Game of Thrones is hard to beat, but the BET Awards generated more social conversation on Sunday night, with 1.91 million tweets around #BETAwards and 1.18 million tweets around #GameofThrones, according to Amobee Brand Intelligence. That social success was mainly driven by actor Jesse Williams, who gave an acceptance speech about racism and the appropriation of black culture by white America. It was moving—93 percent of the sentiment surrounding the speech was positive.
It was so moving that Justin Timberlake tweeted, “@iJesseWilliams tho…#Inspired #BET2016,” in support of his speech. But many on Twitter felt that he was missing the point, especially about cultural appropriation.There were 32,000 tweets mentions Justin Timberlake and sentiment was split 46 percent positive, 41 percent negative, and 13 percent neutral.
AdvertisementBest speech 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥https://t.co/3mJekMGp5I
— Uche Jombo Rodriguez (@uchejombo) June 27, 2016
Throughout the night, engagement surrounding Black Lives Matter increased 84 percent, from June 26 to June 27. It’s the highest its been since the Roots miniseries adaptation aired in late May. But it wasn’t all serious—45 percent of content engagement around the awards mentioned the various Prince tributes.
Of course, the Game of Thrones finale also drove high digital content engagement, but again, the live-ness of awards shows usually beats out content that can be returned to after the original broadcast. It’s no fun to VOD an awards ceremony .