When you hear “second screen”, what do you think? Sitting on your sofa watching TV, surfing the latest cat videos on a mobile device during commercial breaks? #guilty

New technology delivering data over sound is re-booting second screen experiences everywhere. These new second screen experiences give brands, teams and content creators the opportunity to enable meaningful content delivery and enhance physical world experiences.

With the average person spending more time on their phone and laptop than sleeping here are five ways to better engage your audience on the second screen.

Understand your audience demographics

Knowing your audience and their desires is the first step to creating engagement. Beyond age and gender, drill deep to specifically find what they like and don’t like. You can’t deliver a meaningful experience if you’re off the mark with what you share. Case in point: Most 37-year-old male sports fans will be turned off if anything related to “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” crosses their second screen device during a ballgame.

Get precise

Technology provides the ability to get laser sharp about likes and dislikes—down to an individual audience member. “Smart” second screen experiences now utilize detailed social graph data and app profiles to deliver meaningful messages.

While it might be useful to deliver coupons to those walking by a retail store, take it a step further and deliver data, content or offers based on people’s specific interests. Rather than a generic coupon, think about sending notifications about a particular designer’s sale because the consumer likes that designer on Facebook. That’s the right combination of precise and meaningful that make an engaging second screen experience.

Design for speed

Meaningful content needs to be delivered in real time. No one wants to hold their phone to a TV for 10 seconds to learn about a song playing, or a commercial that’s already over. The moment is missed.

LISNR technology is synchronized to one-tenth of a second. If you want to see the biggest play of the game again, not only does your second screen experience let you replay it on the spot, but you can also control camera angles of the replay and see the latest player stats.

Create a simple user experience

No one wants to have to download another special technology or follow a set of complicated instructions just to participate in a second screen experience. LISNR seamlessly integrates with existing apps. Users spend more time engaging with your content than getting the experience itself to work.

Plan for interactivity

Too often second screen experiences are only about impressions. Build in social voting, contests or other interaction points throughout the experience to keep audiences engaged. Plus, you’ll know how many people engaged with the content and what generated the most interactivity — way more meaningful than just eyeball counts.

Looking for more ideas to connect with audiences on their second screens? Follow @LISNR.

LISNR is a high frequency, inaudible technology; a new communication protocol that sends data over audio. As the leaders of the Internet of Sound, we use inaudible sound waves called SmartTones™, to transmit information.  LISNR essentially transmits customizable packets of data every second that enable proximity data transmission, second-screen functionality, authentication and low-fi device to device connectivity on any LISNR enabled device.  We enable this functionality better and more efficiently than bluetooth (proximity), ACR (2nd Screen), and NFC/RFID (authentication). As an integrated software partner, LISNR can power devices to connect with world around better than ever before.

Share This Blog Post