NBC’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show Embraces Social Media

Image Courtesy of Fru-Gal

According to Statista: The Statistics Portal, The Ellen DeGeneres Show is the most-followed brand on Instagram. NBC is reaping the benefits of this and continuing to promote Ellen on their networks. Statista’s data shows Ellen to be the top spot, raking in a whopping 3 million followers across the globe, right above National Geographic, Victoria’s Secret, and Nike among others. Richter of Statista, powered by Mashable, confims that, “According to analytics firm Nitrogram, the talk show hosted by comedian Ellen DeGeneres has 3.04 million followers, just edging out National Geographic at 3.03 million followers.” Nitrogram calls itself “The Instagram Platform for Brands”, which tracks, monitors, and manages professional branded Instagram accounts for the company or corporation. Jessica Hullinger of Fast Company followed up on this happening and went on to analyze Nitrogram by stating, “Nitrogram, an Instagram analytics platform, has created a leaderboard listing the brands that are winning the Instagram game.” Because “Nitrogram 50 ranks the most popular brands and pages based on follower count and the number of posts made using a brand’s specific hashtag,” companies are able to visualize their progress with their social media engagement, at least as far ad Instagram goes. Ellen is going above and beyond in terms of social media and this ranking demonstrates their best practices.

Image Courtesy of Brittany Helmrich

Mike Mikho of Advertising Age explains why television and social media are so closely linked and how they depend on one another by saying that, “Several brands are already taking advantage of the complementary nature of the social and TV. Broadcast marketers are starting to create engaging, sharable content to leverage the long-term benefits of social, and social marketers are working more closely with broadcast teams to amplify reach and drive calls to action. As the mediums develop, we’ll continue to see a shift in content strategy, and collaborative strategies will pay off for years to come.”

Mikho points out that “TV can save social from the data confusion and subsequent skepticism of ROI,” while brands are using social media “as a megaphone to bolster broadcast campaigns, driving earned media that boosts the heart rate while lowering the cost per impression,” which in the end makes “television’s short-term benefits seed long-term advocacy, with social serving as the soil.” Ellen is the perfect example to show exactly how television and social media fit together to create an engaging and personal approach to expansive, far-reaching interpersonal connectivity.

Below is an Ellen DeGeneres original Instagram photo benefiting her no-makeup CoverGirl campaign.

Image Courtesy of RollingOut.com

ABC in the Spotlight for Kimmel’s Social Media Prank

Video Courtesy of YouTube’s Jimmy Kimmel Live

Hearing it from Jimmy Kimmel himself only adds to the hilarity of this social media prank that actually pranked us ALL, including many formal news outlets that reported the story as if it were factual before learning it was only a “Kimmelism”. During the Sochi Olympics in February Jimmy Kimmel, back at his antics, came up with a plan to poke fun at the Russians and their stage city for this year’s Winter Olympic Games. In the video, you will notice that Kimmel premeditated this prank with Olympic Luger, Kate Hansen. Kimmel borrowed Rugby, a rescue American wolf, built a replica of Hansen’s dorm in Sochi, and filmed the wolf meandering around the hallways. Then, Kimmel sent the video to Hansen and had her upload it on her Youtube account in order for viewers to believe the video was actually filmed in her hotel hallway in Russia.

Image Courtesy of Business Insider

Detailing the thoughts and words of Kate Hansen, Aly Weisman of Business Insider states, “After posting the video, Hansen told viewers ‘I just kind of laid low but then I heard people talking around the building and security started freaking out because it technically was a breach within athlete safety.'” Hansen goes on to state, ‘It kind of went a little crazy over here.’ Kimmel adds another humorous element to this event by “present[ing] Hansen with the Olympic gold medal for pranking,” says Weisman of Business Insider.

Image Courtesy of Business Insider

Tequan Wright of Latin Post adds “If you didn’t know, this isn’t the first time Kimmel has pranked his audience with a fake video. Just last year, he conned YouTubers with a video of a girl accidentally setting her pants on fire while attempting to twerk,” which proves that Kimmel is a master at foolery at this point in his career. Jackie Kass of Examiner affirms “A publicist for the United States Luge Association, Sandy Caligiore, confirmed exclusively to “Inside Edition” that the video shot by Hudson was Kimmel’s idea.” Needless to say, this is not the last of the social media pranks we will see from Jimmy Kimmel.

CBS’s 2014 Oscars to Blame for Crashing Twitter

Ellen DeGeneres is one of America’s funniest women and when she hosted the Oscars this year, people were far from boredom. Her wit and charm can instantly send a crowd into insane laughter. Her prolific “Oscars Selfie” was all anyone in the social media scene could talk about for weeks! With the caption “If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars”, Ellen again sent everyone into hysterics. Lily Rothman of Time mentions that “social-media data put together by the research company Fizziology shows that Twitter conversation about DeGeneres’ hosting gig was pretty unanimously (as in 99%) positive, and her opening monologue scored marks nearly that high.” Everyone agrees that Ellen did a fantastic job hosting, so what’s all the fuss about? The interesting part about this event was that with the re-posting of one photo led to the internal, systematic crash of Twitter for a short amount of time. This was record setting in the amount of shares. In other words, this photo had more shares than any photo ever uploaded to Twitter.

Image Courtesy of Financial Post

Christopher Pameri from Bloomberg News said the impromptu “selfie set the record for the most-retweeted post ever and temporarily disrupted Twitter’s service for some users, bringing the microblogging site tons of publicity.” This event showcased CBS and their Oscar programming while simultaneously giving Twitter a massive advertisement ploy. Even though the site was down, many were still trying to log on to see this picture and join in the conversation.

Image Courtesy of John Drake

If all of this Twitter publicity wasn’t enough, The Academy, the verified and official Twitter account for the 2014 Oscars tweeted the above picture and message. Tracy Sestili of Social Media Today says that Ellen “achieves over 2M retweets and over 900K favorites and counting, beating out President Barack Obama’s Twitter record.” Impressive but how many retweets, exactly? “It had over 1M retweets in the first hour, according to Kevin Spacey.” That’s a lot of retweets, but what does The Academy say about it all? “Even the Oscars gets in on the action, by apologizing for contributing to the Twitter outage.” While Sestili is right about the Oscars “getting in on the action”, many see this tweet as careless and pompous but still amusing at the same time.

CBS Blasting Public with Social Media Content during “Social Sweep Week”

Image Courtesy of Mashable

CBS began heavily using Facebook and Twitter to promote their “Social Sweep Week”, a week-long social media friendly approach to their usual monthly sweepstakes. Christina Warren of Mashable.com says “CBS kicked off a week of social media buzz for the Fall TV season, using Facebook and Twitter to promote new and upcoming programming.” This was a genius idea in their social media department because their audience and viewers directly the age of which most people are using these social networking sites. Warren goes into detail to describe the events of the week beginning on “Saturday, Nov. 5, the week kicks off with the SEC on CBS, broadcasting Southeast Conference college football games. Other shows getting the social treatment include The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men and CSI.” Each of these shows ended up having many more viewers than anticipated. She goes on to say that “throughout the day, CBS stars will post photos and video links from the set, and answer fan questions and comment on various posts.” Photos and video links serve to drum up “buzz” or conversations about what’s going to be on television later in the day or week. This kind of earned media gives CBS a well-deserved round of applause when TV by the Numbers analyst, Amanda Kondolojy, reports that “CBS placed first for the week in viewers, adults 18-49 (tie) and adults 25-54 with the top two programs and six of the top 10, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week ending March 9.” Kondolojy reports that The Big Bang Theory ranked number one for the Top 20 television shows watched with more than 18 million viewers. CBS can say thank you to Twitter and Facebook for their new awards and accolades.

National Weather Service All Caught Up on Social Media

Image Courtesy of The Washington Post

The National Weather Service is going to new lengths to get their message across to the public. They have engaged with many over social media including, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Their own personal website calls this use of social media “experimental”. Kristi Eaton from Fox News mentions that a single “Facebook post had reached nearly 800,000 people 12 hours after it was posted.” Eaton quotes Rick Smith, a warning coordination meteorologist as saying the purpose ‘is to demonstrate the power of social media when it comes to sharing weather information,’ Smith goes on to state ‘But also, to demonstrate the limitations of using social media for weather information.’ Eaton relays ‘while it’s great that people are getting this message on Facebook, they only may have seen it because “one of their friends “liked” or shared it.’ This is a new approach to the old way of getting weather information: the television. “That’s one of things we actually wanted people to get out of this and point out. While social media is a powerful tool for sharing weather information, you can’t totally rely on it for being your sole source of warnings,’ Smith advised. He later added that Facebook and Twitter are useful in getting the information out more so in advance rather than the minute it’s happening in the area.

On the other hand, Youtube is a good medium for sharing information via videos but is it the best option for giving out warnings about imminent storms? Eaton says “tornado season generally ramps up in April and lasts through June for the upper Midwest,” which means that people in “Tornado Alley” are turning more toward social media to find information about potential storms and tornadoes in their area. Twitter and Facebook are taking the lead in this department. Ryan Willis suggests that people in high risk areas for severe weather should follow the National Weather Service on Twitter for the latest happenings because it’s “pretty instantaneous”. Either way, keep up to date!

Fallon Follow-Up!

Image Courtesy of NBC

Jimmy Fallon had one phenomenal first month as the new host for NBC’s classic late night program, The Tonight Show, which was originally hosted by Jay Leno.  Richard Horgan, author of FishbowlNY, boldly states that “Fallon is not just topping the other Jimmy in traditional metrics, but also in the all-important social media counted sphere.” He claims that the company that helped Fallon measure his influence over the social media sphere is none other than, RelishMIX. Horgan says the “Tonight Show feels less like a pitch/gab fest and more, simply, like Fallon hanging out with his showbiz friends.” As David Bauder from the Associated Press notes, Jimmy Fallon has engaged “4.26 million viewers to Jimmy Kimmel’s 2.83 million on ABC and David Letterman’s 2.78 million on CBS, the Nielsen company said.” He goes on to state that “Fallon has consistently topped the 4.1 million viewers that Leno averaged this season before leaving,” meaning that NBC is liking their new choice as the host for ‘Tonight’. Bauder included a fantastic quote from NBC broadcast chairman Ted Harbert describing what he notices in people’s reactions “is not just that they like the show and think that it’s funny, but they like the feel-good spirit,” Harbert said. “There’s a total absence of snarkiness, of cynicism. It’s just there to make you feel good before you go to sleep, ” which fully explains NBC’s stance on how the show is going. Fallon should be very proud of the way things are going thus far. If he can keep this up, America might consider him out beloved “Late Night King”.

MSNBC Fires Head Tweeter

The Washington Times details that MSNBC has recently fired it’s head tweeter over a single tweet; it was a racial issue inside the tweet that could have easily been avoided by either rewording the tweet or not sending it in the first place. The tweeter for MSNBC had tweeted that conservatives are racist, which was called “dumb” and “inappropriate” by MSNBC. Before MSNBC could take down the offensive tweet, Michelle Malkin, a mother of a bi-racial conservative family had started a Twitter uproar with a single hashtag that read #MyBiracialRightWingFamily. She went into more detail as to why that tweet offended her and used the phrase “hey @msnbc jerks” and “cut the race card crap”, which in MSNBC’s defense, could have been taken out of context and misconstrued. Malkin is a woman that was offended and has the right to say so. But protecting the Right to Free Speech, anyone is able to say anything at any time, including MSNBC. The Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, mentioned that the whole situation between MSNBC and its head tweeter and the tweet was “disgusting”.

Image Courtesy of Google

This is a situation in which new social media and the choices that the user made had gone wrong. TVNewser at MediaBistro also mentions that the President of MSNBC,  Phil Griffin states that the tweet was “outrageous” and “unnacceptable”. This shows the viewers of MSNBC and news watchers around the world that just because we have this new technology and great means of communication, there are still plenty of things that could and probably will go wrong. We, as a whole community, should be careful about offensive tweets like the one MSNBC tweeted earlier this year.

Fallon Takes on Social Media

Fallon is at the height of his career and in so, he has significantly increased the social media engagement from all demographics of his followers. The graph below demonstrates the difference between the amount of followers in social media that Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon had before the host change of The Tonight Show.

Image Courtesy of Deadline Hollywood

RelishMIX led what they called to be a “7 Day Social Activity” in which they took the before and after numbers of the total following of Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon during the time that Jay Leno left The Tonight Show. This proved to be a huge shift in popularity from Jimmy Kimmel, whom initially barely out shined Fallon to Fallon seriously taking the favoring of the general public. The Tonight Show took the lead by a staggering 12.3 times over Jimmy Kimmel. In order to claim all of this data, they took the numbers of people watching and sharing the content of The Tonight Show on Youtube before the host switch and compared it to the numbers of the content-based sharing after the host switch. The whole process is based on users sharing content that they like.

The Denver Post has added that Jimmy Fallon is not only decreasing the age of the target audience but he is also increasing the entire presence of social media as one collective medium. He wants younger people to tweet, post, share, and like and he wants them to do it more often.

Jimmy Fallon has made it his new and ultimate mission to have his viewers like and share his show content while simultaneously generating a younger target audience through the very same mediums of social media. Deadline Hollywood calls it the Big Three — Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter.

We should see these social media mediums abuzz already with the things that Jimmy Fallon and his co-writers have said not but a few nights ago. Because The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon is doing so well, NBC benefits from it as well.

CNN In Headlines Instead Of Making Them

Besides posting various online articles about social media and its use in our communities, CNN itself uses many different forms of social media in order to get their word out. They are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other social media outlets.  Many people across the nation and globally receive daily notifications on their smartphones from CNN detailing what is going on around the world. They even have their own app available for free in the Apple iTunes Store. CNN has gone above and beyond when it comes to new social media and their output for their constituents.

Image Courtesy of CNN Press Room Blog

Due to all of their social media efforts, it’s not surprising to learn that CNN has recently won the Shorty Award for Best Use of Social Media for News for their entry of the Election 2012: Results, an electronic means of notifying the public of the latest breaking news about the 2012 Presidential Election that catapulted CNN into social media stardom. This was almost predictable considering this is their second year in a row having won in the category. Wolf Blitzer even made an appearance on the Shorty Awards in order to announce poll results during the ceremony. This was a very special night for all involved with CNN and their social media team of experts that run the CNN Press Room WordPress Blog; who blogged about having won a social media award, it’s like social media inception. Social media inside social media talking about social media. The bloggers for CNN Press Room stated that they had beat out all of the other competition such as Fox News, NBC News Digital, Univison, The Guardian, and plenty more. TVNewser writes about CNN’s accolades and mentions that TV is well portrayed because of CNN having won this award.

From here, CNN has another award to add to their shelf. We can expect to see even more awards in the future from the social media coordinators at CNN.

Image Courtesy of Shorty Awards

A bit about me!

Hello everyone, I’m Jessica Lyon! I live in a small town called Mechancsville, which is about 20 minutes outside of Richmond, Virginia. That’s the place I call home for the months of the year I do not spend studying Corporate Communication in the School of Media Arts and Design at James Madison University. I’m creating this blog for my SMAD 241 class and am very excited to learn about using this site and what I can create and share with you all.