Interactive Housewives Finale Nets Social Media Success for Bravo

Last week, Bravo hosted a virtual viewing party for The Real Housewives of New York season finale, and they weredesperate for you to tweet them during this interactive live stream that combined Facebook Connect, Sign In with Twitter, and mobile chat.

Now that the drama has played out on-air and the Web, we know that their efforts prevailed. Overall the campaign more than doubled Bravo’s (@bravotv) Twitter follower count, resulted in a huge spike in Twitter mentions during the virtual viewing party, and attracted record numbers toBravo’s website. Plus, as it turns out, one of the housewives, Bethenny (@Bethenny), was a trending topic on Twitter during the season finale.

Peaking at 2,089 tweets mentioning “bravotv” on May 5th, Bravo may not have achieved anywhere near the same mindblowing numbers that CNN pulled in during the Inauguration, but it’s certainly nothing to scoff at for a cable program. Here are a few more notable stats:

1. 2,089 total tweets mentioning “bravotv” on May 5th, and 2,906 total tweets from the 4th - 6th

2. BravoTV increased their follower count 121.18% (from 3,111 to 6,641) during the course of the campaign

3. The percentage of news stories mentioning “bravotv” jumped 15% during the period, with coverage now up 55%

4. BravoTV.com page views for the finale exceeded 1 million and were 159% higher than normal, with 47% more video streams than the previous episode

5. The Real Housewives of New York site accounted for 66% of all BravoTV.com traffic on finale day

6. 40% of viewers participated via Sign in with Twitter

With these numbers, Bravo’s foray into interactive live streaming of traditional TV-only content isn’t likely to be their last. We can only hope that more networks will start experimenting with online broadcasts that tie in audience participation using our favorite social sites. Did you watch the online broadcast? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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NightTline: Twitter and ABC Launch a Tweetable News Show

Twitter has rapidly become an invaluable tool for news outlets: news anchors are using Twitter constantly to ask questions and gather feedback from their audience, while CNN’s Breaking News account is the #2 most followed user on Twitter. But what ABC and Twitter are about to do tops our list for the boldest use of Twitter within traditional media.

So what’s ABC conjouring up? Well, its popular Nightline news program and anchors are going to host a weekly online news program that uses Twitter for debate and questions. It’s called NightTline. Yes, that’s Nightline with two Ts. The show airs its first episode this Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. EST.

According to ABC, the show will take on Nightline’s Face-Off model, which pits two opposing sides on an issue that an ABCNEWS anchor provides and moderates. It’s a model that causes a lot of heated debate and verbal exchanges, perfect for an easily-distracted online audience. The first question on NightTline? “Is torture ever acceptable?”

Twitter will be integral to the entire show. There will be a Twitter widget that allows viewers to chime in on the discussion or ask questions during the debate. The Nightline anchors will also use Pixel touchscreen technology to display and interact with the debate occurring on Twitter.

The show will air digitally on the Nightline website as well as ABC News Now, ABC’s digital distribution network. We’re very interested to see how much the show will rely on user participation via Twitter for questions or responses to the debaters. This could a be very cool concept or this could fall flat on its face. We’ll just have to watch to find out.

TechCrunch Leaves Federated Media; Will Manage Own Ad Sales

Mike Arrington said months ago that the TechCrunch-Federated Media marriage was in trouble—he called it a "love/hate relationship"—and now he says it can't be saved. TechCrunch is leaving the ad network founded by John Battelle because, according to Arrington in a TC post, "we're finally getting big enough to matter directly to advertisers and agencies." Instead, TechCrunch will control its own sales.

Giga Omni Media, also among the early high-profile FM members, left late last year for a more niche-oriented solution with IDG TechNetwork. In January, we reported that FM was restructuring to devote more resources to conversational marketing and less on traditional display; Arrington complained at the time about the way it was handled. But this parting appears to be a lot more amicable. On the FM blog, Neil Chase referred "differences" over the years but stressed the accomplishments over nearly four years. Arrington, in turn, credits FM with helping him make enough to hire his first staff and to grow. That growth includes CEO Heather Harde, who will be responsible for the new ad strategy.

Niceties aside, what's the impact on FM? Chase says they didn't want to lose TC as a partner but the impact isn't great "because we continue to take on great partners and we've taken on far more tech inventory in the last 12 months than we've lost." He wouldn't go into revenue details but based on some of my research earlier this year, my estimate is that TC could have been responsible for $2 million or less of the $39-40 million in revenues FM told us it brought in during 2008. Is it a hit? Yes. But it looks like less of one than it might have been during a hot ad market.

TC stats: Arrington offers some stats: 5.5 million unique visitors per month and 15 million page views (TechCrunch proper is more than 3 million uniques and 10 million page views / month. Until the information was taken down by Federated Media this afternoon, the pageview total for the last 30 days posted there was 8.8 million. (We all know that stats can vary by service and that internal stats for most, of not all sites, usually are larger than those gleaned through public sources.)

According to data published by FM, sites producing more traffic for FM than TC include Boing Boing and MetaFilter

DREAM JOB: $70K to use Twitter and Facebook

A county in Oregon is looking to pay $60K-$70K for a job that requires using Twitter and Facebook.

The “Multnomah County Social Media Co-ordinator” will receive benefits that include health care, a flexible work schedule, free bus passes and more. The job listing itself, on the Government Jobs website, is currently down for “maintenance”, but we pulled the following from Google’s cache and the press reports:

Do you tweet and use Facebook? Are you experienced with building social communities? Can you crank out news releases, editorials, and web content on tight deadlines? Have you been a one-person video crew?…

Multnomah County is seeking a motivated and experienced communicator, with a passion for writing, blogging, and social media in a fast-paced environment. The successful candidate will have PR and media experience, the ability to jump between creative and analytical skills, solid verbal and written communication expertise, and a marketing perspective. If you think strategically and are skilled at 21st century media technology, this might be the position for you.

Portland news channel KGW reports that not all residents are happy about the position:

Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler [Twitter account] is taking criticism for a new county job that’s just been posted…On Friday, he posted a position to hire someone to do what he does, but for the county - officially - to keep citizens informed of county business by via blogging, Twitter and other social media…Inside the backspace internet café, the idea was well received as you’d probably expect. “Can I get that job?” asked 18-year-old Daniel Lurvey, who says he’s on Twitter all the time….

Outside and away from the computer screens, folks were a little more critical of the cost. “I don’t know if we’re ready for that price tag because of what’s going on right now,” said Taylor Gilbreath.

KGW interviewed County Chair Wheeler via Facebook, who explained that the job is a senior level communications position….”It’s much more than a kid sitting in a dark room sending off tweets,” Wheeler writes. “It is top-level strategy and content.”…Wheeler writes that it’s time for the county to adapt, to progress with technology: “I am taking a lot of heat for this, but so did the poor guys who claimed that someday those crazy flying machines would replace the railroads.”

He may be right: if the job were called “Marketing Co-ordinator”, few would dispute that the County should spend money to promote itself nationally and even internationally. It’s the newness of Twitter and Facebook - and their strong association with socializing, rather than professional life - that raises eyebrows. The same was once said about blogging, and yet now corporations and government agencies are considered behind the times if they don’t communicate with communities online.

If you’re looking for an even higher paying Twitter job, you can receive $10K per month Tweeting for a California winery, but a public auditions process makes it somewhat of a publicity stunt. Meanwhile, our recent post HOW TO: Find a Job on Twitter offers tips and guidance on using Twitter for your job search.