A panel of cable TV marketing execs traded tips on how social networks are occupying a defined slot in their promotional budgets at one of the Promax/BDA afternoon sessions:

-- The Allocation: In general, panelists said that while the figures vary from show to show, on average, spending on digital initiatives hovered between 10 and 30 percent of the total marketing budget per program. Catherine Moran, VP Consumer and Trade Marketing for Comedy Central, said that the network’s largely young, male demo spends more time online than watching TV, “about 19 hours. We spend roughly 18- to 20 percent of a show’s budget for online marketing. But most often, we don’t have to spend a lot, because the viewer does a lot of the work in terms of spreading the word. That’s why social networking has become critical to a lot of our efforts.

-- Driving Engagement: Doug Yates, SVP Marketing, TV Guide Channel, discussed a tie-in for the show Look-A-Like and MySpace. The show offers makeovers to people who believe they resemble a celebrity. He emphasized the importance of offering a ton of features to draw people to the show’s profile page. “We ran Extended clips and asked people to upload their photos. We were able to generate 50 million impressions. We got an added push from MySpace, because our promotion coincided with their fashion section launch. Eventually, that helped bring 172,000 visitors to our profile, and 9,000 people voted in our contest. MySpace had great ideas, they know their audience. Ratings were up 30 percent since the promotion and the age has dropped significantly as well. The connection was clear.”