ITV

THE BACKGROUND

Monitoring social media gives TV networks real-time insight into the performance of their programmes and valuable information on trending topics. However, many networks find that accessing, processing and analysing large volumes of social media data isn’t straightforward.

ITV is the UK’s longest established commercial television network. They asked us to build an online application that would allow them to monitor social media engagement with their shows.

BIG DATA VISUALISATION

We developed a social media business intelligence dashboard for ITV. The online application uses data extracted from the Twitter API to create big data visualisation of trending topics and conversations about TV shows.

The app provides analytics reports, which ITV’s executives and social media managers can customise and create at the click of a few buttons.

The dashboard makes managing and visualising big data quick and easy. It provides ITV with a new way of looking at current and historical social media trends, and the ability to use that information to make timely, informed decisions.

USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

The app was designed to meet the needs of its different user groups, from social media managers who needed detailed data, to senior executives who needed a high level overview. It allows both user groups to quickly identify and extract the key insights they needed to support their business decisions.

Furthermore, we knew that senior executives would have very little time to learn how to use a new tool, so we created a design that was extremely intuitive, easy and quick to use.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND API INTEGRATION

In order to access all the raw data ITV needed, we had to overcome the rate limits imposed by the Twitter API. To avoid compromising on the quantity or quality of data, we engineered our system to store, process and analyse the data as efficiently as possible.

The app was developed using Ruby on Rails, which is our web development framework of choice, as it offers a highly flexible foundations for developing bespoke digital services. For the database we used MongoDB so that the application could store and process large volumes of data.

AN AGILE, COLLABORATIVE APPROACH

We involved ITV stakeholders in our agile development process so that they could clearly see and influence the progress of the project.

The ITV team participated in weekly iteration meetings with our designers and developers, where we would demonstrate the app and together with ITV team re-prioritise features and plan next steps. This allowed ITV team to provide frequent feedback and to actively engage with the project. Potential problems were detected early and resolved quickly. New opportunities were identified and were incorporated into the app.