How analytics can strengthen the connection of your audience to your brand: A pilot study by ERT
Tech startup SentiGeek has teamed up with the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) to explore how audience analytics can deepen emotional connections between viewers and the ERT brand. This pilot study aims to enhance ERT’s data-driven decision-making, refine its social media strategies, optimize content, and gain a better understanding of audience behaviour across both traditional TV and OTT (over-the-top) platforms.
What is SentiGeek?
SentiGeek is an innovative startup specializing in AI-driven language technology designed to decipher how audiences perceive different types of media content, their habits, preferences and level of immersion as linear and non-linear viewers. It also gives insights on what content to produce and how to strategically build stronger relationships between audience and brand. By analyzing comments and posts from social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, as well as from other sources, such as subscribers comments, audience surveys, focus groups etc., SentiGeek's transparent AI integrates with third-party data to generate advanced actionable insights. These insights shed light on audience behavior, appealing media content features, improved media consumption, competitive positioning, brand perception and audience building strategy.
The pilot study
To gain a comprehensive view of how audiences experience ERT’s content and brand, SentiGeek and ERT analyzed five different media products: a mini-series, two daily shows (morning and afternoon), two election events and an election debate. The study developed a customized methodology for linguistic data analysis, recognizing that different media products evoke distinct emotions, behavior and brand perceptions, requiring different algorithms and models for different media product types. For instance, the language surrounding mini-series is often sentiment-driven, with content characterized by emotional, dramatic and evaluative tones and content. In contrast, newsroom posts frequently contained offensive language and irony. Also a couple of interesting findings were about audience behaviour in linear and non linear viewing based on the mini-series content that was released initially only on Ertflix (ERT’s OTT platform) and then offered both on linear ERT channel and Ertflix. There was a correlation of non-linear viewing with frequency of social media posts. Linear viewing was even higher correlated with social media posts. Furthermore, Ertflix (ERT’s OTT-platform) viewership starts increasing 24 hours before TV broadcasting and peaks 24 hours after There was also demographic viewership correlation with the sentiment of social media posts. Such insights were explored in the rest of the media products.
One significant insight from the study was the identification of time windows for audience engagement and immersion. For example, data from the mini-series and the everyday show revealed specific periods when the audience is most receptive to related content, providing ERT with strategic guidance for posting and advertising. Additionally, the study emphasized the importance of ERT’s social media posts in fostering audience loyalty and engagement.
Challenges and opportunities
The pilot study also highlighted some areas for improvement for content but also for the posting strategy. A more systematic use of hashtags for different segments of shows or newsroom content (like election coverage) could enhance analysis. Actually, the analysis of the municipal election debate comments showed that the outsider would win the municipal elections in the biggest region of the country. Consistent posting from ERT’s official accounts, rather than relying on individual producers, could further strengthen audience engagement and immersion and create a sense of community. Another challenge identified was the difficulty in accessing historical data, though this could be mitigated by implementing a system for daily, systematic tracking.
Moving forward
The collaboration between SentiGeek and ERT has sparked discussions about the need for a unified strategy across the organization. This would involve closer collaboration with production teams to establish a standardized approach to social media posting, ensuring that the brand’s online presence is cohesive and consistent, using appealing topics for the audience. While these initiatives are still in development, the study has already opened up significant opportunities for ERT to build stronger audience relationships through authentic engagement on specific days or hours of the week, particularly through its OTT platform and social media channels.
