize

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Personalized outreach & strong relationships
result in high visibility coverage

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Rapid, relevant outreach delivers coverage
every Sunday morning March 8
April 4
Jan. 10 Feb. 7 Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Seth Rogen
Neil Patrick Harris Bradley Cooper

6/1 6/15 6/29 7/13 7/27 8/10

Feb. 14 March 15
Jan. 31
Alec Balwdin Tracy Morgan May 9
Steve Martin
Justin Timberlake
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DWOM drove 77% interactions and 63% daily uniques of
NBC video player for SNL

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 Popularity in social media dominates PageShare
on Google as well

Aug ’06 Pre-SEO Oct ’06 After SEO Apr ’08 After SEO + DWOM

NBC.com did not rank in the

first natural search page
Blog Posts
Linking back to
NBC.com

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Did this program measure up against the
strategic lens?

Does it leverage
our social media
arsenal?

Does it follows
Does it meet our
social media best
objectives?
practices?

Does it provides
value to the
consumer?

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Can DWOMSM work for you? Some best practices:

• Always be transparent
• Customers don’t want transparency; they demand it. And it’s good for your
brand, too
• Never spam
• Don’t post comments on blogs, seeds message boards or forums, or blasts
press releases
• Authenticity is key
• Authenticity lets you take advantage of your brand strength and commitment
to listening to your customers
• Don’t incentivize online influencers through payment or pressures them to
write positive posts
• Give them something to talk about
• Figure out what will resonate best with online influencers – and their readers
• If no assets exist – create them!

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Guidelines of social marketing best practices

• Establish your goals up front

• Listen to your audience
• Lay out your social marketing footprint
• Populate, converse, engage and share
• Adapt the execution to the platform
• Measure!

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Thank you!

Matt Allen Sarah Hofstetter

Senior Exec Director of Marketing VP, Emerging Media & Client Strategy
NBC.com 360i
matt.allen@nbcuni.com sarah@360i.com
www.nbc.com blog.360i.com
Twitter: @mattla31 Twitter: @Pezmeister

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