What America’s Funniest Home Videos Can Learn From Social Media
Lately my son and I have been watching a lot America’s Funniest Home Videos reruns. It’s actually quite funny watching my sons reactions to back flipping cats and whiffle ball nut shots. He finds it all pretty hilarious.
I found it rather surprising that America’s Funniest Home Videos is currently working on it’s 20th season, however now it’s called AFV. The AFV acronym, while easier to say does little to revive the show.
It Got Me Thinking, What Can AFV Do To Get Back On Top
AFV was one of the first of it’s kind. A show that was solely built on UGC (User Generated Content). UGC is a term tossed around in the Web 2.0 discussion rather ominously but the original Bob Saget hosted show was a pioneer.
Rewinding back to the late 80′s America’s Funniest Home Videos had no real competition except for America’s Funniest People but it was on the same station. Fast forward to today, AFV competes with YouTube, Jackass, WebSoup and many other UGC or reality shows.
So why watch AFV?
Well it’s a family “safe” version of other reality or ugc created shows. Although you could argue it’s the same content with happy commentary, witty reportay and funny sound effects. A guy getting hit in the head with a baseball bat on YouTube can be a little rough to watch but if you put it on AFV add in a “BONK” sound and inject in some audience laughs and suddenly it’s safe for kids. AFV is also convenient for anyone who isn’t an internet user or fond of channels like MTV.
What Are They Doing Right
AFV continues to use the same format they’ve found succesful in the 80′s. Viewers send in their home videos, they find the best and offer prize money for that weeks winning video. They provided an outlet for UGC in the ’80′s when it otherwise wouldn’t have existed. They combine some great filler content with hilarious, cute and painful videos.
It’s a entertainment structure that has worked for 20 years, but lets face it, they aren’t as popular as they used to be.
What Can AFV Do To Reach More People and Improve Themselves?
AFV needs to take a lesson from Social Media, Blogging and current Internet based UGC sites. Below are some simple ideas I have, please add some of your ideas below.
When showing videos online or on the show display where the video was filmed. Either in City, State format or at very least just State. Think about when you watch shows like Cops. How excited do you get when you see that they’re filming where you work or live. I saw Underdog simply because it was filmed in Providence, RI and I wanted to see my city on the big screen. We all know how popular GeoTagging is becoming.
Implement an online video upload process. AFV will gain a great deal more videos and have better content to show because of it. This is going back to the basics and providing your users outlets where they are instead of forcing them to follow you.
Take a lesson from the show WebSoup on G4. WebSoup will share a video on Twitter before their show hits the air, then they’ll display user comments from Twitter on the show. This is great because you’re combining excitement of mini fame for your users and a way for them to share your site and videos online.
Another thing G4 does really well is implement live chatting on their shows. If you watch reruns of Cops on G4 you can see at times a bar at the bottom that shows what people are saying online while the show is airing. This is a great community building strategy. AFV could implement this online either on their site or in a mobile app format and provide their users with simple feedback and sharing tools.
AFV should rebuild their site to work as a Social Media Networking site. They need to give their users the ability to upload their own videos, comment on other videos, share content, etc…
Find more ways to give their viewers their 15 seconds of fame. Submitting a video doesn’t have to be the only way. Maybe online reactions including video clips, etc… They can also look for users to create Mock videos where they recreate or make fun of a popular video.
A rating and review section of the site for videos. This will open the door to feedback and help AFV find videos that their users want, essentially taking the guess work out of the equation.
These are just a few ideas and I welcome yours in the comments section below. How do you think AFV can benefit from Web 2.0, social media and the rest of our growing online community?