One of the original reality shows, Big Brother is coming back for its 14th season this Thursday night. To accompany the show’s return, CBS is rolling out a variety of social TV products starting with “Big Brother Connect,” a second screen experience on CBS.com. This is one of the first shows to use the CBS Connect platform (a story we broke two months ago) which brings together the social activity around CBS shows, enables hashtag voting and gives fans the opportunity to see their tweets appear on TV during Thursday’s live shows. The curation is powered by Mass Relevance.
“Big Brother has an insatiable fan base on-air, online and across social platforms,” said Marc DeBevoise, SVP and GM of Entertainment at CBS Interactive. “This season, we wanted to give BIG BROTHER fans a true second-screen social experience, offering even more ways for them to find and interact with not only each other, but the show and their favorite houseguests.”
Beyond Big Brother Connect, the show will tweet behind-the-scenes tidbits from @CBSBigBrother with the hashtag #bbinsider. Two other Twitter accounts will be in play as well: @BigBrotherHoH will give that week’s head of household the opportunity to tweet directly to viewers, and @BigBrotherScoop will provide exclusive production updates.
CBS will also use the increasingly-popular “Flock to Unlock” tactic to encourage more Twitter participation. If enough fans tweet with the hashtag #BigBrotherHOH, CBS.com will unlock exclusive behind-the-scenes photos.
The site will also host fan chats every Friday — along with CBS Connect’s launch partner Skype — with Big Brother houseguests and “series experts.”
“We wanted to create the best, ongoing social experience for our shows, instead of confining it just to special event weeks,” explained Marc DeBevoise, the SVP/GM for the CBS Interactive Entertainment Division in our interview last May. “We now have talent and fan based social initiatives happening regularly across our shows and wanted to give users the ability to surface those across multiple platforms quickly and easily. With CBS Connect, we are giving fans and easy way to find and interact with each other, as well as their favorite CBS shows and stars.”