Design competition Project Runway has unveiled two new social tools in time for Thursday's season 10 premiere on Lifetime. The features will help viewers easily interact with each other and the show's stars.
"Real-Time Runway" (see image below) displays Twitter trending hashtags and relevant handles as well as aggregates conversations about the show in real time during and three hours before and after the show. The social tool is akin to "Tweet Tracker" for Bravo shows and "Sound Off" for The X Factor.
"Real-Time Runway," however, allows people to filter tweets by time zones, helping viewers avoid any spoilers.
"We know how difficult it can be to avoid spoiler info in this day of social media, so we wanted to provide fans the option to view Project Runway conversation leading into the on-air premiere, without the risk of reading what folks in the Eastern and Central time zones are tweeting about the show," Evan Silverman, SVP of digital for A+E Networks, told Mashable.
The second new social feature is "Favorite Fan," which essentially is a popularity ranking of viewers. People with the most-popular tweets each episode will appear on the list in real time. One winner each week will win $500 and a spot on the winner's list.
Social TV company SocialGuide provides the social data for Real-Time Runway and Fan Favorite.
Lifetime's previous social campaign for Project Runway, "Fan Favorite" that launched last year for season 9, is back this season. Viewers can vote for their favorite designer every episode using hashtags.
A+E Networks' plans to integrate other social media into Real-Time Runway in the future.
"Thanks to its open nature and the ability to see virtually all comments, Twitter is social TV," Silverman says. "We realize a ton of conversation happens on Facebook and other platforms, but most of it is not as accessible as conversation in the Twitter firehose."
Project Runway season 10 premieres Thursday at 9 p.m. ET. Here is this season's teaser trailer: