I might officially be an old lady, because I think the “The Ellen Show” has the best Instagram account of all talk-show hosts, with Jimmy Fallon coming in a close second.
It’s one of the savviest show accounts I’ve come across. Like most news organizations are finally finding out, social media isn’t just for promotion and each platform shouldn’t be treated equally. Ellen’s social team is on point in using platforms to reinforce her brand. Listen First Media doesn’t include daytime talk shows in their Digital Audience Rating, but they did find that she grew her Twitter and Facebook following by 4 million since January first. Going from 17,354,718 fans to 18,106,993 on Facebook and jumping from 36,926,811 to 40,234,170 on Twitter. She has 9.8 million Instagram followers.
There’s usually a shameless plug or two for upcoming guests and videos of good segments. But mainly, it’s just babies, jokes, and more babies.
For her #ClassicJokeFriday, she has viewers tweeting their cheesiest jokes on Twitter. And then the “Ellen Show” team posts a visual of one joke on Instagram. In addition to using Instagram as a way to reinforce her brand, her Tumblr is called “Good Things.” She calls for submissions and it just might be the most positive, semi-wholesome thing on the Internet. Not only is the vibe just fun, it’s also smart. Categories for Tumblr submissions include:
- GIF Mashups: “Did you mash up GIFs Ellen has to see?
- #BetterLuckNextTime: “Did you see something and think ‘you’re doing it wrong,’ and take a picture? Send them to us!
- Punny Art: Did you turn a funny pun into art?
There’s also an optical illusion category that looks like it might have been added after The Dress happened last week. She gets that her audience knows how to use the Internet (and Photoshop) and are playing around on social media anyway, so that’s where she meets them. Her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts all feature different content, and she just added Snapchat.There are good ways to use social media to get people talking about and interacting with programming. In my opinion, Ellen DeGeneres’ should be an example of best practice.
