Now that #CommunityLivesOn {link no longer active} Yahoo Screen, or at least it will coming up March 17 when the show embarks on its 6th season, fans have been engaging with the show on its social channels as the hype ramps up. Since the show will be getting a new digital lease on life, it only makes sense for the show to be experimenting with native video in creative and fun ways.
Most recently, they launched a #HappyValendeans {link no longer active} campaign which pushed out five videos throughout Valentine’s Day across channels with Community‘s Dean. The videos were emminently shareable for the show’s fans and a lucky few got personalized messages from the Dean himself. The campaign generated over 1.36 million impressions and 280,000 video views on Facebook alone.
We talked to David Torstenson, Yahoo’s Social Marketing Lead for Original Programming, about the campaign and the kinds of content he sees helping the promotional efforts around the return of the beloved show.
With Community’s sixth season coming up soon on Yahoo Screen, how have you been getting fans of the show excited for it on social?
We’ve been slowly teasing out news and content around Season 6: press about new cast members, a video of the cast announcing the premiere date (March 17th), stills from upcoming episodes, and – as of this past week – the season’s official key art. With the help of Ayzenberg, we’ve also started creating and releasing social-specific ancillary content from the set, offering the diehard fans insider access and in-universe experiences that further connect them to their favorite fictional community college.
Can you tell us more about the idea around your #HappyValenDeans activation?
We’re building a lot of our content around major cultural touchstones and holidays – and for Valentine’s Day, we wanted to offer our fans an interaction with the show and cast. Since the Dean (played by Jim Rash) is known for both his ‘dean’ puns and his general over-earnestness about everything, having him send personalized ‘ValenDeans’ to fans on social seemed like a no-brainer. We got some great entries on our social channels, and ended up recording five short videos from the Dean – all of which came out incredibly well, thanks to our Ayzenberg team members (and the ridiculously funny Jim Rash).
What types of content are you seeing do especially well?
Anything we post that’s related to the upcoming season is almost guaranteed to do extremely well on social. That said, we’ve also found a lot of success creating Community-themed content that ties into major social conversations and resonates with both the diehard and the casual fan. The Super Bowl post featuring Abed connected with a lot of people (a lot of people who know very little about football, apparently).
Do you have any plans to incorporate more native video?
Absolutely! The show is still in production, so we’re hoping to capture some more moments from the set that fans should really enjoy.
