After publishing our breakthrough study on the second-screen space last year, we launched the SideShow platform in September 2011, so fans could enjoy an improved way to socialize and share around the television programs they watch. This sort of experience had never been done before, so Miso was venturing into uncharted grounds. Now that we’re a little older and a little wiser, we’d like to share with you some of our findings regarding what makes the most successful SideShow content.

One of the things we expected is that fans would love the opportunity to predict what comes next – no longer would they reduce themselves to shouting at their TV set. Most of the time, we were proved right: fans loved voting on possible future outcomes and sharing their opinions about them. There are times, though, where prompts for predictions went eerily quiet. What caused the disparity in fan engagement between one prediction card and another? We’ve dove into SideShows created for serial dramas to see what makes fans want to lean forward and interact with scripted TV.

The Power of Pick Ems

Early in the platform, it became clear that Pick Em votes were the most common interaction, having the most amount of fun for the least amount of effort. What we didn’t expect, however, was that Pick Ems could also have some of the most comments and social shares, given the right situation. When Pick Ems offer a chance to predict an important future outcome without constraining the viewer into an overly-specific response, commenting and sharing went through the roof. These “Two-Part Pick Ems,” which explicitly ask for an answer and implicitly ask for an explanation, are the most successful type of card for prompting predictions from viewers.

You’ll notice that the answers to these Pick Ems from Dexter are actually pretty unspecific. They don’t over-explain any option or expect specific predictions, instead, they’re essentially a binary response. But by simply covering the spectrum of responses with Pick Em options, they offer the opportunity to elaborate. For example, instead of asking “What will happen to Quinn?” and giving answers that include a variety of scenarios, the card asks “Are Quinn’s days at Miami Metro Homicide numbered?”, which identifies the specific dramatic tension that is prompting the question to begin with, molds it into a yes or no question, and then invites speculation as to how or why.

The fluidity of these second level interactions is what makes these Pick Ems more effective than open-ended questions. Instead of prompting with an open-ended prediction question, or a Pick Em with pre-speculated choices, the Two-Part Pick Em provides simple answers while stimulating creative responses. They maintain the ease of the Pick Em format, while the increased investment of commenting leads to more sharing. As a result, Two-Part Pick Ems could be expected to receive 43% more votes and 36% more shares than a prediction Pick Em that provides specific answers.

Timing is Everything

The other important quality of a successful prediction card is when in an episode it occurs. What we found from serial dramas is that viewers prefer to predict about episodic plot arcs, which develop early in the episodes. Prediction Pick Ems occurring early in the exposition and rising action of an episode, like this example from The Walking Dead, receive four times as many votes and shares than those during the climax or resolution.

The importance of this contextual factor leads to several content-related questions. For one, if viewers prefer prediction cards earlier in an episode, does that mean they prefer to predict episode plot arcs as opposed to episode-ending cliffhangers? Not necessarily. Prediction cards regarding serial/season plot arcs that occur at the end of an episode can be very successful. However, after the climax and resolution, at the end of an episode, the most important card to include is a place to give the viewers the opportunity to leave reactions. In fact, open-ended cliffhanger prediction cards often turn into reactions, completely ignoring the question!

Care About All The Characters

Finally, we hypothesized that fans would care more about predicting the fate of the main characters and of the central plot, than of auxiliary characters and insignificant subplots, but were surprised to discover that prediction Pick Ems that regarded the central plot and characters were nearly indiscernible from the rest. That is to say, when it comes to prediction Pick Ems, viewers are not picky.

Take these cards from Dexter. We believed that the most successful Pick Ems would be about the A-plot, Dexter hunting Travis. After all, if you were chatting about the show at the water-cooler, more likely than not, you would share your predictions about the primary plot. Yet prediction Pick Ems regarding Quinn and Batistas’ office conflict, or Deb, LaGuerta, and Matthews’ power struggles, all got comparable interactions and shares. That means the success of prediction cards is not determined by what they ask, but how they ask it.

The Three Tips for Prediction Pick Ems