A pretty big UK client win for Demand Media – after months of talks, ITV (LSE: ITV) is picking its Pluck social platform to manage viewer engagement with This Morning, plus Loose Women, Coronation Street and its upcoming World Cup 2010 site.
ITV has already used live-chat embed CoverItLive, in which Demand acquired a stake last year, for some live TV show interaction, but each of these shows underutilises online viewer engagement aside from Facebook and Twitter.
Pluck will now power the comments sections for the sites, but will also bridge out to users’ Twitter and Facebook profiles.
This Morning presenter Philip Schofield’s emergence on Twitter last year gave the social service one of its earliest tastes of mainstream UK adoption, after which ITV’s social media manager Ben Ayers has tried to layer such tools throughout ITV programming. ITV has found big Twitter and Facebook followings for The X Factor.
In December, Ayers told paidContent:UK 2010 “will be about further deepening that and making the two-screen experience work even better”
Other Pluck clients include Times Online, Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) and Guardian.co.uk.