Putting hard figures on soft values : A quantitative analysis of the impact of consumer engagement on social media for a VOD-service provider

Abstract: In the spring of 2015 this study began and it had the goal of answering questions regarding the importance of consumer engagement for a VOD service provider, the TV4-group.  The goal was to get answers to guide them in the building of a new VOD service for the latter half of 2015. The questions were: what role does consumer engagement play in creating social media presence for a VOD provider? How do consumers behave surrounding social media engagement for VOD-service? And lastly: what effect does social media presence and consumer engagement have for a VOD provider?    To answer these questions two sets of quantitative methods were used. A survey answered by 970 individuals and a tracker put on the main VOD sites owned and run by the TV4-group gave insights that led to answering the questions. Consumer engagement plays a large role in expanding the reach of VOD services, in the case of the TV4-group it was shown that consumer engagement made up a reach gain equivalent to 55,7% of average TV4 Play views, 17,3% of average Facebook upload views and 172% of tv4.se views. Consumers also evaluated their own: usage, sharing habits and sharing types giving insight to their behaviour. The effects of all this stretches from more views as a result of reach to consumer loyalty making consumer engagement a cornerstone in planning a VOD providers social media strategy.