Unwrapping the numbers behind @Discovery’s on-air integrations

The Discovery Channel ramped up tweeting and displayed fan Tweets on air during “Discovery Unwrapped Week,” a week of special programming with twists and holiday-themed episodes. As a result, there was a 143% increase in overall Tweets about @Discovery and its programs from December 8-10, compared to the same time period during the previous week’s days, according to Nielsen’s SocialGuide.

For some shows, the effect was even more pronounced. On Sunday, December 8, a special two-hour episode of Naked & Afraid (@NakedAndAfraid) had 330% more Tweets, 21,000 in total for the night, and a 470% bigger Twitter audience (492,000 people according to Nielsen’s SocialGuide) than the following week’s episode, which did not show Tweets on air.

The show suggested that viewers tweet with the hashtag #NakedAndAfraid, and that their Tweets might show up on screen.

The account for the Nashville band @ladyantebellum was among the throngs of accounts tweeting about the show.

As a result of the promotion and the Tweets by such high-profile viewers, @NakedAndAfraid gained 3,048 followers by the end of the day, a 650% boost over the 469 followers it started with that day, according to Twitter internal data.

The boost in Tweets and audience for @NakedAndAfraid was not an anomaly. On the Tuesday night of #DiscoveryUnwrapped, Moonshiners (@MoonshinersTV) also displayed Tweets on air during back-to-back episodes that included a Christmas special.

That night, 82,000 people saw 3,500 Tweets about the show, spikes of 140% and 150%, respectively, compared to the previous week’s episode that did not display on-air Tweets, according to Nielsen’s SocialGuide. And @MoonshinersTV also live-tweeted during the week of Discovery Unwrapped:

Do you know of other innovative uses of Twitter? Write to mediablog@twitter.com.