Moving Beyond the TV, Part 1

I had the pleasure of interviewing Kirstin Knezevich, a manager in branded digital platforms at the premium cable channel where I work. Kirstin, a California native, graduated from USC where she focused on business marketing. Intending to work in advertising and print, she found her way to new media when she first came to our company, starting first with its On Demand offering. She then branched out to brand strategy before moving to her current role.

So what exactly are branded digital platforms?

My group is charged with getting the brand out on various platforms, trying to reach non-subscribers and engage people making them more familiar with the brand. We differ from program promotions in that we aren’t advertising premieres or selling full length shows (though we will release full length shows occasionally if it makes sense as a sampling strategy). Instead, the platforms leverage clips from shows, buzz segments and other extra content.

What do you work on primarily?

I have been working specifically on creating a hub on MySpace which recently launched.

Tell me more about the other areas that your group focuses on.

My team is divided into three areas: internet video (You Tube, podcast and other potential opportunities), social networking (MySpace, Facebook and other partners) and mobile. Social networking is my area, and I find it to be such an interesting way to communicate with fans and subscribers in a relatively inexpensive way. It is a vehicle that everyone is playing with and one that will help us to get the brand out.

Do you use social networking sites?

I have both Facebook and MySpace personal pages, but prefer Facebook because of its template structure. It is a more organized way of communicating with people. They are also great about opening up the applications and making them adaptable to your needs.

MySpace is still a force in music especially, but You Tube is also huge for video and iTunes is a driver for entertainment – people are getting content now from lots of places. MySpace is more for entertainment and Facebook is for connecting with friends.

What do you think about brands on these platforms?

Brands are doing well on Facebook, but no one has really hit it out of the park, and it is very hard to measure success in social networking. The question I hear at every conference I go to is, “How do you measure ROI in social media?” You can say that a page has 100,000 friends or a video had this many views, but if it is really just brand engagement, I don’t know if you can measure it in any monetary way. You can get a sense of success from word-of-mouth; there was quite a bit of buzz on one of my brand strategy campaigns. Still, there is no real way to relate dollars spent to word-of-mouth.

Do you Twitter?

I signed up for a Twitter account, but don’t really use it.

Do you think our company should be on Twitter?

As it is right now, brands are using it more as a customer service tool. Twitter blurs the lines between marketing and PR. It would be great for a production blog or as a tool for a huge star to engage the audience. With every platform we have to evaluate what makes sense for the brand.

More to come...