Hulu Listens to Twitter

Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu.com (a site offering commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows/movies and @hulu on Twitter), was one of the panelists. Kirsner wrote: “Kilar said he was following changing consumer tastes using search.twitter.com, mostly related to Hulu. He said that Hulu makes changes to its site based on what people are saying on Twitter.”

This Hulu/Twitter mention by Kirsner was illuminated later by information included in the November 2009 Fast Company article “The Unlikely Mogul” by Chuck Salter. (The article is subtitled: “Can Jason Kilar and his hit site Hulu save traditional TV from itself while remaking it for the future? Click here for more.”)

Salter reports that Kilar estimates there are about 2,400 Hulu-related tweets on Twitter a day. Salter quotes Kilar: “I’ve always said that our brand is what people say about us when we’re not in the room, and this is the best tool for hearing what people are saying.”

A quick check on #hulu in the search box on Twitter provides a range of tweets from what shows people are watching on #hulu, to a request if anyone knows a good proxy server setup to watch #hulu from outside the U.S., to feedback on new TV shows with the hope that they will come to #hulu. (The # is used on Twitter as part of the search function.)

This ability for people on Twitter to provide direct feedback to companies such as Hulu is why Twitter can be such a powerful listening post for protecting a company’s brand. Companies that pay as much attention as Hulu apparently does to the Twitter “water cooler” chatter should have a definite competitive advantage over companies that ignore this (free) intel at their own risk.

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter)
Twitter for Business
Los Angeles, CA
Exclusive to HULIQ.com