Integrating the Offline World Online

We’re starting to see multimedia integration in our favorite television shows, on our frequent trips to the grocery store and at our nightly workouts. Companies are now bringing the offline world online. As Foursquare and Facebook Place checkins grow in popularity, companies are becoming more creative and integrating the online world with offline audiences.

Because of its social media integration, the NBC television show “The Voice” receives my vote for best television show connecting the two audiences. During each show, there’s a 30-second segment before commercial breaks hosted by Alison Haislip. She is The Voice’s in-show and online correspondent. Haislip takes questions in real time from online users and directs them to contestants before returning to the program. Each contestant and singing coach has their own Twitter Account, Facebook Page, shares videos and photos while updating their blog weekly.

The Voice encourages interaction by displaying judges’ tweets in real time across the show’s screen, while they use users’ tweets to ask the contestants live questions. During last week’s airing, The Voice had four of the top five Twitter Trends in the United States. The trends were either contestant names or something happening on the show. 

Voting online isn’t anything new, but it has evolved by becoming more social. When you place a vote online, you can choose to share it with your Facebook Friends or Twitter Followers. This is a great way to show loyalty to your favorite contestant, but it also promotes The Voice and builds its brand awareness by spreading through users’ social graphs.

This type of interaction creates new levels of engagement, sharing and collaboration within both the online and offline worlds. It allows users to feel like they are part of something and participating in the outcome. I’m looking forward to seeing what other creative ways companies will use to bring social and the online world into offline experiences.