Hardly any other TV series attracts more attention on Twitter. Hundreds of thousands of people tweet, share or simply enjoy the #Tatort comments. Relevance and topicality for millions. The idea: SOCIAL CRIME SHOPPING. A real-time second screen experiment with a team of top Twitterers – but still quite a gamble for eBay.

eBay short-term chooses an upcoming episode of Tatort and gets a the top Twitter users on board. These influencers comment on Tatort for eBay. Social TV in real time: whenever a product plays a special role in the film, the team creates a pointed comment and tweets a link to the corresponding eBay offer. Always original, smart and entertaining. Something happens on Tatort, there’s some stupid dialog, something gets broken? The tweet goes out instantly. The eBay Twitterers dive into the world of sub-discussions. Sometimes they’re talking about the detective’s green leather jacket; then the suspect’s VR goggles are the topic. The followers are delighted and retweet as fast as they can.

The success is almost criminal! The team writes a tweet every 30 seconds, getting 2,700 retweets and likes, and achieving 230,000 impressions in less than two hours. Media and bloggers report enthusiastically with total reach of almost 5 million. Best of all, however: The number of clicks on the linked eBay offers is an unexpected 20 percent higher than average.